The three candidates for the 2016 Democrat nomination are still attempting to maneuver before tonight’s MSNBC debate, and it appears that Hillary Clinton is once again finding ways to outflank old socialist Bernie Sanders and that other guy.

I’m just not sure that pandering to the mother-of-dead-criminals lobby is her path to victory:

Voters in South Carolina will have their first chance to see the three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination together here on Friday, when Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley appear at a forum at Winthrop University.

The event, hosted by the state party and billed as the “First in the South Presidential Candidates Forum,” will be broadcast live on MSNBC and focus on both regional and national issues. One issue, however, has become a flashpoint in the race this week as the candidates campaigned across the country: gun control.

The issues of gun control and criminal justice reform have revealed differences between the candidates on the Democratic side of the race and, as it has grown more competitive, the candidates have sought to take advantage.

Clinton started her week in Chicago on Monday, when her campaign arranged a meeting with family members of victims of gun violence, including Sybrina Fulton and Lesley McSpadden, the mothers of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

Yes, you heard that correctly.

Clinton views Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown as “victims of gun violence.”

For those of you just emerging from long-term comas, Trayvon Martin was a multiple-drug-abusing street fighter, alleged burglar, and illegal gun dealer who moonlighted as a high school student. He was killed after he came up behind neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, attacked him, and began beating Zimmerman mercilessly despite cries for Martin to stop from witnesses. Zimmerman finally pulled his concealed carry gun and fired a single shot, ending Martin’s murder attempt.

Strong-arm robbery suspect Michael Brown attacked Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson as Wilson sat in his patrol vehicle, and attempted to take Wilson’s handgun, presumably to murder Wilson. In the struggle over the weapon, Wilson was able to fire a shot, which injure Brown’s hand, halting the initial attack.

Brown the started to flee, but stopped when Wilson emerged from his vehicle to begin a pursuit of robbery and now assault on an officer suspect Brown. Wilson yelled at Brown to stop, and for a moment, Brown did. Blood evidence from his hand wound shows conclusively that Brown fled, stopped, slowly turned… and then charged officer Wilson, in an apparent second attempt to overpower Wilson for his gun. Wilson opened fire on the charging Brown, only stopping him with a headshot with the final bullet in his gun from just feet away.

On one hand, it’s stunning that Clinton would agree to meet with the mothers of violent criminals shot in self-defense, and assert that the dead criminals shot while trying to harm others are somehow victims of “gun violence.”

Then again, all of the gun laws Clinton champions are calculated to make the world safer for criminals by disarming law-abiding citizens, so maybe we should not be that surprised at the company she keeps.