April 14, 2008
Posted: April 14th, 2008 05:20 PM ET
From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby PHILADELPHIA (CNN) – Hillary Clinton's weekend recollection of her youthful hunting lessons wasn't the first time this primary season she's recounted unloading a few shotgun shells. At her first campaign stop in Wisconsin on February 16, Clinton told an audience at The Brat Stop in Kenosha about her childhood hunting experience. “You know you may not believe it, but I’ve actually gone hunting,” she said during a riff about gun control and protecting the Second Amendment. “I know, you may not believe it, but it’s true. My father taught me to shoot a hundred years ago.” After the event, a reporter asked Clinton what exactly she had hunted. “A duck,” she said, before expanding a little more on her shooting resume. “And a lot of tin cans, and a lot of targets. And some skeet.”
The reporter asked if her father had woken her up as a young girl and taken her to a duck blind to shoot waterfowl. Clinton said no. “That was in Arkansas,” she said. “I got myself up early in the morning.” Clinton expanded on the Arkansas duck-hunting tale in the town of Wausau two days later. “I’ve hunted,” she said, appealing to sportsmen in the crowd. “My father taught me how to hunt. I went duck hunting in Arkansas. I remember standing in that cold water, so cold, at first light.” “I was with a bunch of my friends, all men. You know, the sun’s up, the ducks are flying and they are playing a trick on me,” she said of her friends. “They said, ‘we’re not going to shoot, you shoot.’ They wanted to embarrass me. The pressure was on. So I shot, and I shot a banded duck, and they were surprised as I was.” Clinton has been highlighting her support for the Second Amendment in recent days after her rival Barack Obama was put on the defensive last week for claiming that small town Pennsylvanians get “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion.” Asked by CNN on Sunday the last time she fired a gun, Clinton declined to answer, saying “that is not a relevant question in this debate.” Filed under: Hillary Clinton |
The latest political news from CNN's Best Political Team, with campaign coverage, 24-7. Sign up for our twice daily Ticker emails. Got a news tip or feedback? For complete political coverage, bookmark CNNPolitics.com. CNN=Politics Screensaver
New in the Ticker
Categories
Archive
Popular Posts
|
Loading weather data ...