BELLEVUE, WA – Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton has been caught in a cleverly crafted fib about Vermont being a major source of illegal guns in New York, which should give voters in both states pause, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
“Today’s Washington Post Fact Checker just handed Hillary a brutal ‘Three Pinocchios’ for what it says is ‘a significantly misleading impression’ Clinton created about Vermont being a major source of crime guns in the Empire State,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb.
The Fact Checker referred to Clinton’s assertion that Vermont is the source of the “highest per capita number of” crime guns in New York. But the Fact Checker noted, “The number of crime guns in New York from Vermont is so small that it could even be attributed to one or two bad actors. Using the per capita measure of trafficked guns originating from Vermont is as pointless as counting guns trafficked per 100,000 head of cattle.”
The Fact Checker, which twice challenged Barack Obama’s claim that 40 percent of gun sales are done without background checks, said “Clinton has carefully crafted her talking point to find the particular government data that support her point, which gives a wildly different view than how trafficking flows are tracked. We do not find the per capita measure as a fair assessment of gun flows from Vermont into New York. The difference between this point using per capita calculation and the raw number (1 percent of crime guns with source states identified in 2014 came from Vermont) is so stark that it creates a significantly misleading impression to the public.”
“From her tale of landing under fire from snipers to her email controversy, Hillary Clinton has created an aura of dishonesty,” Gottlieb observed. “She crafted this meme to discredit rival Bernie Sanders, who represents Vermont in the Senate. It is dishonest and it reminds people why a Washington Post/ABC News poll last month said 57 percent of the people don’t think she is honest or trustworthy.
“New Yorkers should think about this as their primary looms next week,” he said. “This is the kind of political sleight of hand that one expects from a person who could not say for sure if she’s ever lied to the American people.”