Trump to Speak at Annual NRA Convention, First President to Address Forum Since Reagan in 1983

Donald Trump, left, gives a thumbs up to the crowd in a victory speech in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 15, 2016.

President Donald J. Trump will speak at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual convention on April 28, making him the first president to do since 1983. address the gun-rights group since Ronald Reagan in 1983.

The group hosted President Ronald Reagan in his third year of his first term, even though every Republican candidate and president courted gun-rights activists. In fact, President George H.W. Bush, who was defeated during his bid for a second term, wrote a letter terminating his membership from the group in 1995. His son, President George W. Bush, sent Vice President Dick Cheney to the annual conference.

“The NRA is honored to have the president address our annual meeting at the leadership forum,” said Jennifer Baker, a spokeswoman for the NRA. “We’re excited to once again have a president who respects the Second Amendment.”

The NRA endorsed then-presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump for President last May at an event in Louisville, Kentucky, marking the earliest time the group ever endorsed in a presidential election.

President Trump pledged at the time to “save our Second Amendment” and appoint judges which would support expansive gun rights. He has since nominated Neil Gorsuch, a textualist conservative, who was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month.

The visit to the 2017 Leadership Forum in Atlanta is scheduled for April 28, the last day of government funding under the current spending bill. If Congress doesn’t pass a new spending measure by that day, the government faces a partial shutdown.