She could have just said, “No Democrat can be a viable candidate in 2020 without supporting radical gun control laws,” but that would have been a Kinsley gaffe.
Her campaign doesn’t mention anything about supporting the Second Amendment, but as of her 2012 op-ed, the senator believes in both “the Constitution and an individual’s right to bear arms” and believes the first place to look for answers is in the Second Amendment, citing the importance of the words “well-regulated militia.”
“I just think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned more about life and sometimes you’re wrong and you’ve got to fix it,” Gillibrand said in a Feb. 2018 interview with CBS 60 Minutes. “And if you’re wrong, just admit it and move on.” She echoed this statement in 2019 on CNN shortly after announcing her 2020 candidacy, expressing that being wrong has led her to be more thoughtful about all issues, putting the needs of the people first as opposed to her own self interests.
“I think someone who can’t recognize when they’re wrong is far more concerning if you can never admit when you’re wrong. And not only was I wrong, and not only should I have cared more about gun violence in other parts of my state or other parts of my country, I just didn’t,” she said.
Putting action behind her words, in January, Gillibrand joined 40 of her fellow senators in reintroducing the “Background Check Expansion Act” that would expand background checks and aims to reduce gun violence across the nation. Two months later, she would speak on the Senate floor imploring her colleagues to “immediately vote to ban semi-automatic assault rifles and bump stocks, pass a universal background check system, close the gun show loophole, make federal gun trafficking a crime, and allow the Centers for Disease Control to research gun violence.”
– Marilyn La Jeunesse in Why Kristen Gillibrand Changed Her Position on Guns