Chicago Tribune: Hillary Clinton Is Risking Defeat by Fighting the NRA’s Supporters

Fighting the National Rifle Association has been a loser for national Democrats, but Hillary Clinton is building her campaign on a war against the five-million member gun-rights giant, the Chicago Tribune editorial board explained March 17.

Clinton is pushing her NRA campaign even though her husband–Bill Clinton–watched the U.S. House and Senate flip to the GOP once he signed the 1994 ‘Assault Weapons’ ban, and then watched Vice President Al Gore lose his home state of Tennessee in 2000, handing the White House to George W. Bush.

Bill Clinton clearly admitted “the gun issue” was key to the seismic shift in Congressional control during his presidency, according to the Tribune. Also, it noted several southern states which were once in play for Democrat presidential candidates–states like Arkansas and Tennessee–“appear out of reach for Democrats” now.

Yet Hillary Clinton has declared war on the NRA, and she seems to believe it can work to her benefit because she is no longer looking for votes from “blue-collar whites” who are so loyal to the NRA.

Instead, she will be focusing on the expanding number of special-interest demographics which she believes can supplant whites. The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein put it thus, “Since 2000, Democrats have grown far less dependent on the blue-collar whites who are the most resistant to gun control measures, and have replaced them with growing groups like people of color and college-educated white women more open to the idea.”

But the Tribune warns that the historical danger of opposing the NRA cannot be overlooked and that Hillary Clinton may simply be giving the 100-million-plus gun owners one more reason to vote this year.

Worse yet, for Hillary Clinton, their reason for voting may be to defeat the candidate who wants to cripple gun rights.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.