PA Bill Number: HB2311
Title: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program.
Description: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program. ...
Last Action: Laid on the table
Last Action Date: Sep 23, 2024
Hillary Clinton is the new standard-bearer for gun control. So let's look at her record. :: 09/01/2015
After Charleston, after Lafayette and after Wednesday's horrific shooting on Roanoke, Va., gun-control advocates increasingly appear to have just one prominent politician actively promising to advocate for them.
It's not President Obama or Vice President Biden, whose urgency on gun control has faded after three years of pushing Congress to pass federal background checks has failed to produce any results. These days, Hillary Clinton seems to be the Democratic Party's the standard-bearer for gun control.
"We have got to do something about gun violence in America — and I will take it on," she told reporters in Iowa, hours after a gunman killed two Virginia journalists on live TV. She's made similar comments on the campaign trail after nearly every headline-grabbing shooting this summer.
Compare her comments with a weary President Obama, who in the days after nine people were killed in June at a Charleston, S.C., church, basically waved the white flag on gun control, implying in a speech there was little he could do to stop gun violence.
From The Fix's Chris Cillizza:
Obama's repeated use of the phrase 'at some point' and his acknowledgement that 'politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now' are absolutely striking. This is the most powerful politician in the country acknowledging that he has little to no ability to effect a change he quite clearly believes needs to happen.
Clinton took the opposite tack after Charleston, wrapping a call for gun-control legislation into her standard stump speech, reported The Washington Post's Philip Rucker. What's notable about that, as Rucker notes, is that for decades Democratic presidential candidates (including Obama) shied away from mentioning guns on the campaign trail.
"We have to take on the gun lobby," Clinton said in July. "This is a controversial issue. I am well aware of that. But I think it is the height of irresponsibility not to talk about it."
Democratic activists told Rucker it was smart politics: She can clearly contrast herself with her top challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who hails from a rural, pro-gun-rights state and has a record to match.
Her activist stance on gun control is consistent with her movement to the left of many issues since her 2008 campaign -- supporting laws promoting LGBT equality, supporting a ban on Arctic drilling and promising to fight for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Some gun-control advocates note, of course, that Obama and Biden are still calling out gun violence in America. In 2014, Obama said the Senate's failure to pass a law creating federal background checks for gun sales after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings was his "most disappointing" moment in working with Congress.
And recently, Obama's eulogy one of the nine killed in Charleston was a striking moment in the gun debate.
"For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation," he said, adding a few breaths later: "The vast majority of Americans -- the majority of gun owners -- want to do something about this. We see that now."
But Obama has long since stopped calling for specific legislation. That, it seems, is Clinton's job now.
And in fact, since her days as first lady, Clinton has a fairly strong record of supporting gun-control legislation. But during her 2008 campaign for president, she backed off a bit.
Here's a recap:
First Lady: Gun control 'was a goal'
In 1993, when her husband, President Bill Clinton, signed into law the Brady Bill requiring federal background checks for purchases from federally licensed gun dealers (a year later he signed a crime bill that included a ban on assault weapons), Hillary Clinton praised the legislation. "Since [the Brady Bill] was enacted," she said, "more than 40,000 people with criminal records have been prevented from buying guns.
In 2007, during a Democratic primary debate in South Carolina, Clinton recalled her and her husband's visit to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., after that massacre, saying "we had to do more to try to keep guns out of the hands of the criminal and of the mentally unstable. And during the Clinton administration, that was a goal -- not to, in any way, violate people's 2nd Amendment rights, but to try to limit access to people who should not have guns."
Senator: Ban assault weapons and create a federal registry
In 2000, while campaigning for a Senate seat in New York, Clinton supported legislation sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to license hand guns with photo-IDs.
In the 2003 memoir "Living History," then-Sen. Clinton wrote that after the 1999 Columbine shootings, she and Bill Clinton proposed raising the legal age of handgun ownership to 21.
In 2004, in the Senate she voted against banning lawsuits against gun manufacturers for gun violence. She voted to extend for 10 years an assault weapons ban and supported federal criminal background checks for major gun shows. She later said at a 2008 Democratic primary debate that she'd fight for reinstating the assault weapons ban.
2008 presidential campaign: Guns are 'part of our culture'
During her 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton appeared to move to the center on guns -- especially after then-Sen. Obama's remarks that "people cling to guns or religion" went public.
Aiming to appeal to more rural and moderate Democrats, she talked frequently on the campaign trail about how her father taught her to shoot and said hunting and shooting were "part of our culture" and "a way of life" in America.
At a 2008 Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas, Clinton backed off a national licensing registration plan, saying "I don't want the federal government preempting states and cities like New York that have very specific problems."
She said she believes in people's rights to bear arms and that she doesn't see "a contradiction between protecting 2nd Amendment rights’ and the effort to reduce crime."
She summarized her thoughts in a 2008 primary debate in Philadelphia:
"I respect the 2nd Amendment. I respect the rights of lawful gun owners to own guns, to use their guns," she said. "But I also believe that most lawful gun owners whom I have spoken with for many years across our country also want to be sure that we keep those guns out of the wrong hands. And as president, I will work to try to bridge this divide, which I think has been polarizing and, frankly, doesn’t reflect the common sense of the American people."
2016 presidential campaign: 'I will take on' gun control
In 2014 at a CNN town hall, she told an audience member she thinks reinstating the assault weapons ban and a ban high-capacity magazines would help limit gun violence.
"I was disappointed that the Congress did not pass universal background checks after the horrors of the shootings at Sandy Hook," she said.
After Wednesday's shooting in Roanoke, she repeated her desire to see universal background checks and stricter laws surrounding domestic violence offenders' ability to get guns:
"It happens every day, and there is so much evidence that if guns were not so readily available, if we had universal background checks, if we could put some timeout between the person who is upset because he got fired or the domestic abuse or whatever other motivation may be working on someone who does this — that maybe we could prevent this kind of carnage."
Campaign aides told Rucker that she plans to continue to keep gun control in her stump speech but doesn't currently have any plans to release a gun-control policy.
If you're a gun-control supporter, you'll want to keep a close eye on her rhetoric.
