The candidate that many pundits didn’t think could lose the November election has slipped badly in the polls, and among the many reasons in addition to her Sept. 11 caught-on-video health scare, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s position on gun rights – especially in the wake of this weekend’s terror activities – just might be dragging her down.
Today’s Los Angeles Times daily tracking poll has Clinton trailing GOP nominee Donald Trump 41.1 percent to 47.8 percent.
According to CBS News, Trump and Clinton are tied across key battleground states. Fifty days remain until the Nov. 8 election, which is an eternity in presidential politics. Next Monday is the first of three presidential debates, and what happens during those debates could be game changing.
But weekend bombings in New York and a knife attack at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota remind people about Clinton’s track record, and about their own responsibility to defend themselves and their families.
Today CBS news has the contrasting positions of Clinton and Trump on gun control. The differences are stunning.
Clinton wants “common sense gun laws,” whatever that means (and it depends who is defining “common sense”), including “comprehensive background checks,” closing the so-called “gun show loophole,” and she would repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The latter would allow resumption of junk lawsuits against firearms manufacturers and retailers.
Clinton is supported by gun prohibition lobbying groups.
Trump “believes concealed carry permits should be valid in all 50 states,” according to CBS. He would appoint a pro-Second Amendment Supreme Court justice to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. He would put an end to “gun free zones.”
Trump was endorsed by the National Rifle Association.
Here’s what CBS says about how the race is shaping up today:
“Fifty-five percent of battleground voters want to see ‘big changes’ in the nation’s politics and economy in the next few years. Forty-three percent want “some changes” and only 2 percent think things are fine and not in need of much change. Trump leads by a wide margin on being trusted to change Washington: Forty-seven percent trust Trump to do it, 20 percent trust that Clinton can do it. Nine percent of independents trust Clinton can change Washington. Only 47 percent of Democrats trust Clinton to change Washington. A similar 41 percent of Democrats trust neither candidate to do it.
“And to Donald Trump’s voters, Trump represents that larger chance for change. By a roughly five to one margin, Trump’s voters say their support is more about “a chance to change politics as usual” (49 percent) than it is just about Trump himself, as a person, just 9 percent. And 42 percent say it is both, so the ‘change’ component is present for almost all of Trump’s voters, in some part.”
For nearly eight years under Barack Obama, Second Amendment advocates have believed their gun rights are under attack. The weekend’s incidents reinforce their fears that terrorists are on the loose and this is no time to be eroding the Second Amendment.
Along comes Trump, who has repeatedly promised that he will not go after guns, and actu ally strengthen the right to keep and bear arms.
There’s not much here to figure out.
