If Elected, Hillary Clinton Says She Will Aggressively Go After Guns — With or Without Congress

At a town hall meeting on Monday, presidential contender Hillary Clinton outlined her plan for heavier restrictions to gun access and distribution — including her plan to take action even without Congress.

Participating in NBC's "Today Show" Pancakes and Politics town hall in New Hampshire, Clinton unveiled her four proposals with one in particular designed to set her apart from fellow Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Image source: NBC

Clinton's aggressive plan for gun control includes universal background checks as well as tightening the so-called gun show "loophole" and restricting Internet firearm sales. Her plan also calls for the closure of what's been called the "Charleston loophole" — a law that says if a background check is not completed within three days, a gun can still be purchased. That law has been heavily blamed for how 21-year-old Dylann Roof was able to obtain the gun he used to fatally shoot nine people in a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June.

"I do want to push hard to get more sensible restraints on gun ownership in the wrong hands and to try to keep track of people who shouldn't have guns, and I want to work with the Congress," Clinton said Monday morning. "But I will also look for ways as president to try to tighten some of these checks particularly to get more of the checks done on more of the sales at gun shows and online than we currently have."

Clinton's gun violence prevention plan would also prohibit the purchase and ownership of guns by domestic violence abusers, something the Huffington Post reported has already been similarly adopted in many state legislatures.

"We know where we enforce that kind of [background] check, we do keep guns out of the hands of people who are domestic abusers or in a hot rage go out to get a gun because of a domestic dispute," the former secretary of state said. "We have far more women being killed by their partners than anywhere else in the world."

Clinton said she has "no problem with people that are responsible gun owners" and argued that even gun owners want more background checks.

The Huffington Post reported that Clinton also plans to repeal the legal immunity gun dealers and manufactures currently have — separating herself from Sanders as he voted for the immunity law while he was serving in the House. Clinton was a New York senator at the time and voted against the 2005 law.

And if lawmakers aren't on board with her call for more restrictions, the Huffington Post reported that she plans to take action herself — although the details on just how she plans to do that exactly are murky.

While Clinton's campaign hasn't released details on how she will achieve her plan without Congressional help, her plan's rhetoric is extremely aggressive and sure to draw ire from gun rights activists. Her call-to-action is noticeably less passive than recent remarks by President Barack Obama who on Friday said the "main thing" he planned to do about gun violence is to continue to "talk about it."

"If anything else was killing 33,000 of our people, we would all come together and say, 'hey, what are we going to do about this?'" Clinton said Monday.

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