Gun advocates are celebrating the election of Republican President-elect Donald Trump after fearing that his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, would have clamped down on gun rights.
Now they are planning ways to end regulations on gun ownership, according to The New York Times.
"A lot of people in the gun rights community can breathe again," said C.J. Grisham, the president of Open Carry Texas.
Texas State Rifle Association director Alice Tripp said, "We've been threatened. We've been bullied. We've been ridiculed for eight years. I expect the tone to change. If tone sets policy, then we've got it made."
Gun supporters helped turn Iowa's state senate Republican, and helped vote down a background check requirement for gun ownership in Maine, the Times reported.
In other initiatives supported by gun advocates, Kansas and Indiana voters got the right to hunt and fish installed in the state constitutions.
The Washington Post reported that gun control advocates picked up some wins, including Pennsylvania Sen. Patrick Toomey, a Republican who supports gun control.
The Times report noted that some states passed measures that favored gun control. In Washington State, an initiative passed that allows temporary blocks on gun possession for high-risk users. California passed a regulation requiring background checks to buy ammunition. Nevada mandated background checks on almost all gun transfers.
Advocates for gun freedoms noted policies that are in discussion, such as lifting restrictions on service members carrying firearms on military bases, and a national right to carry, which would allow gun owners licensed in one state to be approved to carry in the other 49, the Times reported.
Nebraska Firearms Owners Association president Rod Moeller said that some gun advocates did not favor Trump — but "they were more concerned about what a Clinton presidency would do," The Times reported.
Trump has been clear in his support for gun owners' rights. On his website, he wrote a policy paper about Second Amendment rights in which he said, "This is about self-defense, plain and simple."
The National Rifle Association's president, Wayne LaPierre, weighed in on the election in a video, in which he praised gun owners for swinging the election in Trump's favor.
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