Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Hillary Clinton's embrace of gun control is a more accurate reflection of her political roots than the pro-gun persona she adopted in her failed 2008 presidential bid.
“I remember very vividly, Hillary, she was kind of being laughed at as Annie Oakley. She was going out and talking about how she was all Second Amendment," Huckabee said of Clinton's 2008 bid. "Those of us who knew her in Arkansas were like, ‘Seriously? C’mon Hillary, this is unbecoming [of] you.’"
During a wide-ranging interview, Huckabee said that Clinton's push for gun control measures now, following a string of mass shootings that have terrorized American neighborhoods, is more befitting her identity when she was first lady of Arkansas.
"Hillary was, I mean, was anything but a good old southern girl," he said. "She was an Illinois girl that went to Wellesley and Yale Law … It was pretty evident that Hillary wasn’t the kind of person that was going to go out to the shooting range on Saturday afternoon and see if she could take down some targets. I don’t remember ever seeing her out at the firing range or at a gun store saying, ‘you got any .223 down there. I need to load up on that.’"
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton sparred with then-Sen. Barack Obama over her posture on guns — and he, too, made the Annie Oakley comparison after Clinton needled him for suggesting that some small-town Americans "cling to guns or religion." "She's running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment — she's talkin' like she's Annie Oakley," Obama said at the time.
At the time, Clinton's team brushed off the dig. An aide told POLITICO, "Hillary is not a hunter – she doesn’t purport to be. She has gone hunting but frankly it’s somewhat beside the points. It’s about whether you respect people who live in these small towns and rural communities.”
On Thursday, Huckabee characterized Clinton's record on guns during a broader discussion of policy prescriptions for the rash of gun violence making headlines around the country. He suggested that new laws aren't the solution, since criminals would disobey them anyway, chided critics who called out gun control opponents for offering "prayers" for shooting victims, and argued that mass shootings might be less devastating or deterred altogether if more law-abiding citizens carried guns.
"If somebody comes into this room shooting then maybe there’s one of us who can take the shooter down before he kills us all," Huckabee said. "If somebody comes in here with an AR-15 and he’s the only one that’s got a weapon in this room, we’re all dead. If one of us is armed, maybe some, if not most of us would die, but there’s a good chance that at least we have a fighting chance."
Huckabee said that every mass shooting in America — "except for Gabby Giffords" — occurred in a "gun-free zone," an environment that he said gives criminals the upper hand. "Name any of 'em," he said. "They were all gun-free zones."
On politics, Huckabee insisted that the standings in Iowa are likely to shift dramatically several times before voter attitudes settle on the eve of the Feb. 1 caucuses. Polling crosstabs, he said, suggest as many as 70 percent haven't decided on a candidate yet. "They will date, but they don’t put a ring on it until just before the wedding," he said. 
However, he added that front-runner Donald Trump has "defied political gravity" throughout the campaign and could conceivably be the GOP nominee. If so, he urged the Republican National Committee to give Trump its full-throated support.
"We all have to give our loyalty to the party. Shouldn’t the party commit its loyalty to us if we actually win?" he wondered, referring to a pledge that candidates were asked to take early in the campaign. "If he is the nominee, I think they are honor bound to give him the same support they would give anybody else."