Hillary Clinton offered her personal support for a 25 percent tax on gun sales during a congressional hearing in 1993.
When asked by then-Sen. Bill Bradley (D., N.J.) if she would support his proposal to put a 25 percent tax on all gun sales Clinton said, "I’m all for that." The tax was intended to be part of a health reform package championed by Hillary Clinton when she was first lady. Revenues raised by the tax and a corresponding hike in gun dealer licensing fees would have gone towards paying for care related to gunshot wounds.
"I just don't know what else we’re going to do to try and figure out how to get some handle on this violence," Clinton told Bradley at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Sept. 30, 1993.
''Well, let me say that there is no more important personal endorsement in the country today, and I thank you very much,'' Bradley responded. The Associated Press described Bradley as "pleased-as-punch" that Clinton supported his tax on "purveyors of violence."
Clinton has made it clear in recent weeks that she would push for new gun control measures if elected.
"I believe we can have common sense gun reform that keeps weapons out of the hands that should not have them—domestic abusers, the violently unstable—while respecting the rights of responsible gun owners," she told a crowd at a campaign rally on Aug. 28, according to the Daily Beast. "Now I know the politics are hard. I know that some would rather throw up their hands and give up the fight, but not me. I’m not going to sit by while more good people die across America."
The Clinton campaign did not respond to questions on if she stood by her 1993 comments and whether or not the tax would be part of her plan to reduce gun violence.
Both gun rights groups and tax reform advocates slammed Clinton's 1993 comments.
"Hillary's 25 percent gun tax would discourage gun ownership and be a backdoor route to gun registration," Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said in a press release. "Hillary has a long history of attacking gun owners."
"Hillary has made it perfectly clear to the millions of gun owners in the United States: She doesn't like us, she doesn't trust us and she wants us to go away."
The group published a clip from the hearing in an ad for HighTaxHillary.com, a site they've created to criticize Clinton's record on taxes.
The nation's leading gun groups are currently suing Seattle over their implementation of a gun tax similar to the one Clinton supported in 1993. In the current case, the city imposed a $25 tax on all gun sales and up to a five cent tax on every round of ammunition sold, in order to offset the costs of gun violence. The National Rifle Association (NRA), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) have joined together for the first time as plaintiffs in the suit against the law.
A SAF official said the tax Clinton supported was only one of many gun control efforts she has supported over the years. "If Hillary Clinton only wanted to enact a new 25 percent tax on firearms America's gun owners would be lucky," said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the SAF. "The fact is she also supports a ban on most semi-auto firearms and limits on standard capacity magazines."
"In truth she has never supported any legislation that protected or expanded Second Amendment rights, period."