I Will Sign This Unicorn's Face the Moment You Put It in Front of Me

In the 2000 GOP primary Bush's whole brand was meant to be compassionate conservatism and part of that is not having this hard-line gun Absolutism. So you can't fight him on that front. There was no way Bush could win the election just off the support of the fringe right so he tempered his conservatism as a strategy. One might argue that he had some actual inclination toward reforming gun laws But that seems like bullshit to me The NRA loudly endorsed Bush in 2004 And they actually strategically withheld their endorsement of him in the 2000 election.