I don't quite understand what Donald Trump just said, especially the phrase in bold:
"Hillary wants to abolish—essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, 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."
Many analysts, across the spectrum of political belief, claim that Mr Trump engages here in what is termed dog whistle political speech. In the same way that a dog whistle produces a tone which is audible to a dog but not to a human, dog whistle rhetoric carries a specific meaning which is clearly understood by the targeted audience, but which is sufficiently ambiguous that listeners outside of that targeted audience will not perceive it as they do.
In this case, the targeted audience is assumed by these analysts to comprise those Americans who believe that the Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is planning secretly to deprive them of their rights under the second amendment to the United States Constitution, which prevents the government from infringing upon their right "to keep and bear arms."
The aforementioned analysts deduce that the candidate here infers that the Second Amendment people (Americans who zealously defend that right and who own firearms) may be able to punish Ms Clinton should she be elected to the Presidency and succeed in her alleged plot to appoint Supreme Court justices who would somehow revoke the Second Amendment. Implicit in their deduction is the unsupported belief that the Second Amendment people are willing to employ violence in defense of their rights under that amendment. The dog whistle in their analysis is the unspoken threat that this punishment will be effected with firearms: that she (or the Supreme Court justices whom she might appoint) will be shot.
Mr Trump and his supporters rejoin that he intended to imply nothing of the sort, and that his statement was merely an admonition to vote against Ms Clinton.
The Second Amendment refers to:
The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms and was adopted on December 15, 1791, as part of the first ten amendments contained in the Bill of Rights.
Loosely speaking, "Second Amendment people" are people who strongly believe, defend, and practice their Second Amendment rights to carry firearms.
Trump claimed that if Clinton gets to pick the judge, that judge would abolish the Second Amendment and there is "nothing you can do". In other words, there would no longer be the right to keep and bear arms in the US. He then said, "Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is". This last part is poorly formed. We can infer some of the missing details and rephrase it as
- Although, maybe there is something the Second Amendment people can do. or
- Although, maybe the Second Amendment people can do something about it.
With a few more details, it is easier to see why this has been widely interpreted as threatening language. Since the "Second Amendment people" are known for their guns, Trump's statement has been interpreted as a suggestion to them to take their firearms and harm Clinton.
"Maybe there is, I don't know..."
This is the meat of what he was getting at. If his intent was to suggest that supporters of the second amendment should go out and vote, he would have simply said that, as it has no negative connotations. However, in the common vernacular of the US, the phrase "I don't know" used in a context like this is almost certainly a way of saying something he couldn't or shouldn't actually verbalize. What exactly it was that he couldn't verbalize is what's not 100% clear. It's only 95% clear (no source, just opinion) that he was implying that "the second amendment people" when faced with the situation where there would be "nothing [they] can do," that some portion of them would come to the natural (though morbid) conclusion that the only thing they could do would be to shoot Clinton and/or her SCOTUS picks.
We might as well take a quick look at the grammar of the amendment and of Trump's statement while we're at it.
As you know, the "Second Amendment people" are ardent supporters of the right of the people to bear arms, as set forth here:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Note the absolute clause there: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state". [Modernized punctuation; the comma after "militia" in the original does not change the meaning, and today we would hyphenate well-regulated.] The absolute clause establishes the rationale or basis for the right: to protect its security a free state requires a well-regulated militia. This need is "a given".
By the way, colonial militias maintained detailed lists of their members and of the weapons each man possessed.
When Trump says "Although the Second Amendment people—maybe there is" [sic], he is dropping the word "with", offering us his own absolute construction, presenting us with another "given": "Although, with the Second Amendment people..." which would mean "Although, given how the Second Amendment people are wont to act...".
As Trump might say, he was "just tossing the idea out there".
TRomano's answer very briefly touched on the grammatical side of the issue. Nobody else seems to have gone near it. So here's my explanation.
I make no judgements on the quality of Trump's speaking. This is a very common way of speaking, particularly in informal situations, and native speakers will be able to "fill in the blanks".
In this case, there do seem to be some different opinions on how to fill in the blanks, but I believe they are a minority. The majority of listeners/readers and commentators seem to agree on the following interpretation:
...if she gets to pick her judges, there is nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people– [sentence cuts off] Maybe there is something the Second Amendment people can do.
Wait, where did I pull "something" from? The implied contrast that takes us from "nothing" to "something" goes like this:
There is not a thing ("is nothing") you can do.
Although [reversing previous statement], maybe there is a thing ("is something").
With the grammar understood, the meaning should follow relatively easily; others have given good explanations of who "Second Amendment people" are and what they might do.
"Hillary wants to abolish—essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, 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,"
I just heard this clip now, thanks to your question.
The following following is a natural, apolitical filling-in-the-ellipses left out of the clip. The passage, as I heard it in the video clip you provided, is naturally interpreted as:
Hillary wants to abolish--(that is) essentially abolish--the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick...{sound of boos in response to first sentence} If she gets to pick her judges {pause} (there is) nothing you can do, folks (to prevent her from "essentially" abolishing the Second Amendment).
{pause} Although (let's not forget the existence of or there is the existence of) the Second Amendment people... (therefore) maybe there is (a way to prevent her from "essentially" abolishing the Second Amendment). I don't know.
This is what the clip says, from a grammatical point of view.
I understand the noun phrase The Second Amendment people to refer to People who support the Second Amendment and would be against abolishing it. In this context, it refers to "people" (including groups) who have made protecting the rights guaranteed in the Second Amendment part of their political stance.
As I have indicated above, the phrase Although the Second Amendment People means, grammatically:
Although (let's not forget the existence of or there is the existence of) the Second Amendment people...
or simply
Although (there are) the Second Amendment people...
or again:
Although the Second Amendment people (exist)...
As the ELL question “exist” vs. “there are” shows, there is basically no difference in meaning when filling in the ellipsis (deleted part) to mean either there are or exist.
Let's move away from the politics a bit and look at this phrase at face value.
The Second Amendmentpeople
To move even farther from that subject, I'll just use another noun, Milk.
The milk people.
That phrase can have two meanings
Some examples with other nouns
Each one of these can have the 2 meanings described above. Tree people can be people who are made out of trees or they can be people who are for trees. a.k.a tree-huggers.
But there are also buzzwords.
A person cannot be made of "pro-life", but they can be an advocate for it.
So, when Donald Trump says "Second Amendment" people, you have to ask yourself
Can you be made of The Second Amendment? No.
You now know that he means people who are advocating the 2nd amendment.
I think the last bit is a tongue in cheek morbid joke and not any sort of threat or call to arms if she's elected.
The statement that maybe a gun nut will assassinate Hilary if she becomes president doesn't make him more electable so he is not saying "Vote for me or else Hilary will get assassinated".
Maybe he's saying "Vote for me or one of you will have to take it upon yourself to murder her if you want to keep your guns". This is unlikely in my opinion because it just doesn't make sense. Even if the 2nd amendment were completely repealed then the 5th amendment would make it practically impossible for the government to actually collect everyone's guns even if it were a crime to possess them.
I think that referring to people as "Second Amendment people" is derogatory. People that vigorously espouse their 2nd amendment rights don't refer to themselves as "Second Amendment people". He then, albeit subtly, talks about someone killing a US president. People generally don't want to murder others and those that want to kill a US president have to get past the Secret Service to do so. Judging by the way he speaks of this so trivially, I would say he was attempting to make a morbid joke. Of course, making such a morbid joke on purpose would be only a little more acceptable for a presidential candidate than a veiled threat so he couldn't come out and say he was joking either.
[Update: Actually, it seems someone else noticed what I'm about to say, too.]
Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know.
But try punctuating it correctly, and the meaning becomes clear:
Although... the Second Amendment, people! Maybe there is; I don't know...
He's quite obviously saying that the Second Amendment provides a potential solution, but stopping short of actually explaining what the solution might be, claiming he "doesn't know".
I'm sure your imagination won't have trouble figuring out what that means.
Don't forget he also "verified" that by "blood coming out of her wherever" he meant Megyn Kelly's face.
Did you believe him there too? Because he became a subject of national ridicule.
