Bernie Sanders: The NRA’s efforts against Smith “clearly” helped my candidacy. “A few months after taking office, Smith suddenly announced that he would now vote for the ban on assault weapons. The NRA and other elements in Vermont’s sportsmen community were furious at his about-face. They felt betrayed and worked hard to defeat him While the NRA has never endorsed me or given me a nickel, their efforts against Smith in 1988 [sic] clearly helped my candidacy. (I should add here that in 1992, ’94, and ’96, the NRA strongly opposed me).” [Bernie Sanders, Outsider in the House, p. 86, 1997]
The Washington Post’s fact checker gave Bernie Sanders claim that he “probably lost” his election in 1988 because of his stance on assault weapons Two Pinocchios. “I have a D minus, that’s a D minus, voting record from the NRA. In 1988, I probably lost an election because I was the only candidate who said we should ban assault weapons.” — Sanders, interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Jan. 17, 2016 […] We’ve taken an extensive look at Sanders’s gun record — on his vote for the gun manufacturers liability law (which he now says he would repeal), his votes on the Brady bill and instant background checks, his vote on the “Charleston Loophole” and a slew of other votes (firearms on Amtrak checked baggage,guns in national parks and funding for gun research). This part of Sanders’s record is less clear. Sanders has opposed assault weapons since 1988, so he has been completely consistent on that issue. But can he really suggest that stance cost him the 1988 election? The evidence is mixed. He could have just as easily lost the election because he split votes with a Democrat, as opposed to being the only candidate without an NRA endorsement. In 1990, even Sanders was less sure that his failure to get an NRA endorsement two years prior was a major factor in his loss (“It might have been. We don’t know. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.”) Somewhere between 1990 and 2016, Sanders seems to have decided it’s played a bigger role than he originally thought. Two Pinocchios.” [Washington Post,1/21/16]