On Monday, NBC host Savannah Guthrie asked Clinton whether she believes the committee should be disbanded after McCarthy’s comments.
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“How many people have to die before we actually act, before we come together as a nation?” She asked Ms Nicole Hockley, an audience member whose six-year-old son was killed along with 19 other children and six adults in a 2012 Connecticut school shooting, to speak briefly. But there are legitimate investigations going on which makes it hard for her to say that. Hillary Clinton via YouTube Hillary Clinton has gone on the offense in her new ad campaign.
“We need sensible gun control legislation which prevents guns from being used by people who should not have them”.
“This is a classic Clinton attempt to distract from her record of putting classified information at risk and jeopardizing our national security, all of which the FBI is investigating”, said spokeswoman Emily Schillinger. And it includes leaders who are seen as the future of the party and might be eyeing presidential bids themselves were they not supporting Clinton, like Minnesota Sen.
She drew loud applause from the audience in New Hampshire, a rural state with strong hunting traditions and a mixed outlook on gun control, when she called on hunters to boycott the National Rifle Association and instead join “a different organization” that would support what she calls common-sense safety measures.
While Clinton’s Republican rivals have condemned the Oregon attack, most were also quick to declare their opposition to stricter gun laws to address mass shootings.
One would think using the language of states’ rights would would earn Sanders support from the opposite side of the issue; unfortunately for him, it hasn’t.
At town hall meetings in New Hampshire on Monday, Clinton vowed to enact a new set of rules to increase background checks, to hold gun sellers “fully accountable if they endanger Americans,” and to tighten a “loophole” found in selling guns online and at gun shows, noting that executive action may be necessary. Thirty-seven percent of likely Democratic primary voters said they would react enthusiastically if Clinton won the nomination, down 9 percentage points from May.
Sanders has positioned himself as the favorite of progressives on liberal priorities like campaign finance reform andtrade, but gun control has been an exception.
Sanders now says he supports banning assault weapons and closing the so-called gun show loophole that exempts private, unlicensed gun sales from background check requirements.
“Bernie Sanders is not going to talk much about gun violence”, Clai Lasher-Sommers, a survivor of gun violence, told ThinkProgress.
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All of the Democrats, however, stand in contrast to GOP presidential contenders – most of whom have urged caution and restraint to act too quickly after such an incident. In the aftermath of the mass shooting at Umpqua, Barack Obama made the unexpected argument that we should be politicizing these shootings – that it’s the only way to move the issue.
