U.S. Senator[score]Kirsten Gillibrand[/score] (D, N.Y.) claims that the issue of gun control has “nothing” to do with hunting or the Second Amendment. Instead, she insists, “it’s a women’s issue.”
In fact, her comments bordered on insinuating the that entire argument over the right to bear arms is sexist.
Gillibrand took part in a podcast with Politico’s Glenn Thrush, during which she declared, “This debate is relegated to the men,” adding her preference that it “be a woman’s issue.”
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“Nothing in this debate has to do with hunting, and nothing in this debate has to do with the Second Amendment rights,” she said without a hint of sarcasm.
Via Politico:
Whatever her initial motivations, Gillibrand possesses the zeal of the converted and sees guns as the issue that will allow Clinton to generate the kind of enthusiasm for her candidacy — especially among women — that has thus far been missing from her candidacy. “This debate is relegated to the men. It’s about hunting? It has nothing to do with hunting,” she said. “Nothing in this debate has to do with hunting, and nothing in this debate has to do with the Second Amendment rights. Nothing. … I think — I see the world in the lens of women’s issues. I’m making everything a woman’s issue. I want guns to be a woman’s issue.”
Clinton, who has been campaigning with African-American mothers whose kids were killed in gun crimes, isn’t going quite far enough, Gillibrand says. She wants a “women’s crusade” on the issue, adding that Clinton “might not have made that connection in her own mind. I’ve made that connection.”
Gillibrand went on to say that she looks forward to a day when Congress is made up of 51% women so that tougher gun control laws will be enacted by those able to sympathize with victims of violence.
“Oftentimes I think we [women] have more ability to empathize,” Gillibrand claimed.
Cross-posted at the Mental Recession
