Hillary Clinton pledges to make gun control a 'voting issue' for Democrats

Hillary Clinton is attempting to make gun control and reducing gun violence a key part of her presidential campaign, as a once politically sensitive campaign issue moves front and center in the wake of the Charleston church massacre in June.

“Thirty-three thousand people a year die from something,” the Democratic frontrunner said at a campaign event at Grinnell College in Iowa on Tuesday night. “Shame on us if we don’t respond.”

The frequency and force with which she and the other Democratic presidential candidates discuss gun control marks an evolution on an issue that was once a near-taboo for Democrats on the campaign trail. Since a 21-year-old white supremacist killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in June, Clinton has wrapped toughening the nation’s gun laws into her standard stump speech.

It also marks a rare policy on which Clinton is to the left of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is closely chasing the frontrunner in Iowa and New Hampshire.

During an earlier campaign event in Coralville, Iowa, Clinton vowed to challenge the powerful US gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), and pledged to make gun control a “voting issue” that motivates Democrats in the same way gun rights motivates Republicans to vote.

“We’re going to make this a voting issue – just like the other side does,” Clinton said on Tuesday afternoon. Earlier in the day, her campaign released a TV ad in which Clinton asks a crowd in New Hampshire: “How many people need to die before we actually act?”

“This is a marked change from 2008, when gun safety was largely avoided during the presidential campaign,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, in a statement. “The political calculus has changed – candidates are now running on gun safety.”

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley issued his own gun safety pledge on Tuesday, while Sanders, Clinton’s chief rival, has sought to position himself as a consistent supporter of gun safety measures despite having a moderate record on the issue.

At two campaign events in Iowa on Tuesday, Clinton emphasized her plan to reduce gun violence, which includes expanding background checks and closing loopholes for private sales at gun shows and online.

She also proposed closing a so-called “Charleston loophole” – a reference to the fact that the gunman in the June massacre was able to purchase a firearm despite having a criminal record because if a background check takes longer than 72 hours a gun dealer can sell the weapon without the completed check.

It is “outrageous”, she said, that Congress granted gun manufacturers and sellers a broad immunity against prosecution.

“Why on earth would you gift that to anybody let alone those who make instruments that can be used to kill?” she asked.

Sanders was one of the lawmakers who supported the legislation as a US representative in 2005, although Clinton did not specifically mention this. He has defended that vote but has since said he is “willing to see changes in the provision”.

Clinton also called for voters to band together to rival the powerful NRA.

“A majority of Americans and a majority of gun owners know we have to make the changes,” Clinton said. “What stands in the way? One of the most powerful lobbies in our country. The NRA, that intimidates and bullies legislators and governors into doing what they want. That must end.”

Meanwhile, O’Malley pledged to issue seven “executive actions” to reduce gun violence if elected in 2016. Among the actions his administration would take, O’Malley said it would stop defending gun dealers and manufacturer-immunity legislation. O’Malley – like Clinton – would like to see Congress repeal the decade-old law but said he would work to dismantle it in the meantime.

O’Malley, who has touted his record as governor of Maryland of enacting tough gun safety laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, said on Tuesday that his new proposals are the “boldest plan” on the issue.

“I remember eight years ago [Clinton] was laying herself out as Annie Oakley reincarnate,” O’Malley told ABC’s WMUR, “and this year she’s a great champion of gun safety legislation.”

Sanders, a progressive running to Clinton’s left, represents a rural state with a rich hunting culture and some of the most lax gun laws in the nation. For example, Sanders voted against the so-called Brady bill, which mandated federal background checks, and was signed into law by then president Bill Clinton.

Clinton and Sanders tangled over the issue during the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas, when the moderator, CNN host Anderson Cooper, asked her if she thought Sanders was “tough enough” on guns. “Not at all,” she replied.

Following the mass shooting at Umpqua community college in Roseburg, Oregon, Sanders released new gun control proposals that include extending universal background checks and ending the sale and distribution of semi-automatic weapons.

With O’Malley calling on the other Democrats to back his executive action, and Clinton taking veiled swipes at Sanders’s record, the issue is likely to be raised on Friday, when the three candidates head to South Carolina for a presidential forum.