In an interview with “The Today Show” on Monday morning, Hillary Clinton lambasted Republicans for politicizing the deaths of four Americans during the Benghazi hearings. During the same interview, Clinton herself used the Charleston and Oregon tragedies to further her talking points on increased gun control.
“This committee was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan political issue out of the deaths of four Americans,” Clinton said on the congressional hearing probing her actions as secretary of State during the attack on a U.S. embassy in Benghazi. “I would have never done that.”
In response to a question about the slaying of nine people at Umpqua Community College last week, Clinton was quick to bring up her desire to require all future gun owners to complete background checks before they are allowed to purchase a gun. She also name-dropped the Charleston tragedy when speaking about strengthening background check requirements for gun purchases.
If it’s wrong for Republicans to use the deaths of Americans to scrutinize her actions as secretary of State, why is it then okay for Clinton to use tragedies as a narrative device to push for tougher gun control?
This hypocrisy isn’t the only odd remark she made about guns. She claimed that Charleston shooter Dylann Roof was able to buy his gun because of a legal loophole, and that his violent actions prove the country needs tougher restrictions. But in reality, there is no such loophole. A more accurate description would be that a data entry error allowed Roof to purchase a firearm when he shouldn’t have been able to.
Clinton also decried gun shows as being equivalent to people basically selling guns out of the back of their cars. Her strange description suggests she has never been to a gun show herself, making her recommendations for regulating them seem out-of-touch at best. Clinton can huff and puff about how it’s wrong to use a tragedy to further a political point, but when she does it herself in the same interview, her criticisms just don’t have cachet.
