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Sanders on Gun Control


Euler

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ABC News

At Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate, the audience booed Sen. Bernie Sanders after a rival noted his vote for a 2005 bill that shielded gun manufacturers and dealers from being held liable for crimes committed with weapons they made and sold.

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"Because of all these disgusting and horrific mass shootings, the American people now understand that we must be aggressive on gun safety, not be dictated to, by the NRA," Sanders said. "I am proud that I have a D-minus voting record from the NRA -- if elected president, it will get worse than that."

 

The issue has the potential to dog the Democratic front-runner, who has spent a career navigating a nuanced course on gun control measures popular with many primary voters, but less appealing to his constituents in rural Vermont.

 

In a 1991 letter he wrote to a gun shop owner in Burlington, obtained by ABC News and not previously reported, Sanders put his mixed feelings about gun control measures into words. Over the course of the letter, Sanders writes that he is against a "one-size-fits-all policy," that he "opposed the Brady Bill ... [and] the seven-day waiting period." He writes that he would "support an assault weapons ban" so long as it did not permit Treasury Department officials to add additional models of weapons to the ban and providing the ban expired in three years.

 

He concludes by writing that he would ultimately be voting against the ban -- because it was part of a larger crime bill, which had other provisions he did not like.

 

The letter lays out an approach that has sent mixed signals to voters who are trying to evaluate his stance. While he has, as he said in the debate, amassed a record disliked by the National Rifle Association, he has not always voted in step with those advocating gun control, including the 2005 vote backing legislation that shielded gun manufacturers from lawsuits filed by victims of gun crime. And he has, over decades, remained largely silent about the presence just north of Burlington of one of the nations largest manufacturers of military-style assault rifles - which made the weapons used in two mass shootings last summer.

 

One of his rare public statements about the factory came in 2012, after the Sandy Hook school shooting, in which Sanders appeared to defend the Century Arms factory. The statement -- issued with two other Vermont lawmakers -- came after critics raised questions about the manufacturer.

 

"They [Century Arms] are engaged in a lawful business just as other are that are involved in firearms commerce, employing many Vermonters," the statement read. "And if Congress approves new steps to address gun violence, we are confident that Vermont businesses would comply with them."

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Sanders lost his first bid for the House of Representatives to Republican Peter Smith after campaigning in favor of an assault weapons ban in 1988, which he highlighted during Tuesday night's debate.

 

"Thirty years ago, I likely lost a race for the one seat for Congress in Vermont because 30 years ago,I supported a ban on assault weapons," Sanders said. "Thirty years ago," he repeated.

 

But after Smith voted in favor of an assault weapons ban on the Hill, the NRA ran ads targeting Smith's re-election bid in 1990. Though the NRA didn't endorse Sanders for the House seat, and the earliest rating he received from the NRA came two years later -- a "D" -- he did benefit from the NRA's attacks on his opponent.

 

"We don't like everything that Mr. Sanders has to say about firearms," James Baker, an NRA lobbyist, told a local newspaper in 1990. "But he's been up front about it. He's at least as good, if not better, than Mr. Smith."

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Since the 1960s, Century Arms has been producing guns in Vermont. Today, it is one of the largest manufacturers of firearms in the nation. In 2017, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reported that Century Arms produced 45,372 firearms in its Vermont facility.

 

This summer, when mass shootings in Gilroy, California, and El Paso, Texas, killed 25 people, one common thread between the two shootings was the gun used by the killers. Both wielded weapons made by Century Arms, law enforcement officials told ABC News.

 

When Sanders appeared on MSNBC to talk about the shootings, he blamed the NRA.

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Sanders made no mention of Century Arms.

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The US death rate from ALL causes is under 3 million per year.

 

150 million divided by 30,000 (another everytown number?) is 5,000 - 5000 as in 5000. YEARS

 

Altzheimers Joe must have been channeling national budgets...

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Alot of people in my neck of ILLINOIS think a D next to a name on election ballot is the only colfication a candidate needs.

They don't realize what the "D" really stands for...
His first name?

 

 

Thats kind of funny he used to show up in the parade, I was the FIRST to put one foot on the street and flip him off but I certainly wasn't the last.

When you respond about him some places mark out his name. "Your Censored Dick!"

 

I just don't see how "Dementia Joe" makes it through all the criminal investigations of his kids, may not be fire by then but most people die of smoke.

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