Beto O’Rourke made it clear during Thursday night’s Democratic debate in Houston: He’s not just going for woke. He’s going for broke. And he may have irrevocably damaged his campaign in the process after the answer he gave on gun control.
ABC News debate moderator David Muir asked O’Rourke to confirm he was planning on confiscating guns as president during a segment on mass shootings and gun control. The former El Paso Congressman answered “Hell yes!”:
MUIR: Some of the stage have suggested a voluntary buy-back for guns in this country. You have gone further. You said, quote, “Americans who own AR-15s and AK-47s will have to sell them to the government, all of them. You know that critics call this confiscation. Are you proposing taking away their guns and how would this work?BETO O’ROURKE: I am, if it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield. If the high impact, high velocity, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body because it was designed to do that so you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers. When we see that being used against children and in Odessa, I met the mother of a 15-year-old girl who was shot by an AR-15 and that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour because so many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa, there weren’t enough ambulances to get to them in time. Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against a fellow American anymore.MUIR: Congressman, thank you.O’ROURKE: And, I want to say this — I’m listening to the people of this country, the day after I proposed doing that, I went to a gun show in Conway, Arkansas. To meet with those who were selling AR-15s and those who were buying those weapons and you might be surprised, there was some common ground there. Folks who said, “I would give that up, cut it to pieces, I don’t need this weapon to hunt, to defend myself. It is a weapon of war.” So, let’s do the right thing, but let’s bring everyone in America into the conversation. Republicans, Democrats, gun owners and non-gun owners alike.
Watch Beto answer Muir’s question below:
His campaign is even selling a t-shirt with the “Hell yes” phrase on it:
Unfortunately, Muir didn’t follow up with Beto on the issue of enforcement (would police have to go door to door?), but any law-abiding gun owner watching the debate in Texas and beyond can read between the lines:
He would take guns by force if necessary.
Outside of the Democratic party’s ghoulish third trimester stance on abortion on demand, Beto O’Rourke’s gun control policy proposal is arguably the most extreme position expressed by any of the Democratic presidential contenders.
It is unconstitutional, would absolutely be challenged in court, and would likely get struck down by the Supreme Court if it even made it that far.
It is also dangerous and, like Meghan McCain said recently, would lead to violence if implemented.
He doesn’t care, though. That’s his plan and he’s sticking to it
If elected, Beto O’Rourke also plans to force banks and credit card companies to, among other things, “Refuse to take part in the sale of assault weapons”:
Sure, because we all know killers who want to use guns as “weapons of war” use their credit cards when buying guns illegally instead of untraceable cash.
As the Free Beacon noted recently, it appears Beto is in the “screw it” part of his campaign. He has struggled to gain traction in a crowded field for almost the entirety of the time he’s been running for president, and his apologizing for being white and suggestion America was founded on white supremacy are messages that simply haven’t resonated with Democratic voters.
Between that and the mass shooting in El Paso, he’s thrown caution out the window by adopting an “angry man on a mission” demeanor. He no longer seems to care what rural voters think about his positions on the issues.
That angry man demeanor includes routinely accusing President Trump of being a white supremacist whose rhetoric was what led the El Paso shooter to murder 22 innocent people and injure dozens more.
It also includes telling crowds of gullible college students that lower-income Americans have “the right” to live closer to their jobs and closer to rich people:
“Living close to work shouldn’t be a luxury for the rich,” the former Texas congressman tweeted Monday. “It’s a right for everyone.”[…]“Rich people are going to have to allow — or be forced to allow — lower-income people to live near them,” he said.
Beto can relaunch his campaign as often as he wants to, go even further to the left on core Democratic issues, but it’s not going to make a difference. His candidacy is going nowhere fast, including in his home state of Texas where he is polling in third place behind Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA).
It’s time for him to drop out.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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