Democrats at odds over gun control

MANCHESTER—US Democratic presidential candidates clashed over who has been strongest on gun control at a debate on Saturday.

Democratic presidential nomination front-runner Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, also debated the best way to defeat Islamic State militants and prevent attacks like the one carried out by a radicalized Muslim couple who killed 14 people in California.

O’Malley accused his opponents of adopting an aggressive stance on gun control in the wake of a number of mass shootings this year.

He charged that Islamic State militants had advised recruits that the best way to get a weapon in the United States was at a gun show where rules were more lenient.

This was a result, O’Malley said, of “flip-flopping” by Sanders and Clinton.

“Let’s tell the truth, Martin,” Clinton said during the ABC debate.

Sanders said he lost an election in Vermont because of his gun-control stance while Clinton said she had backed gun-control measures.

Clinton, who was leading the polls in the nomination fight, also attacked Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump several times, chiefly for his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States.