During a CNN "town hall" yesterday, Hillary Clinton said she was disappointed that Congress did not pass new gun control legislation following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December 2012. "I believe that we need a more thoughtful conversation," said the former secretary of state and presumptive presidential candidate. "We cannot let a minority of people—and that's what it is, it is a minority of people—hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people." Evidently Clinton's idea of a more thoughtful conversation about gun control involves equating disagreement with terrorism while claiming some opinions are so dangerous that "we cannot let" people hold them.

I am not sure how Clinton plans to implement this new opinion control policy. As for gun control, she says she wants "background checks that work." If she means background checks that block gun purchases by people with no disqualifying criminal or psychiatric records (a description that fits the perpetrators of almost all mass shootings, including the Sandy Hook massacre), she might as well wish for a unicorn. If she means background checks that strip harmless people of their Second Amendment rights based on irrational criteria, that much surely could be achieved.

Clinton, by the way, twice referred to mass shooters with "automatic" weapons, meaning she does not understand the difference between semi-automatic firearms and machine guns, even after eight years as first lady in an administration that supported a highly contentious "assault weapon" ban and eight years as a senator who supported further restrictions. Her confusion on that point, which President Obama seems to share, in itself would be enough reason to take her advice about gun policy with a grain of salt.