Posted on 01/28/2016 11:41:56 AM PST by TroutStalker
Sen. Bernie Sanders completed his walkback on guns Thursday with a move to co-sponsor a bill that repeals gun industry protections he backed in 2005.
Tad Devine, his senior strategist, confirmed that Sanders will sign onto repealing a bill that gives gunmakers and manufacturers unusual immunity from liability. Hillary Clinton has hammered Sanders for his 2005 vote in favor of the measure, arguing that he caved to the firearms lobby at a time when Democratic primary voters overwhelmingly back more gun control.
Sanders had said repeatedly that he was open to “changes†in the liability protection law. His official change of heart came just hours after his Senate staff met with activists from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. It also came a day after he met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. While it’s unclear whether the question of gun control came up in that meeting, Obama has urged people to be “single-issue voters†on guns, and in an op-ed in The New York Times, Obama said he would not support even Democrats who don’t share his positions on guns, including industry liability.
In explaining his 2005 vote for the liability shield, known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, Sanders has pointed to the fact that his predominantly rural home state of Vermont has few gun restrictions. In what he called a “complicated vote,†the Democratic presidential candidate said he was trying to protect mom-and-pop gun dealers in his state from getting sued and having to shut down because a customer used the gun in a crime.
Clinton, on the other hand, has mocked the idea that Sanders’ vote was complicated.
"It was pretty straightforward to me that he was going to give immunity to the only industry in America,†Clinton said in the Democratic debate earlier this month. “Everybody else has to be accountable, but not the gun manufacturers. And we need to stand up and say enough of that.â€
Brady Campaign president Dan Gross thanked Sanders for backing the repeal, adding in a statement, “However, cosponsoring a bill means more than simply signing a piece of paper — Senator Sanders now has an obligation to lead the effort to force a vote in the Senate and usher this bill to final passage.â€
Sanders’ waffling on the issue threatens to undercut one of his most fundamental contrasts with Clinton: authenticity and, as he’s claimed when discussing his early opposition to the Iraq War and Keystone XL pipeline, good judgment. One of the original sponsors of the immunity repeal viewed Sanders’ motives for reconsidering his position with skepticism.
“I appreciate his change of heart on gun policy and we’ll hopefully have his support on his legislation,†said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in an interview Wednesday, before Sanders had made up his mind. “The people that pushed that [immunity] bill said it wouldn’t bar the courtroom doors to victims, and that’s exactly what ended up happening. And you didn’t need a presidential campaign to figure that out."
He was for gun industry protections before he was against it.
Very Kerry-esque on Bernie’s part.
That bill is/will be DOA.
I don’t know how many ‘rat Second Amendment supporters he has (he must have a few, hailing from Vermont), but he sure is trying to get shed of them, it seems.
"Sanders will sign onto repealing a bill that gives gunmakers and manufacturers unusual immunity from liability..."
The bill actually gives gunmakers the exact same liability for product defects that every other industry has. The gun industry gets no special privileges.
Everybody else has to be accountable, but not the gun manufacturers.
What idiotic nonsense.
If I take a Chevrolet on the road and mow down 10 people no one can sue GM because I did that.
They will use the same arguments used against big tobacco. They knowingly made a product that was “dangerous”.
Perhaps the Bern is starting to worry he might just get the nomination.
Or make the kitchen knife industry liable for knife murders? Or the hammer industry if someone is bopped on the head or the rope industry if someone is strangled. You can go on and on with this stuff.
Pillow suffocations, seen it in the movies.
The Flipper has FLOPPED!
A political whore drops his drawers! This guy is an absolute fruitcake!
OFFICERS
One has no rules
Is not precise
One rarely acts
The same way twice
One spurns no device
Practicing the art of the possible
One always picks
The easy fight
One praises fools
One smothers light
one shifts left to right
It’s part of the art of the possible
EVA (on the air)
I’m only a radio star with just one weekly show
But speaking as one of the people I want you to know
We are tired of the decline of
Argentina with no sign of
A government able to give us the things we deserve
OFFICERS
One always claims
Mistakes were planned
When risk is slight
One takes one’s stand
With much sleight of hand
Politics—the art of the possible
One has no rules
Is not precise
One rarely acts
The same way twice
One spurns no device
Politics—the art of the possible
VOICES
Peron! Peron! Peron!
Not yet, anyway. But that day is coming.
The Democrats are going all out for gun control and anti-Second Amendment this election cycle.
They need to do it more and more and more.
They will get the same results they got in the 1994 and 2014 elections.
This is the first time it has ever been done in a Presidential cycle.
Not even George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, or Barack Obama campaigned for President on Gun Control as a major issue.
Yes!
Bernie is a nutty, senile old communist thug. I wish anyone that votes for him could live(?) in a hardcore communist country for ten years to understand what they voted for.
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