Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley on Saturday attacked Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton for their respective records on guns.
During the Democratic debate on ABC, Clinton received a question about the role of gun control in countering terrorism and declined to attack Sanders, as she has in the past.
O’Malley showed no such reticence.
“Senator Sanders voted against the Brady Bill,” O’Malley noted. “Senator Sanders voted to give immunity to gun dealers. And Senator Sanders voted against even research dollars to look into this public health issue.”
The Brady Bill, named for the assistant to President Ronald Reagan who was shot and paralyzed in 1981, mandated background checks for gun purchases. Sanders has said he opposed it at the time because a version of the bill would have mandated national background checks.
O’Malley then pivoted to criticize Clinton who he said had only supported gun control when it was politically convenient.
“What we need on this issue is not more polls. We need more principle.”
- Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D)
“Secretary Clinton changes her position on this every election year, it seems, having one position in 2000 and then campaigning against President Obama and saying we don’t need federal standards,” O’Malley continued. “What we need on this issue is not more polls. We need more principle.”
O’Malley then touted his own record of passing more restrictive gun safety laws in Maryland. His state’s assault weapons ban, he said, might have stopped the man who bought assault rifles for the San Bernardino attackers from doing so.
When pressed, however, O’Malley declined to endorse collecting the assault weapons already in circulation.
But when he again blamed "the flip-flopping, political approach of Washington that both of my two colleagues on this stage have represented there,” those colleagues interjected.
“Whoa whoa whoa, let’s calm down a little bit, Martin,” Sanders said.
“Let’s tell the truth, Martin,” Clinton added.
“I am telling the truth,” O’Malley shot back.
“Let’s start by maybe having some rules here,” Sanders said.
Sanders retook the floor, emphasizing a familiar theme in his discussion of gun policy: that he is uniquely qualified to build a consensus on gun control, given his political base in Vermont where there are lax gun laws.
“We can do all the great speeches we want -- we ain’t gonna succeed unless there is a consensus.”
- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
“We can do all the great speeches we want -- we ain’t gonna succeed unless there is a consensus,” Sanders said.
He invoked his opposition to assault weapons and subsequent 1988 loss in a race for a congressional seat as evidence of his commitment to gun safety.
“So please, do not explain to me, coming from a state where Democratic governors and Republican governors have supported virtually no gun control... Do not tell me that I have not shown courage!” Sanders insisted, his voice raised.
Clinton, for her part, made a rare acknowledgment that Sanders had become more supportive of gun control, while admonishing him to back efforts to end the default-to-sale background check loophole and repeal civil legal liability for gun makers, wholesalers and retailers.
“I am glad to see that Senator Sanders has really moved on this issue in the face of the facts about what we’re confronting in this country,” she said. “I would hope that he has said in the past two debates that he wants to take on this immunity issue... and I would hope, Senator Sanders, that you would join the Democrats trying to close the Charleston loophole, that you would sponsor or co-sponsor legislation to remove the absolute immunity” for gun makers and sellers.
“Only the three of us will do this -- nobody on the Republican side will admit that there’s a problem,” Clinton concluded.
Sanders has said he would re-examine the 2005 law he voted for that grants gun and ammunition makers, wholesalers and retailers broad civil liability from harm caused using their products, but declined to endorse repealing the law entirely. He did not say he would repeal it on Saturday night, either.
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