Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton sat down with Chris Wallace of Fox News for her first interview following the Democrat National Convention. Wallace directed the conversation to the topic of gun control and Clinton appeared to reverse her earlier position against the Second Amendment.
Just last year, audio was leaked from a Clinton fundraiser where she was heard saying, “The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment.”
Clinton was referring to the SCOTUS decision on the Heller case, in which the court affirmed an individual’s right to own a firearm. Simply put, the Supreme Court ruled that the District of Columbia could not prevent the plaintiff from owning a gun or having it available and accessible to use if necessary.
What’s the point of having a gun if it’s unavailable to use for self defense?
Newsbusters points out that back in May, a Clinton political advisor sent a statement to Bloomberg News that Clinton believes Heller was “wrongly decided.”
But on Wallace’s show, Clinton changed her tune and said she didn’t want to see the Heller decision overturned. Here’s the transcript:
WALLACE: And the Second Amendment includes an individual right to bear arms.
CLINTON: Yes, but that right like every other of our rights, our First Amendment rights, every right that we have is open to and even subject to reasonable regulations.
WALLACE: I just want to pursue this a bit. Because, Heller — Justice Scalia, he said that the right to bear arms is reasonably limited. He let the door open to regulation. If you’re elected president, you’re going to appoint the Ninth Supreme Court justice.
CLINTON: Um-hmm.
WALLACE: Are you saying you do not want to see the Heller decision, the individual right to bear arms, overturned?
CLINTON: No, I don’t, but here’s what I do want. And I want to be very clear about this: I want the Congress to step up and do its job. I want to get out of the horrible cycle we’re in, where we go and mourn dozens, hundreds, thousands of people killed by gun violence.
Everybody says, “Oh, let’s pray, let’s, y’know send our hearts and our feelings,” and then nothing happens. We’re better than this. The gun lobby intimidates elected officials. The vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, support the kind of common-sense reforms that I’m proposing.
What sort of “common-sense” reforms is she “proposing”?
The gun-control crowd is short on specific “common-sense” proposals on guns, specifically proposals that would have any impact on crime or gun violence. The most recent anti-gun proposal, far from being commonsensical, involves the no-fly list along with other secret government lists. This solution would deny people on such lists their constitutional rights without due process. These government lists are created by bureaucrats and undoubtedly would be used punitively by a Hillary Clinton administration just as the Obama administration did with the IRS. And there’s the small matter of how many perpetrators of gun violence are on the no-fly list. The Orlando shooter, the Dallas cop killer, James Holmes, Adam Lanza, and Jared Loughner — were any of them on the no-fly list?
Clinton also repeats the lie that the gun lobby intimidates elected officials. The gun lobby has influence only because it has popular support. Elected officials are intimidated by getting voted out of office; the NRA can’t do that but their members can.
Perhaps Hillary has changed her mind on the Second Amendment but I doubt it. And so should you.
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