By Dave Workman, Senior Editor
While Democrat presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton has repeatedly professed her support for allowing lawsuits against the firearms industry by crime victims, a nationwide poll conducted for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) revealed that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose such legal actions.
SAF’s Alan Gottlieb
Clinton has made gun control a cornerstone of her campaign. She declared war on “the gun lobby” early on, and while campaigning in Connecticut and elsewhere, she highlighted her record in support of gun control measures.
Yet when polled about the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), more than 70 percent of the respondents said they do not support allowing crime victims to sue gun makers or firearms dealers when guns are used illegally.
The poll was conducted in April by Harper Polling. It has a plus/minus margin of error of 3.1 percent, NSSF said.
“Americans are smart,” noted Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. “They know that the purpose of these lawsuits is to put firearm manufactures out of business. The gun prohibition politicians like Hillary Clinton will use any means they can to destroy Second Amendment rights.”
“The concept that an entire industry should not be held liable for the criminal or negligent use of products made and sold legally clearly makes sense to the overwhelming majority of the American public, as these poll results demonstrate” said NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Larry Keane. “We commissioned this poll to help determine where Americans stand. They have told us. Now, it’s time for politicians to demonstrate that they have some respect for the good sense of the people and to stop vilifying the hard-working people of an entire industry and exploiting real tragedy that is the result of criminal conduct.”
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“Americans are smart. They know that the purpose of these lawsuits is to put firearm manufactures out of business.”—Alan Gottlieb, Second Amendment Foundation
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According to NSSF, “a majority of voters in all regions of the country say the statement about keeping PLCAA more closely reflects their opinion (Midwest: 70 percent, Northeast: 64 percent, South: 73 percent, West: 75 percent). This holds true even for a majority of those who cast a vote for President Obama in the last election (53 percent) and for a majority of non-gun owners (56 percent).”
Gun owners are paying increasing attention to Clinton’s campaign rhetoric, and that of her daughter, Chelsea, since the younger woman told an audience in in Maryland, “It matters to me that my mom also recognizes the role the Supreme Court has when it comes to gun control.”
That remark raised eyebrows across social media because it suggested that if Clinton is elected president, she will make appointments to the Supreme Court that could threaten the Second Amendment rights of millions of law-abiding American gun owners.
The younger Clinton also alluded to the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia being then major defender of the Second Amendment on the high court.
