Donald Trump: Maybe "Second Amendment people" have a way to stop Hillary Clinton's judges

Speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Tuesday, Donald Trump made an offhand comment that "Second Amendment people" might have some unspecified way to stop a President Hillary Clinton’s judges from abolishing gun rights.

"Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment," Trump said. "By the way, and if she gets to pick — if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know."

Trump’s remarks are a bit garbled, but they appear to be a joke that gun owners could use their weaponry to prevent the government from rolling back their gun rights. Here’s the full context of his statement, via Politico:

Commentators soon debated what, exactly, Trump may have meant.

Did Donald Trump really just semi-incite someone to shoot Hillary Clinton or any federal judge that she appoints? https://t.co/ykUvZ6cd7s

— Paige Williams (@williams_paige) August 9, 2016

I think he meant you could shoot the judges.

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) August 9, 2016

From context, it's also possible that Trump was floating idea of armed rebellion against bad SCOTUS decisions, not assassination.

— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) August 9, 2016

Trump will say he wants 2nd amendment advocates to convince Senate to block Clinton pick. Keep in mind his advisor called for her to be shot

— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) August 9, 2016

Eventually, the Trump campaign released a statement claiming he was just referring to "the power of unification" to stop Clinton's election, which really doesn't seem to be the case based on the original context — as Sam Stein points out, he was talking about judges she'd appoint after she already won.

Hillary Clinton's campaign manager had his own interpretation.

Just another day of the 2016 campaign.

---

Watch: This election is about normal vs. abnormal