US presidential hopefuls Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton divided over gun control in wake of Oregon college shooting
Bush opposes tighter laws as Clinton takes on pro-gun lobbyists in wake of Oregon shooting
US presidential hopeful Jeb Bush and other Republicans declared their opposition to stiffer gun laws Friday in the aftermath of the Oregon college mass shooting as Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a national movement to counter the power of the gun lobby.
Bush said stricter government was not always the answer when tragedy struck. “Stuff happens, there’s always a crisis,” he said.
President Barack Obama called him out for the remark on Friday, which Bush insisted was not about the Oregon shooting that left 10 dead a day earlier.
“I think the American people should hear that [and] decide whether or not they consider that ‘stuff happening’,” Obama said.
Meanwhile, Clinton told supporters at a South Florida community college that she would take on the National Rifle Association in a bid for “new, effective gun control measures.”
“What is wrong with us that we can’t stand up to the NRA, to the gun lobby and the gun manufacturers they represent,” Clinton asked.
On Friday, Bush, speaking at a university in South Carolina, referred to the Oregon shooting when he was asked about his stance on gun rights.
Stressing his support for the Supreme Court’s affirmation of bearing arms as an individual right, Bush spoke of the many Floridians with concealed-weapons permits and recalled receiving an award from the NRA.
Turning to the Oregon killings, Bush said: “It’s very sad to see, but … stuff happens, there’s always a crisis, and the impulse is to do something, and it’s not necessarily the right thing to do.”
Asked later about his comments, he said they were “not related to Oregon”.
Bush’s Republican rivals echoed his bottom line. “Before we start calling for more laws, I think we ought to consider why we don’t enforce the laws we have,” Carly Fiorina said.
For Clinton, it was an opportunity to draw a clear distinction. She called Thursday’s mass murder “sickening” and said people should not be “afraid to go to college [or] a movie theatre”.
She credited her husband, former President Bill Clinton, for taking on the NRA and achieving tougher gun controls, and said, to roaring applause, “We are going to take them on again”.
Obama spoke of a mismatch between Americans’ willingness to tighten gun laws and the powerful influence of pro-gun groups. Obama said. “The American people are going to have to match them in their sense of urgency if we’re going to stop this,” he said.
