Democrat Debate: Hillary Clinton Again Suggests Adam Lanza Used ‘Automatic Weapon’

During the March 6 Democrat Debate Hillary Clinton suggested Adam Lanza used an “automatic” weapon to carry out his heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary.

And this is by no means the first time Clinton has described semiautomatic guns as “automatic” when trying to describe the heinousness of an attack and justify more gun control.

On July 17, 2014, Clinton spoke to a town hall audience about the Sandy Hook shooting, saying:

I was disappointed that the Congress did not pass universal background checks after the horrors of the shootings at Sandy Hook, and now we’ve had more in the time since. And I don’t think any parent–any person–should have to fear about their child going to school or going to college because someone, for whatever reason–psychological, emotional, political, [ideological], whatever it means–could possibly enter that school property with an automatic weapon and murder innocent children, students, teachers.

On October 16, 2015, Clinton told an audience at a Keene State College town hall that an Australian-style gun ban was “worth looking at” in the US and also suggested that the motive behind the Australian ban was the desire to “clamp down on the availability of automatic weapons.”

Then, on Sunday–March 6, 2016–The Washington Post reported Clinton renewed her claim that Lanza used an “automatic” weapon. She said, “I know some of the parents from Sandy Hook. I want people in this audience to think about what it must feel like to send off your first grader, little backpack, maybe, on his or her back, and then the next thing you hear is that somebody has come to that school using an automatic weapon, an AR-15, and murdered those children.”

It is important to note that an AR-15 is actually not “an automatic weapon.” Rather, it is a semiautomatic rifle that Adam Lanza stole and used to attack Sandy Hook Elementary. He also carried a semiautomatic handgun–which was stolen–and had a semiautomatic shotgun in the car, which he had also stolen.

Breitbart News previously reported that the focus on the type of weapon Lanza used is misplaced anyway, for the simple reason that he could have killed a far larger number of persons with a more rudimentary firearm–a pump shotgun, for instance–due to the fact that the children, teachers, and staff were sitting defenselessly in a gun-free zone. Clinton does not talk about the dangers of gun-free zones, but she seems to have no problem describing semiautomatic weapons as “automatic” when trying to justify pushing more and more gun control onto the backs of law-abiding citizens.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.