Bernie Sanders defends his stance on guns: 'I have a D-minus rating from the NRA'

(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tackled the issue of guns during the CNN Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan, with the candidates clashing over immunity for gun manufacturers.

"I think we have to try everything that works to limit the numbers of people and the kinds of people who are given access to firearms," Clinton said. While "not every killer will have the same profile," she said, it's important to enact "comprehensive background checks, closing the online loophole, closing the gun show loophole, closing what's called the Charleston loophole. I also believe so strongly that giving immunity to gun makers and sellers was a terrible mistake, because it removed any accountability from the gun makers and the sellers." Clinton, noting that she knows families who lost children during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, said it was unbelievable that "we talk about corporate greed, [while] the gun manufacturers sell guns to make as much as they can make."

Sanders has voted in favor of giving manufacturers immunity and against background checks, and said he's a "guy who comes from a rural state with low gun control. I have a D-minus rating from the NRA." He said that "nobody has a magic solution to this problem," since "any lunatic tomorrow" can go on a shooting rampage," but we have to do "everything we possibly can to minimize the possibilities of these mass killings." He differs from Clinton on "this liability thing," because "if they're selling a product into the hands of a person who is buying legally, you're ending gun manufacturing in America." Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.