While promoting her new proposals to limit the availability of firearms, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton suggested at a town hall in New Hampshire Monday that "responsible gun owners" should join together to create an alternative to the National Rifle Association.
Clinton's plan includes a repeal of the legal immunity gun manufacturers and dealers received under a law passed by Congress in 2005, something the NRA and other groups would be sure to fight against. But one way to defeat the NRA, Clinton argued, would be to counteract the group's political power with a new organization for gun owners who would be open to more restrictions on firearms.
"Ideally, what I would love to see is gun owners, responsible gun owners, hunters, form a different organization and take back the Second Amendment from these extremists," she said.
Clinton said last week after a mass shooting at a community college in Oregon that "a national movement" was needed to demonstrate to legislators intimidated by the NRA that a majority of Americans support stronger background checks for gun sales.
At her town hall Monday, Clinton also introduced the mother of a 6-year-old killed during the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
As her voice wavered, Clinton said that the Newtown families "have taken the unimaginable grief that they have been bearing and have tried to be the voices" for other victims of gun violence.
Clinton also criticized former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, for saying that when "stuff happens," like mass shootings, it isn't always appropriate for there to be "more government" or government intervention.
"Governor Bush said, 'Yeah, stuff happens.' No. That’s an admission of defeat and surrender to a problem that is killing 33,000 Americans," Clinton said.