Hillary Clinton’s position on guns has changed since she campaigned in 2008.
In the wake of recent mass shootings coupled with faux hysteria from the Republican hopefuls, the primary season is filled with rhetoric regarding the Second Amendment.
As the main arm of the gun rights lobby in America, the National Rifle Association (NRA) grades candidates based on their record on guns. For Democrats – a bad grade is a badge of honor while for Republicans – a high grade is coveted.1
The Democratic presidential hopefuls have similar scores with Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley both receiving an F rating and Bernie Sander a D-minus.
While the Clinton campaign’s strategy for 2016 has been to hit rival Sanders hard on guns, characterizing him as soft on guns, Clinton had a much different strategy in 2008.
As The Hill reported last week, “Before attacking Sanders on guns, Clinton waged a battle for Democratic nominee against another more progressive challenger. A New York Times headline from 2008 noted that ‘Clinton Portrays Herself as a Pro-Gun Churchgoer,’ specifically because of her fondness of faith and the Second Amendment when speaking to rural communities. Then Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) represented a different challenge for the nomination back then, and Clinton tried to label the future president as one who was ‘elitist’ and ‘out of touch’ with rural America.”
As The New York Times reported in 2008, Clinton “described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith ‘is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.'”
At about the same time, Obama mocked Clinton’s sudden support for gun rights, telling attendees at a San Francisco fundraiser that working class Americans were bitter about their economic situation and “cling to guns and religion” as a result, according to an article by NBC News.
Amused by Clinton’s pro-gun stance, Obama went on to liken her to Annie Oakley, “renowned markswoman and star who worked for years with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.“
“She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the second amendment. She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley,” Obama said, invoking the famed female sharpshooter immortalized in the musical “Anne Get Your Gun.”
Obama continued, saying “Hillary Clinton is out there like she’s on the duck blind every Sunday. She’s packing a six-shooter. Come on, she knows better. That’s some politics being played by Hillary Clinton.”
In turn, Clinton pounded Obama for his remarks calling him an “elitist and divisive.”
“Sen. Obama’s remarks are elitist, and they are out of touch,” Clinton said at the time, adding: “The people of faith I know don’t ‘cling to’ religion because they’re bitter. … I also disagree with Sen. Obama’s assertion that people in this country ‘cling to guns’ and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration. People of all walks of life hunt — and they enjoy doing so because it’s an important part of their life, not because they are bitter.”
Additionally, as The Hill reports: “in the April 2008 primary debate with Obama, the former New York senator seemed to the right of Bernie Sanders on “blanket” federal legislation on guns:
Clinton: What I favor is what works in New York. You know, we have a set of rules in New York City, and we have a totally different set of rules in the rest of the state. What might work in New York City is certainly not going to work in Montana.
So for the federal government to be having any kind of, you know, blanket rules that they’re going to try to impose I think doesn’t make sense.
[ABC News moderator George] Stephanopoulos: But, Senator, you were for that when you ran for Senate in New York.
Clinton: I was for the New York rules; that’s right. I was for the New York rules, because they have worked over time. And there isn’t a lot uproar in New York about changing them, because I go to upstate New York, where we have a lot of hunters and people who are collectors and people who are sport shooters. They have every reason to believe that their rights are being respected.
As The Hill concludes: “Clinton’s political attacks on Bernie Sanders ignore her previous pro-gun rhetoric and political attacks on Barack Obama,” and ultimately may not matter to progressives leaning towards Sanders.
FOOTNOTE 1: The Republican front-runners range from a rating of A to A+ with three exceptions: Chris Christie who received a C rating and newcomers to the political stage, Donald Trump and Ben Carson have not yet received a rating.
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