Clinton praises Sens. Manchin and Toomey for fighting for gun legislation in Congress. Clinton: Gun groups try to 'terrify'

Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that gun groups are trying to “terrify” people into believing the federal government wants to take away their firearms.

“What’s going on is that these organized interest groups don’t want anything done because it’s a big source of their money and support to terrify people living out there in the country and try to make them think there’s this big conspiratorial federal government trying to take all their guns away,” Clinton said on “Morning Joe.”


Clinton praised Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) for being “willing to fight through this” to try to get legislation passed in Congress. He disagreed with the idea that people were not generally in favor of gun control.

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“What happens is if you tread on this, the NRA or the Gun Owners of America will run an ad against you or billboard against you and say you’re trying to take their guns away, and then people get into this hunker-down mode where they don’t want to take a chance,” Clinton said. “I think if you could get a clear-headed vote on the issue standing alone, the overwhelming majority of Americans in every state would be for it.”

As an example of support for some gun laws, Clinton recounted the story of a friend from the Arkansas Ozarks.

“He had a good friend who lived in the mountains who had 100 guns. He said the guy owns 100 guns and wishes he owned 100 more, and he strongly supports universal background checks,” Clinton said. “He can’t figure out why it’s OK under the Second Amendment to do a background check if somebody buys a gun at a gun store and not OK if they buy it online or at a gun show.”

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