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She said there have been too many gun deaths - 90 a day - and a horrifying list of massacres in schools, theaters, churches and nightclubs.
“Donald Trump won’t stand up to the gun lobby. He’s sold out to them,” Clinton said. “The gun lobby is spending more money on ads to get Donald Trump elected than any other group.”
In return, she said, Republican nominee Trump has promised to repeal President Barack Obama’s actions strengthening criminal background checks.
“(Trump) has even said on his first day in office he will require every school in America” to allow people to carry guns into the classroom, Clinton said.
The rally also featured comments on gun control from former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head and badly injured in 2011, and her retired astronaut husband, Capt. Mark Kelly.
“We don’t want anybody to repeal the Second Amendment,” Kelly said. “We don’t want the government to take our guns. That’s not what this is about. We just want a president who will do more to make sure felons, domestic abusers and even terrorists don’t have easy access to guns.”
This is her first visit to the state since FBI Director James B. Comey on Friday set off a firestorm of controversy by announcing in a vaguely worded letter to Congress that the agency had come across emails that could be pertinent to the closed investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was U.S. secretary of state from 2009 to 2012. That investigation was closed without charges but Comey criticized Clinton and her aides of being extremely careless with sensitive government emails.
Seth Unger, director of Ohio communications for Trump’s campaign responded by saying, “It’s fitting that Hillary’s first visit to Ohio since the FBI reopened their investigation falls on Halloween, since she’s trying to trick Ohioans into ignoring the clouds looming over her campaign and casting early votes for her doomed candidacy.”
The newly discovered emails Comey referenced in his letter to Congress were reportedly found on the computer of former Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York, the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, who is Clinton’s campaign vice chairman. Weiner is being investigated for allegedly sexting with a 15-year-old.
Comey faced a bipartisan storm of criticism for sending the letter to Congress so close to the election and before the FBI had a warrant to review the emails to see what was in them.
Clinton said she doesn’t know why the FBI decided to “jump into the election without any evidence of wrong-doing.”
“I made a mistake, I’m not making any excuses,” she said of her use of a private email server.
“I regret it now they apparently want to look at e-mails from one of my staffers. And I am sure they will reach the same conclusion they did when they looked at my e-mails for the last year — there is no case here,” Clinton said in Kent.
In both Cincinnati and Kent on Monday, Clinton warned of the danger of giving Trump access to the nuclear codes. She said he doesn’t have the temperament to be president and she criticized his remarks about standing by while other countries get nuclear weapons.
“I wonder if he even knows that a single nuclear warhead can kill millions of people?” Clinton said.
“Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. Imagine him plunging us into a war because someone got under his very thin skin.”
The speeches on nuclear weapons coincided with a new TV commercial the Clinton campaign released Monday which included an appearance by Monique Luiz. As a young girl 52 years ago, Luiz was featured in a controversial TV commercial released by President Lyndon Johnson which all-but declared if Republican Barry Goldwater were elected in 1964, a nuclear war would erupt between the United States and Soviet Union.
The commercial, dubbed “Daisy” was shown just once in September of 1964 on NBC-TV. The young girl counted as she plucked the pedals off a flower. Then her voice faded into the sound of a nuclear weapons officer counting down to zero followed by a massive nuclear explosion.
“Think about what it takes to lead in a very complicated world,” Clinton said in Cincinnati.
Clinton and her surrogates have crisscrossed the country urging people to vote early.
“Whatever issue you care about is on the ballot,” Clinton, ticking off the economy, education, fighting climate change, boosting clean, renewable energy, lesbian, gay and transgender rights, and equal pay for women.
“The American dream itself is at stake,” Clinton said. “Where we stand on these issues, what we’ve done in the past, what we have said we will do in the future. That is all on the ballot.”
None of the presidential or vice presidential nominees have scheduled events in Ohio the next few days. However President Barack Obama is campaigning for Clinton in Columbus Tuesday and Donald Trump Jr will also be in Columbus for his dad at an event at Ohio State University.
Clinton’s former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders is coming to Cincinnati Thursday to campaign for her.
Washington Bureau reporter Jack Torry contributed to this report.
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