Tonight’s Democratic presidential debate promises to focus heavily on gun control. But it wasn’t too long ago that the leading Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, touted her own gun usage and asserted that Americans don’t “cling to guns.”
As Clinton said in the 2008 presidential race, in response to Obama’s statement that Americans cling to their guns and religion, “I disagree with Sen. Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about trade and immigration simply out of frustration.”
Clinton added, “You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught me how to shoot when I was a little girl.”
“You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their grandchildren. It’s part of culture. It’s part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it’s an important part of who they are. Not because they are bitter.”
According to a CNN article from the time, Clinton claimed to hunt ducks.
“As I told you, my dad taught me how to shoot behind our cottage,” CNN quotes Clinton as saying. “I have gone hunting. I am not a hunter. But I have gone hunting.”
Tonight’s debate is hosted by CNN.
