Hillary Clinton blasted Republicans for their anti-gun control position Friday, telling fired up Democrats that the party “put the NRA ahead of American families.”
“I am going to fight for new, effective gun control measures,” an emotional Clinton said a day after a shooter open fire at a community college in Oregon, killing nine. “It is just heartbreaking, it is sickening for me to see another massacre.
“What is wrong with us that we can’t stand up to the NRA and the gun lobby and the gun manufacturers,” Clinton said to sustained applause. “This is not just tragic. We don’t just need to pray for people, we need to act. We need to build a movement.”
After reflecting on the Oregon shooting, Clinton turned to the politics of gun control.
“It is infuriating. Every time there is another massacre, Republicans and the NRA, ‘now is not the time to talk about guns.’ Yes it is,” Clinton said. “But more than talk, it is time to act. But Republicans keep refusing to do anything to protect our communities. They put the NRA ahead of American families. It is wrong and we need to make every politician who sides with them to look into the eyes of parents whose children have been murdered and explain why they listen to the gun lobbyists instead.”
Clinton regularly includes gun control in her stump speech, pledging to Democratic audiences that she will make sensible gun control measures a priority in her administration.
Clinton also cast anti-gun control activists as “single-minded voters.”
“People on the other side who are heartsick, heartbroken, disgusted [about the shootings] care about a lot of other issues,” Clinton said. “We are not single-minded voters. But each of us has to care about this issue.”
