The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence announced on Friday that it will honor failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at their 25th anniversary dinner.
The group said the dinner, scheduled to be held on June 14, will celebrate progress that gun control has made over the last several decades as well as recognize "courageous leaders" for their activism. The top billed leader at the event will be Hillary Clinton. The group said it picked Clinton, who has been mostly out of the spotlight since her loss to President Donald Trump in the 2016 election, because of her dedication to the effort to pass new gun-control laws.
"For 25 years, our organization has drawn inspiration from gun safety champions who are helping us achieve progress in the fight to save lives," Robyn Thomas, executive director of Giffords Law Center, said in a statement. "This year, we are honored to recognize gun safety trailblazers: Secretary Hillary Clinton, a world leader who has worked tirelessly to protect children and campaigned boldly to build safer communities, and the student activists who are leading a new march forward to make our country safe. We have made remarkable progress in passing laws across the nation and it wouldn’t have happened without their bravery."
Giffords Law Center will present Clinton with the 2018 Courageous Leadership Award during the dinner, which the group said would feature "attorneys, business professionals, and advocates from across the country." The group said Clinton and the others being honored have had a "lasting impact on our movement to save lives."
Clinton ran the most aggressive gun-control campaign in presidential history. In addition to endorsing a slew of gun-control measures traditionally supported by Democrats, she staked out positions beyond what other presidential candidates had publicly held before. During a campaign stop, she publicly stated Australia's gun-confiscation scheme was something "worth considering" before a staffer later walked those comments back. In audio originally obtained and published by the Washington Free Beacon, she told donors at a private event she believed the Supreme Court was "wrong on the Second Amendment" in reference to the landmark Heller decision that affirmed the Constitution protects an individual's right to own guns.
The audio was later the basis of millions of dollars' worth of ads run against Clinton by the National Rifle Association as well as a debate question during the final 2016 presidential debate. Her aggressive positioning on gun control is considered by many to be one of the contributing factors in her loss to Donald Trump.