On April 24, The Hill ran a column explaining that Hillary Clinton may not outline her strong support for more gun control until the presidential election is over.
In other words, Hillary may not mention her support for expanded background checks, an “assault weapons” ban, and a gun registry, on the campaign trail, but these things will become paramount if she is able to win because gun control groups are counting on her to finish the job Obama left undone.
According to The Hill, mentioning gun control carries new political perils after six years with Obama in office—one of which is the fact that a clear majority Americans now support gun rights over gun control and another is the unprecedented expansion of female involvement shooting sports.
Moreover, The Hill cites PEW’s December 2014 poll showing that “51 percent” of women are convinced having a gun protects them against crime, versus “43 percent” who do not agree. So to run against guns is not only to run against the gun rights majority in America but also to run against women who have embraced guns for self-defense during the last six years.
Still, gun control groups and Democrat surrogates are holding Clinton’s feet to the fire on gun control. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence’s Dan Gross said: “As Hillary runs for president, she has a tremendous opportunity to educate the American public about how effective background checks are and the need to finish the job.”
Actually, it is the ineffectiveness of background checks that makes them such a liability for politicians seeking national office. In fact, Jared and Amanda Miller (Las Vegas), Aaron Ybarra (Seattle Pacific University), Elliot Rodger (Santa Barabara), Ivan Lopez (Fort Hood 2014), Darion Marcus Aguilar (Maryland mall), Karl Halverson Pierson (Arapahoe High School), Paul Ciancia (LAX), Aaron Alexis (DC Navy Yard), James Holmes (Aurora theater), Jared Loughner (Tucson), Omor Thorton (Manchester, CT), Nidal Hasan (Fort Hood 2009), Jiverly Wong (Binghamton), Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech), and Naveed Haq (Seattle), all passed a background check to acquire the guns they used in heinous public crimes.
But these examples will not stop Hillary from pursuing expanded background checks when she thinks the time is right. After all, it was she who reacted to Obama’s defeat on background checks by saying: “We cannot let a minority of people, and that’s what it is, it is a minority of people, hold a view point that terrorizes the majority of people.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.