Reply #294: Clinton quote [View All]

[charlie]

The full quote is a defiant defense of the bill, not an admonishment or lament as using the partial quote seems to make it:

And then we got into the gun business. We passed the Brady Bill, and we passed the assault weapons ban -- (applause) -- which Senator Feinstein was especially active in passing. And, oh, they said, the world was going to come to an end. And we lost -- I'm telling you, we lost a lot of members of the House of Representatives on the budget bill because the people hadn't felt the benefit of the improving economy by '94 and on the gun issue. I'll never forget, when I went back to New Hampshire, which is a state like my home state of Arkansas, where more than half the people have a hunting license, and I said, I want to go into the middle of a bunch of hunters -- and I went back in '96, because they beat a congressman up there because he voted for the assault weapons ban and the Brady Bill.

And I told those guys -- I remember, there were just all these guys in their plaid shirts just looking at me kind of sulled up, and I said, you know, if any of you missed a day, even an hour in the deer woods on account of the Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban, I want to vote against me, too, because that congressman lost his job because of me. But if you didn't, they lied to you and you need to get even. And they did.

http://www.clintonpresidentialcenter.org/legacy/040200-speech-by-president-at-dccc-reception-san-jose.htm