I feel like if she tried to take a shooting photo OP, it would become a Michael Dukakis moment, and that she probably should have done what she did and not tried to pander. I just wish she would’ve been realistic about guns instead of repeating urban legends and Hollywoodisms.
That’s a little hard to do credibly after your campaign says Heller was “wrongly decided”
What has that to do with it? SCOTUS decisions are sometimes changed by other decisions.
Because gun owners won’t believe that “she will support [the Second Amendment]” in any meaningful way if she thinks the most important Second Amendment case in 70 years, the one that finally said “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home” was wrong.
Clinton saying Heller was ‘wrongly decided’ means very clearly that she thinks the second amendment doesn’t actually protect anything meaningful, and that a complete ban like DC’s is perfectly OK constitutionally. It also implies that she is in favor of completely banning private ownership of guns, because Heller doesn’t stop general gun control, just outright bans like DC had. It also demonstrates that all of the ‘we don’t want a ban’ rhetoric is just meaningless posturing, the only reason to oppose Heller is because she wants something that would be blocked by Heller.
She was in favor of an Australia-type buyback, where there wasn’t a choice between keeping the firearm or not, it was a choice between being compensated for your loss or not.
Christ on a crutch, do you actually think gun-owners were going to believe that Hillary was going to support the 2nd Amendment? No matter what she ended up saying or not?
Damuri’s right, it probably cost you all the election. Considering, again, that the Democrats lost the election by about 100,000 votes, scattered over WI, MI, and PA. Out of about 13 million votes cast within the three states. A good sized crowd at a Michigan home game was the difference between President Hillary and President Donald. Soft-peddling gun control may have been the difference, when we’re discussing margins of less than 1 percent.
Actually, I think that if she stopped talking about gun control during the 2012 election cycle and for this election took it off the platform with a position along the lines of “I’m in favor of gun control in theory, but in practice I think it’s too contentious of an issue and want to leave it up to the states, I’m not going to put it on the platform or push for it” it would have helped a lot. I mean, people buy her opposition to the Iraq war even though she voted for it, that she’s in favor of gay marriage even though she opposed it until 2013, and that she’s in favor of racial equality in spite of the ‘super predator’ bill in the 90s. Her VP choice was explicitly anti-abortion personally, but semi-neutral in practice and she’s still considered firmly pro-choice.
Obviously her diehard opponents and hardcore republicans aren’t going to switch positions, but I think that backing off on that really could be enough to get single-issue voters to stay home, and make it a little less difficult for others to hold their nose. No one would believe that she suddenly turned pro-gun, but I think it’s very easy for people to swallow a career politician flip-flopping on a position to get elected, especially on an issue that everyone knows she isn’t going to make real gains on.
No she wasnt. She was in favor of looking into voluntary buy backs.
Gee, why didnt it cost Obama the election?
Single issue gun voters vote Repub always.
Thinking the Dems should drop all gun control advocacy seems to be a good option. We really should have figured out that Americans just don’t CARE if people die due to mass shootings when 20 grade-school kids being massacred didn’t even move the needle, and it’s only gotten worse since then. Sometimes the assholes just win.
Or maybe people care but don’t buy that banning rifles because you think they look scary actually prevents criminals from killing people. There’s no logic behind gun control, it’s all just an appeal to fear.
The problem is that even if Democrats quit talking about guns entirely, they’d still be portrayed as anti-gun by the Republicans. (Al Gore, 2000) So they might as well tryt to gin up whatever votes there are on the anti side of the issue rather than chase unicorns.
Massachusetts just banned “assault weapons.” This was done to stop the epidemic of 0 to 2 murders per year. With rifles of any type, so probably not even EBRs.
What do you mean by throwing in Al Gore, 2000 here? Al Gore was distinctly anti-gun, he supported the ‘assault weapon’ ban and promised to push to continue it, wanted to implement a federal licensing system for handgun purchases and require a three day waiting period, limit gun purchases to one in 30 days, supported ‘Saturday Night Special’ laws, opposed shall-issue concealed carry laws, and supported lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
Is it really ‘chasing unicorns’ to say ‘gosh, maybe you shouldn’t push for measures that have no real effect, but piss pro-gun people off.’ I mean, your example seriously decided that pushing to add a three-day delay on firearm purchases if and only if the NICS instant check came back ‘OK’ was more important than being president.
Hillary should have known better, Her husband did. In the immediate aftermath of Sandy Hook, he was warning Democrat not to press any temporary advantage they might have on gun control because there would be a long term price to pay.
But Hillary was desperately looking for a position where she could get to the left of Bernie. The DNC was in the bag for her and the media was feeding her debate questions. She was going to win the nomination no matter what, but she really wanted to nail down the nomination by getting to Bernie’s left on some issue and she pushed gun control.
She blew an almost unblowable election because she is bad at politics.
I think pandering is fine. She doesn’t even have to shoot. Just holding a gun in a way that implies familiarity a shotgun while Bill shoots something would have been enough, I think.
She spent half the primary trotting out everyone peripherally connected to every mass shooting event since Sandy Hook and promising to go after assault weapons and stupid retarded shit like that.
Sure, they always vote Republican…when they vote. Most of them don’t vote most of the time.
And the reason they always vote Republican is because the Democrats vilify them.
Sandy hook moved the needle. It almost buried it. hen the gun control folks decided to push the stupidest most retarded form of gun control they could think of and got torn apart.
Al Gore lost that election at least in part because of guns.
From Bloomberg’s news organization,The Trace:
They’re not considered the most powerful lobbying organization in Washington for nothing.