Hillary Clinton pulled no punches while attacking Bernie Sanders over his record on gun rights at the first Democrat 2016 Presidential debate last night in Las Vegas.
Sanders has a more moderate record on guns-at least when compared to some of his fellow Democrats.
According to National Review:
“In the first major attack of the first Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton led a charge Tuesday against Bernie Sanders’s relatively moderate views on gun control — opening the door for a fierce back-and-forth on the issue between Sanders and Martin O’Malley.
Confronted by CNN moderator Anderson Cooper over his longtime opposition to the Brady Bill and his support for legal-immunity provisions for gun-shop owners, the Vermont senator noted that he’d earned a D-minus voting grade from the National Rifle Association. “Do I think, if a gun shop in the state of Vermont that sells, legally, a gun to someone, and that person goes out and does something crazy, that that gun-shop owner should be held responsible?” Sanders asked. “I don’t.”
“Secretary Clinton, is Bernie Sanders tough enough on guns?” Cooper asked. “No, not at all,” Clinton immediately replied, prompting a surprised look from Sanders to her right. “I think we have to look at the fact we lose 90 people a day from gun violence. This has gone on too long, and it’s time the entire country stand up against the NRA.” “Senator Sanders did vote five times against the Brady Bill,” Clinton said, her voice rising over audience applause. “Since it was passed, at least 2 million prohibited purchases have been prevented. He also did vote, as he said, for this immunity provision.
“I voted against it,” she continued. “I was in the Senate at the same time; it wasn’t that complicated to me. It was pretty straightforward to me, that he was going to give immunity to the only industry in America — everybody else has to be accountable, but not the gun manufacturers. And we need to stand up and say, ‘Enough of that. We’re not going to let it continue!’”
A shaken-looking Sanders pushed back. “As a senator from a rural state, what I can tell Secretary Clinton is that all the shouting in the world is not going to do what I would hope all of us want,” he said, “and that is keep guns out of the hands of people that should not have those guns and end this horrible violence that we are seeing.”
