Tim Kaine vice presidential campaign, 2016/Gun control

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Tim Kaine
Democratic vice presidential nominee
Running mate: Hillary Clinton

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This page was current as of the 2016 election.

See what Tim Kaine and the 2016 Democratic Party Platform said about gun control below.

Kaine on gun control

During the vice presidential debate on October 4, 2016, moderator Elaine Quijano asked Kaine to respond to a question about law enforcement and race relations. In his answer, Kaine also addressed gun ownership and gun control. He said, "I'm a gun-owner. I'm a strong Second Amendment supporter. But I've got a lot of scar tissue, because when I was governor of Virginia, there was a horrible shooting at Virginia Tech, and we learned that through that painful situation that gaps in the background record check system should have been closed and it could have prevented that crime, and so we're going to work to do things like close background record checks. And if we do, we won't have the tragedies that we did."^[1]

Kaine supported and joined the sit-in on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on June 22, 2016, aimed at forcing a vote on gun control measures. Kaine described the second morning of the sit-in on CNN: "It was pretty amazing. They had shut the cameras off. They had shut the microphones off. And we were sitting in." Kaine also said, "It was a real team-building exercise. We felt the same way when we did the filibuster in the Senate last week. We went on the floor to say it’s time for meaningful reform because we cared about the issue, but what we found was being on the floor together made us feel stronger, made us feel like we were doing what our constituents want us to do and made us feel like we were inching closer to the day when we break the grip of gun manufacturers on Congress and embrace reasonable safety reforms."^[2]

On June 15, 2016, during a filibuster on the Senate floor that lasted more than 15 hours, Kaine pushed for legislative action to combat gun violence. Reflecting on how Virginia has been affected by gun violence, Kaine said, “We’ve got scar tissue in my Commonwealth, we’ve got scar tissue in this country and we’ve got scar tissue personally. And after every one of these instances, we resolve to be better, we resolve to do more. Yet why do we continue to be passive?” He continued, “In this body we don’t have to be heroes, we just have to not be bystanders. That is all we have to do, stop being bystanders and cast a vote.”^[3]
- Kaine expressed support for a "comprehensive approach to curbing gun violence, including the expansion of mental health services, background record checks prior to gun purchases and responsible limits on combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines."^[3]

Discussing gun safety measures and the National Rifle Association (NRA) in an interview on MSNBC on June 15, 2016, Kaine said, "[T]his is all about lack of backbone. I live in the state where the NRA has its headquarters. And every time I run they give me an F and they spend millions of dollars and they campaign against me. I've never lost a race. I could lose the next one. But if they were that strong, I would have lost one already. You've got to stand up and say the Second Amendment is like the First Amendment. You guys are big believers in the First Amendment. You're journalists. But you can't just casually libel and slander people without there being a consequence. Every right in the Constitution is subject to some reasonable rules and regulation. Most of gun owners in this country, most NRA members support background record checks, and so we need to do that so we can keep guns out of the hands of people who are going to use them to produce carnage either on others or on themselves."^[4]
Read what the 2016 presidential candidates and other vice presidential candidates said about gun control.

The 2016 Democratic Party Platform on gun control

“	Preventing Gun Violence With 33,000 Americans dying every year, Democrats believe that we must finally take sensible action to address gun violence. While responsible gun ownership is part of the fabric of many communities, too many families in America have suffered from gun violence. We can respect the rights of responsible gun owners while keeping our communities safe. To build on the success of the lifesaving Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, we will expand and strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws; repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to revoke the dangerous legal immunity protections gun makers and sellers now enjoy; and keep weapons of war—such as assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines (LCAM's)—off our streets. We will fight back against attempts to make it harder for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to revoke federal licenses from law breaking gun dealers, and ensure guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists, intimate partner abusers, other violent criminals, and those with severe mental health issues. There is insufficient research on effective gun prevention policies, which is why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must have the resources it needs to study gun violence as a public health issue.^[5]	”
—2016 Democratic Party Platform^[6]

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