Cobb clarifies gun stance
Tedra Cobb, Canton, has clarified her position on supporting an assault weapons ban.
Over the past week Cobb and representatives of her campaign have refused to say whether she would vote for an assault weapons ban if one were introduced to Congress after a video surfaced last week of Cobb saying she wanted to ban assault rifles but could not publicly advocate for it.
Her former campaign manager, Mike Szustak, said on Friday that Cobb could not speculate on how she would vote on hypothetical legislation. The Times asked how Cobb would vote on a ban like the one passed by Congress in the 1990s, and on Wednesday, Cobb’s campaign shared a statement from her about it.
“The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was well-meaning but very flawed,” she wrote. “It created a new class of weapons and products for the market and did nothing to prevent the circumstances that led to murders at Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Parkland, Fort Hood, Santa Fe and too many others to mention. There is a safe and sane way forward for people with good will and common sense.”
Last week Cobb was slammed by Republicans after the apparently undercover video surfaced of her saying she thinks assault weapons should be banned.
After the video was reported on last week, Cobb had said that an assault weapons ban was not practical.
“There are a lot of commonsense things we need to do right now to make our kids safer without getting stuck on a stalemate issue like an assault weapons ban that would not pass this Congress and would not get signed by this president,” she wrote in a statement sent to the Times. “It’s a moot point, and voters in the north country know that.”
The video was posted by the YouTube channel “Democratic Tracking” and was picked up last Tuesday by the Washington Free Beacon, a national conservative news site. In the video, shot in May, Cobb is discussing gun policy with a group of teens who are apparently volunteers. Cobb discusses an event she attended earlier that day.
“When I was at this thing today, the first table I was at, a woman asked, ‘What do you think about assault rifles?’ and I said they should be banned,” Cobb said. “And I said … ‘I want you to know, Cindy, I cannot say that in public.’ And she said, ‘Well I want you to,’ and I said, ‘I won’t win.'”
Cobb has said that she is supportive of the Second Amendment and that her platform is based around common-sense reforms.
“I own a firearm and I believe that the Second Amendment gives every American the right to do the same,” she wrote in her statement Wednesday.
Her previous campaign manager confirmed to the Times that she owns a .22 caliber rifle previously owned by her mother.
“My policy goals are to protect our schools, homes and streets by banning dangerous people from owning or possessing firearms,” she wrote. “I believe in establishing a federal process by which certain classes of people, such as convicted criminals, suspected terrorists, gang members, the dangerously mentally ill and people who commit acts of domestic violence do not have access to firearms.”
Cobb has previously critiqued incumbent Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, for the congresswoman’s stance on gun control. In a statement sent to the Times on Friday, Cobb provided some more context for the conversation covered on the undercover video.
“The day that this was filmed is the day of the Santa Fe, Texas shooting,” she wrote. “I was talking to kids about their very real fears and I was expressing the harshness of the political process. There had been 20 school shootings and Elise Stefanik has done nothing.”
Stefanik’s campaign and supporters characterized the video as showing Cobb lying, including Stefanik’s campaign spokesman Lenny Alcivar.
“@TedraCobb now officially the worst Democratic House candidate of the cycle. Admitted raising taxes, now caught on camera violating her pledge to be honest with #NY21 voters,” he wrote on Twitter, in just one example.
On Friday, Cobb was defiant.
“I’m going to continue to travel this district, listen to everyone’s concerns, and speak out more strongly, and I don’t care if Stefanik tapes me,” she said.
Alcivar referred questions on the video’s origins to Chris Martin, regional press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
“I’m not going to comment on where the video came from,” Martin said on Wednesday. “My focus is on what the video said.”
Martin said Cobb’s further statements failed to clarify her position and that it was comments in the video, not the origin of the video, that voters cared about.