Clinton Campaign Going After Sanders on Gun Rights

Campaigning for Hillary Clinton this week in New Hampshire, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy went into inevitable territory as Bernie Sanders leads polls in the first-in-the-nation state: he attacked the Vermont senator’s gun-rights stance.

“It’s an anathema to my own,” Malloy said of Sanders’ platform during a meeting with Clinton organizers in Manchester, according to the Stamford Advocate. “I don’t understand it.”

“Her position among the Democrats is a lot more popular than his position,” Malloy said later. “There’s a difference.”

Sanders leads Clinton 42 percent to 35 percent in a new Public Policy Polling survey. And he’s leading in every category of Dems in New Hampshire: “somewhat liberal,” “very liberal” and moderate.

The senator leads Clinton among men and women, but seniors like 67-year-old Clinton over 73-year-old Sanders. With voters under age 65, Bernie leads 45 percent to 29 percent for Hillary.

Sanders voted against the Brady Bill when he was in the House, and his votes as senator have included joining with Republicans on the Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act, which would have guaranteed veterans due process rights in being deemed “mentally defective” by the VA and having their ability to own a gun stripped away.

He’s been questioned about his position on guns on the campaign trail, and hasn’t swayed. “If somebody has a gun and somebody steals that gun and shoots somebody, do you really think it makes sense to blame the manufacturer of that weapon?” he said at a July forum when asked about his vote to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits. “If somebody assaults you with a baseball bat, you hit somebody over the head, you’re not going to sue the baseball bat manufacturer.”

Sanders told MSNBC that month that common ground should be sought on gun legislation, like “nobody should have a gun who has a criminal background, who’s involved in domestic abuse situations.”

“We have a huge loophole now with gun shows that should be eliminated. There may be other things that we have to do,” he said.

“But coming from a rural state, I think I can communicate with folks coming from urban states where guns mean different things than they do in Vermont where it’s used for hunting. That’s where we’ve got to go. We don’t have to argue with each other and yell at each other. We need a common sense solution.”