When former President Bill Clinton spoke at Georgetown University on April 30, he told Democrats to keep pushing gun control because it’s a winner.
This is strange advice coming from a man who watched his party endure a loss of historic proportions in 1994; a loss attributed in large part to the fact that he and his fellow Democrats pushed an “assault weapons” ban onto the American people.
Clinton spoke of this loss while at Georgetown, telling the audience, “The fact that we had majority support didn’t amount to anything, it’s always the intensity of support that you have to measure.” That “intensity of support” was with gun owners and gun rights advocates in 1994.
Clinton said this explains why gun control lost in the Senate on April 17. Even though Senators were told “90% of the people” were with them, they had their doubts about the intensity of the opposition they might face in 2014 if they passed the bills.
Yet Clinton claims times have changed and that Democrats are reading the situation incorrectly. He said the Democrats are assuming this is 1994 all over again, all the while they “could do this background check business” if they wanted to.
Ironically, as recently as January 19, Clinton warned Democrats about focusing too much attention on gun control and overlooking the “passionate supporters” who comprise the grassroots, pro-gun movement and much of the Republican Party.