WASHINGTON, June 3 (UPI) — In what could prove a vital boost in the California primary, a major gun control group has endorsed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and is pledging to help her win the Golden State.
Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, said in a statement Friday it has endorsed Clinton over her Democratic rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, calling her a “champion” for gun control.
“Gun sense voters have a champion in Hillary Clinton,” John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in the statement. “Our litmus test is simple: does a candidate side with the public or with the gun lobby? Hillary Clinton passes that test with flying colors — pushing back against the NRA’s extreme ‘guns for everyone, everywhere’ agenda, and ushering in a new political calculus that saving lives from gun violence is a winning issue.”
The endorsement comes months after other gun control groups lined up behind Clinton and criticized Sanders, who hails from Vermont, a rural state with lax gun control measures and a history of gun ownership among many residents.
Unlike her 2008 presidential campaign when she spoke fondly of her father teaching her how to use a rifle as a young girl, Clinton has run as a staunch gun-control advocate in 2016. She has appeared at campaign events and in commercials with family members of prominent individuals killed with guns, including the mother of Trayvon Martin and the daughter of the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary, whose mother was killed in the 2012 massacre there.
Everytown for Gun Safety has pledged to aid Clinton in Tuesday’s close California primary by assisting in voter turnout. The group said it planned to have volunteers staff phone banks and go door-to-door to encourage people to support Clinton.
