Pence, Trump Cabinet Should Invoke 25th Amendment, Remove Trump From Office Immediately
January 6, 2021
As gun sales have surged in 2020, so did the risk of conflict during the transition
WASHINGTON -- Guns Down America, a bolder, broader movement calling for dramatically fewer guns in America released the following statement after President Donald Trump encouraged an insurrection in the Capitol.
“Today, President Trump violated his oath of office as he refused to give a clear and unequivocal message to the mob storming the U.S. Capitol to stand down,” Igor Volsky, Executive Director of Guns Down America. “What happened today was no accident, but part of a years-long pattern by Trump and his enablers of spreading lies, white supremacy, and conspiracy theories that radicalized some individuals and created a permission structure for the violence we’re witnessing today. Vice President Pence and the cabinet should take immediate action to remove President Trump under the 25th Amendment. If they fail to act, given our nation’s lax gun laws, we will risk facing 14 more days of chaos and violence as Donald Trump puts his own personal needs ahead of what is best for the nation.”
The Republican-leaning National Association of Manufacturers has asked Pence to take action under the 25th amendment.
The violence comes today after Trump using violent rhetoric for years. Trump said in 2016:
- "If [Clinton] gets to pick her judges [for the Supreme Court], nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people – maybe there is, I don't know." [NYT, 8/9/2016]
- When asked to denounce the violent Proud Boys, Trump told them to “stand back and stand by.” [Reuters, 9/30/20]
- Asked to condemn the QAnon conspiracy theory in October of 2020, Trump legitimized the theory’s main grievance and has previously claimed that QAnon conspiracists “love our country.”
Today’s violence comes against a backdrop of a significant spike in gun sales and the increasing use of firearms to intimidate Black Lives Matter protesters and democratically elected lawmakers throughout 2020.