Hillary Clinton: I will try ‘in every way I can’ to get guns out of the wrong hands

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged Monday to do everything she can if elected president to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them — even if that means working without Congress.

“I really do want to push hard to get more sensible restraints on gun ownership in the wrong hands and then to try to keep track of people who shouldn’t have guns,” Mrs. Clinton said at a town hall in New Hampshire hosted by NBC’s “Today” program.

Mrs. Clinton plans to push for imposing tighter gun-purchase background checks and banning certain military-style weapons, among other items.

She said she wants to work with Congress on the issue, but that she’ll also look for ways as president “to try to tighten some of these checks, particularly to get more of the background checks done on more of the sales at gun shows and online than we currently have.”

“I’m determined to do something about it, and I’ll try in every way I can to get those guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them,” she said.

Mrs. Clinton will also push Congress to close what she calls the “Charleston loophole” that allows a gun sale to proceed without a background check if the check is not completed within three days. That’s a reference to Dylann Roof, who is accused of shooting and killing nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this year.

Mrs. Clinton’s call comes just days after a gunman shot and killed nine people at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.

“You have these terrible incidents like we just had in Oregon, children being killed in school, people in Bible study in a church being murdered and on campuses, and so many others,” Mrs. Clinton said, saying there are about 92 deaths by guns every day in the country, most of which don’t make the headlines.

“And there are more than 33,000 a year,” she said. “If anything else were killing 33,000 of our people, we would all come together and say, ’Hey, what are we going to do about this?’ “

Mrs. Clinton also wants to ban domestic abusers from purchasing or owning guns, work to repeal a law that shields gun manufacturers and dealers from liability for crimes committed using guns, and increase penalties for “straw purchasers” with clean records who buy guns to give them to felons.

She also called to close loopholes to clarify that people involuntarily committed to outpatient treatment, such as Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho, are banned from buying guns.

Mrs. Clinton said she has no problem with the “millions” of responsible gun owners, and that majorities of both Americans and gun owners say measures like background checks make a lot of sense.