Hillary Clinton’s prior comments seemingly equating vocal gun rights advocates to terrorists could be an issue for her recently announced presidential candidacy.
In comments made during a June, 2014, CNN town hall meeting that didn’t get a lot of play in other media outlets at the time, Clinton expressed disappointed that Congress was unable to pass a universal background check law in the aftermath of the December, 2012, Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
Hillary Clinton also deplored what she described as the availability of automatic weapons used in school shootings and called for a ban on assault rifles in answering a question from a teacher who had concerns about the proliferation of guns in America.
In an apparent reference to gun control opponents, the former Secretary of State, who is protected around the clock by armed Secret Service agents, had this to say.
“We cannot let a minority of people, and that’s what it is, it is a minority of people, hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people …”
View her entire remarks about gun control in full contained in the video embedded below and draw your own conclusions.
Many Second Amendment proponents oppose universal background checks, which they believe could lead to a national gun registry and, from there, firearms confiscation. Gun enthusiasts affiliated with organizations such as the NRA or as individuals also insist that background checks would have not prevented any of these horrific school shootings or other rampages that have occurred in recent years.
The month before the CNN event, Clinton — who is expected to be the standard-bearer for the Democrats in the 2016 general election — offered up this observation about the gun culture in America.
“I think again we’re way out of balance. I think that we’ve got to rein in what has become an almost article of faith that anybody can have a gun anywhere, anytime. And I don’t believe that is in the best interest of the vast majority of people. And I think you can say that and still support the right of people to own guns.”
Reacting to the CNN comments, the Examiner questioned Mrs. Clinton’s premise in scolding what she considers a small segment of the population for blocking new gun regulations. “When you look at gun ownership across America there are estimated to be 97 per 100 residents. 270 million guns owned by approximately 104 million gun owners in the United States out of a population of 318 million people. Just looking at Handgun statistics alone there are 114 million handgun owners in the US. The overall percentage of households who own a firearm according to the latest data from 2012 is 34.4%… Gun owners do not represent a minority.”
Added Reason : “Clinton, by the way, twice referred to mass shooters with ‘automatic’ weapons, meaning she does not understand the difference between semi-automatic firearms and machine guns, even after eight years as first lady in an administration that supported a highly contentious ‘assault weapon’ ban and eight years as a senator who supported further restrictions.”
Separately, in connection with this week’s Supreme Court hearing on gay marriage, Hillary Clinton’s Twitter feed specifically expressed approval of marriage equality under the law. In addition, “Clinton’s campaign changed her H-shaped campaign logo on Twitter and Facebook from red, white and blue to a rainbow in symbolic support of the gay couples asking the high court for the constitutional right to marry,” the Washington Post noted .
Up until relatively recently, however, Hillary Clinton was not supportive of same-sex marriage and got into a contentious exchange about the apparent flip-flop on NPR with host Terry Gross during her Hard Choices book tour.
In a detailed piece on the Hillary Clinton gay marriage issue , the Atlantic noted that Clinton opposed gay marriage when she ran for president in 2008, and held that view through 2013.
On another hot-button topic, reproductive rights, Hillary Clinton said at the Women in the World Summit in New York City this week, “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed …”
Since the rollout of her candidacy for the White House, Hillary Clinton has not granted any media interviews, instead participating in several scripted events .
Do you think gun control will emerge as a major issue in the Hillary Clinton for president campaign?
[Photo by Kevin Hagen/Getty Images News]