The tens of thousands of e-mails released by WikiLeaks over the last month have removed all doubts, if any still existed, that Hillary Clinton and her campaign will go to any lengths to erase the Second Amendment’s protection of the right of individual citizens to keep and bear firearms. That includes, but is not limited to, using executive orders to undermine the Second Amendment. One e-mail in particular showed how closely Clinton’s campaign staff works with a compliant media and what Clinton intends to do if she is elected president. Wrote a Clinon staffer in the e-mail:
Circling back around on guns as a follow up to the Friday morning discussion: the Today show has indicated they definitely plan to ask about guns, and so to have the discussion be more of a news event than her previous times discussing guns, we are going to background reporters tonight on a few of the specific proposals she would support as President — universal background checks of course, but also closing the gun show loophole by executive order and imposing manufacturer liability.
Clinton has both a “public” and a “private” viewpoint on the Second Amendment. As revealed in another WikiLeaks e-mail disclosing part of a speech Clinton made in 2013 to the National Multi-Media Housing Council, she said, “If anyone’s watching … you know … all of the back room discussions and the deals … you know … then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position [on issues].”
Apparently, neither position needs to be backed up with facts, and if the facts are not available to support it, they can be manufactured to fit the occasion. That was evident during the third and final presidential debate last Wednesday night when Clinton said, “I support the Second Amendment…. I disagreed with the way the court applied the Second Amendment in that case because what the District of Columbia [v. Heller ruling] was trying to do was to protect toddlers from guns. And so they wanted people with guns to safely store them.”
But that was a far cry from what the court actually ruled in the case. Responded John Lott, the founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center: If the ruling contributed to the problem that Clinton describes, one would think that there would have been a lot of accidental gun deaths involving toddlers. But there doesn’t appear to have been a single accidental gun death of any kind in the District, let alone for toddlers, during the eight years since the Heller decision was announced.
Nor did the summary of the ruling itself say anything about toddlers: “The Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”
And then there’s Clinton’s take on the No Fly list, when she declared, “If you are too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun.” This statement ignores the rule of law that Hillary claimed she supported when she took her oath of office as a senator for New York. But even better, no one on the present No Fly list has been named or prosecuted for using a gun in a crime since February 2004. Added Lott: “Such a [ban] wouldn’t have prevented a single one of the mass public shootings that have occurred in the United States. And the ban would do nothing to stop terrorism…. As of 2014, about 50,000 people were on the No Fly list.… Between February 2004 and December 2014, over 2,000 people on the list purchased guns. Yet, not one of these people has been identified as using a gun in a crime.”
In the WikiLeaks dump there was also an e-mail submitted under a fake name and published in January at Medium.com, a “community of readers and writers offering unique perspectives on ideas large and small.” It doesn’t matter, however, if those perspectives were written by a Clinton campaign staffer but then submitted under someone else’s name. WikiLeaks revealed that a letter was published by someone named Clai Lasher, but written by Ronald Klain, a Clinton campaign consultant. Klain wrote it and then asked others on the staff if they liked the idea of submitting to Medium.com:
We thought it could make a strong Medium.com post from someone who could really speak to this issue (not HRC and not someone on our campaign). Here’s the draft, which I edited and can personalize depending on who we want to use as an author. A survivor of gun violence? An advocate or family member? If we can find someone, and if folks want, we could get this posted today to Medium.com in someone’s name (not us). Here it is, let me know your thoughts!
The Clinton campaign staffers found someone, modified the draft slightly to make it appear personal, and had it published here.
In Clinton’s quest to secure the Oval Office in November, it’s clear that the end justifies any means necessary, including lying, stretching the truth, and making up new data to fill in where it’s not available or convenient. Those who have suspected her of such behavior now have all the proof they need, thanks to WikiLeaks.
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
