Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and one of the loudest voices in the Never-Trump camp, raised eyebrows this week after suggesting that Democrats could one day send the military to confiscate firearms from law-abiding Americans.
Speaking during a CNN panel on violent crime in Democrat-run cities, Goldberg compared President Trump’s willingness to use federal resources to restore order with how Democrats might use similar power if given the chance. His comments came in the context of Trump’s push to address Chicago’s spiraling crime problem, where murders and carjackings continue to spike under Mayor Brandon Johnson’s leadership.
Johnson, instead of welcoming federal help, signed an executive order last month called the “Protecting Chicago Initiative,” designed to block Trump from deploying the National Guard to stabilize the city. Johnson argued the measure was necessary to defend residents’ constitutional rights against what he called an “illegal military occupation.” Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been exploring Naval Station Great Lakes as a staging ground for DHS operations, with over 200 federal agents prepared for immigration enforcement.
Trump has made no secret of his intent. After deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., to restore order earlier this summer, he said Chicago would be next. “It’s a mess,” Trump said, blasting Johnson as an “incompetent mayor.”
It was against this backdrop that Goldberg made his controversial point. “I’m all for crime reduction,” he told CNN, “but conservatives were celebrating this. You listen to the mayor of Chicago talk about the gun crisis in America. Well, what is to stop—given the precedent that Donald Trump is setting—a Democrat like Governor Pritzker or Governor Newsom from saying, ‘We have a gun crisis in America, just as legitimate as a crime crisis, and we’re going to send the National Guard into states to go get their guns’?”
CNN is now floating the idea that the next Democratic President will order the military to go door-to-door to confiscate firearms from law-abiding Americans.
I sincerely hope they never get that stupid.
That's what you would call the start of our second Civil War. pic.twitter.com/PdFVwzErqg
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) September 2, 2025
Goldberg’s statement reveals the central divide between Never-Trump conservatives and the broader Republican base. While Trump supporters see decisive federal action as necessary to clean up cities Democrats refuse to govern responsibly, critics like Goldberg fear it opens the door for progressives to twist those powers toward gun confiscation and other left-wing goals.
The reality, however, is that Democrats hardly need Trump’s precedent to attack the Second Amendment. They have been pushing gun bans, ammo restrictions, and “assault weapon” prohibitions for decades. What Trump is doing in Chicago is not about seizing freedoms, but restoring order in a city ravaged by failed left-wing leadership. Goldberg’s comparison only underscores how out of touch Never-Trumpers remain with the real crisis on the ground.
Should that ever happen, there will be thousands of casualties on both sides.