Hillary Clinton has repeatedly attacked her Democratic primary opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, for being soft on guns. And though she has called for greater gun control, Clinton hasn’t yet gone quite as far as pushing a proposal that she “personally” supported during her days as first lady — a 25 percent sales tax on guns.
A video released Thursday by Americans for Tax Reform shows Clinton nodding approvingly during Senate testimony Sept. 30, 1993, when Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) refers to gun owners and gun dealers as “purveyors of violence.” Bradley asked Clinton, who was then pushing a her "Hillarycare" health care plan, if she would support a 25 percent sales tax for gun buyers and a $2,500 license fee for gun dealers.
"I'm all for it," Clinton said. "I am speaking personally, but I feel very strongly about that."
Speaking personally meant that she was not speaking on behalf of President Bill Clinton. The Clinton White House responded afterwards that the first lady was expressing her own opinion.
The Washington Post and The Associated Press were among the news outlets that reported on Hillary Clinton’s agreeability to a retail sales tax on guns.
The Clinton campaign did not respond to inquiries from TheBlaze Thursday.
Though Clinton has not made an issue of a gun tax in the presidential campaign, she has advocated for stricter background check rules.
Further, gun taxes have been an issue at the local level as the city of Seattle passed a tax of $25 per gun, while the Northern Marianas Islands passed a $1,000 per gun tax.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, warned that in the backdrop of local taxes, this should be a concern about a Hillary Clinton presidency.
"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," Norquist said. "The Second Amendment makes it difficult to legally ban guns, but Hillary has led the way to explaining you can achieve the same thing with high taxes."