Let’s talk about Hillary Clinton’s proposed gun control policy
Between her private email account and stiff competition from Vermont junior Senator Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton has had a tough go of it since announcing her candidacy for the presidency in early April. But that hasn’t stopped the former senator and secretary of state from taking strong positions on everything from police brutality, mass incarceration, and now — gun control.
Following last week’s tragic shooting at Umpqua Community College, which left 10 dead and seven wounded, Clinton took it upon herself to offer, in no unclear terms, her position on gun control.
“Let’s do everything we can to make sure the irresponsible and the criminal and the mentally ill don’t get guns,” she said at a town hall-style meeting in New Hampshire before laying out her plan.
Here’s her vision: First, Clinton would like to do away with a 2005 law, which prevents families of shooting victims from suing the manufacturers that produce guns. Second, Clinton said she’d put an end to a loophole, which allows sellers to give a buyer their gun three days after the buying process is initiated regardless of whether the required background check has been completed. And finally, Clinton stated that she will use her power as president to issue executive orders to more or less expose “high-volume gun sellers” and require them to conduct extensive background checks as well.
As the BBC points out, this is one of the first times Clinton has definitively gone left of Senator Sanders. In fact, Sanders supported the 2005 law that currently bars shooting victims’ families from suing gun makers, a position that was largely driven by the number of gun advocates in his home state of Vermont.
But politics aside, we just hope that whichever candidate makes it into the White House, regardless of political affiliation, will put laws in place to end the gun violence epidemic. This no longer an issue of where you fall on the political spectrum. It’s a question of doing the right thing.
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[Image via Twitter and iStock]
