Former Congressman Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) made waves when he said "hell yes!" to taking away law-abiding gun owners AR-15s and AK-47s via a mandatory "buyback" program. Anti-gunners rallied around him, applauding him for being unapologetically in favor of harsh gun control measures that could eventually lead to firearm confiscation.
O'Rourke is finally coming to the realization that he has absolutely no hope of obtaining the Democratic nomination for president. Since he knows his time is short lived, he's now asking his fellow Democratic contenders to support his gun control agenda.
Beto penned an OpEd in Teen Vogue – a really strange outlet for this kind of plea – making the case for his anti-gun proposal (emphasis mine):
You shouldn’t be able to bring a weapon of war to a peaceful protest. Assault weapons like AR-15s and AK-47s, designed to kill people as efficiently and effectively as possible, have no place in our communities — and if we don’t want them to continue showing up in our classrooms, movie theaters, churches, and synagogues, we need to get them off our streets.
That’s a belief I’ve come to after listening to Americans all across the country. People like Cathryn, the student I met in Derry, New Hampshire, who told me she knows exactly which bookshelf to pull down when a gunman comes to her school. People like Jessica Garcia, an AK-47 owner who was injured by the same kind of weapon in the El Paso shooting — and told me she would gladly sell it back. People like the assault weapon owner I met at a gun show in Conway, Arkansas, who defied my expectations and said he’d cut his weapon into pieces if it would help end this epidemic.
That’s why I’ve released the most ambitious plan to end gun violence in our country in this race — proposing not only universal background checks, Extreme Risk Protection Orders (aka, red flag laws), a federal licensing program, and a ban on the sale of assault weapons, but also a mandatory buyback of those weapons of war. It’s why I’ve called on credit card companies and banks to stop facilitating the sale of these weapons. It’s why I am the only candidate in this race to sign onto the March For Our Lives Peace Plan, with the goal of cutting the number of firearm deaths and injuries in half over the next decade.
And it’s why I’m calling on every other candidate in this race — and every member of our party in Congress — to meet the boldness of the American people and sign onto the March For Our Lives Peace Plan.
Beto has continually pushed his anti-gun agenda. He has made it known that he's the only candidate calling universal background checks, red flag laws and a ban and mandatory buyback of "assault weapons." If what he was doing was so bold and so many people agreed with him, wouldn't his polling numbers be through the roof? Wouldn't he be considered a top tier candidate?
The truth of the matter is this: most Americans are middle-of-the-road. They see Beto's plans for a mandatory "buyback" – which is a really stupid term considering the government never owned any of these firearms – and know firearm registration and realize this is a slippery slope. When the government knows exactly how many guns someone has and what type of firearms they possess, they're able to plan and confiscate them. And yes, anti-gunners will say we're wearing tinfoil hats but we're not. Beto has said he'd also consider a ban on all semi-automatic firearms, which is a large portion of the civilian market.
He seems to think that because he went to one gun show that he suddenly knows and understands each and every gun owner in America. Fact check, Beto: you don't. You actually know nothing about us and why we value the Second Amendment. You had one person tell you they'd be willing to "sell back" their so-called "assault weapon." That doesn't mean that every other firearm owner feels the same way. In fact, the lady you talk to is definitely the exception, not the rule.
We do, however, have to give Beto credit for one thing: he is at least ballsy enough to say exactly what he wants to do. We now have confirmation that anti-gunners seek to disarm us. And Democrats can't say we're being extreme or fringe.
Congrats, Beto. You will forever be known as the failed presidential candidate who single-handedly told law-abiding gun owners that you seek to disarm us. And that will never be forgotten.
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