DES MOINES — Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said he would support changing the law to allow gun manufacturers who ‘‘act irresponsibly’’ to be held liable when crimes are committed with their products.
Such action would end a legal protection that gun makers were granted in legislation that Sanders supported a decade ago.
The Vermont senator’s comments followed fresh criticism last week from Hillary Clinton about Sanders’ 2005 vote to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits under such circumstances — a vote Clinton says is an important difference between the two candidates.
‘‘I think we should take another look at that legislation and get rid of those provisions which allow gun manufacturers to act irresponsibly,’’ Sanders told a crowd of nearly 1,600 gathered on the Iowa State Fairgrounds for a rally on Saturday.
On Friday, Clinton took the unusual step of calling into MSNBC’s ‘‘Hardball’’ program to highlight Sanders’ vote. Clinton, who voted against the 2005 legislation while a senator from New York, told host Chris Matthews that Sanders should ‘‘stand up and say I got this one wrong.’’
Clinton’s campaign has taken several other steps in recent days to call attention to Sanders’ vote in the wake of an op-ed article in The New York Times in which President Obama was critical of the manufacturers liability law. Obama said he would be unwilling to support a Democratic nominee who was on the wrong side of such issues.
Aides to Sanders said Saturday that the senator’s comments at the rally were consistent with his stance on the liability law for the past several months. During an October appearance on NBC’s ‘‘Meet the Press,’’ Sanders said he would be willing to take another look at the law.
On the program, Sanders, who was a member of the House of Representatives in 2005, called it ‘‘a complicated vote.’’