Schumer Claims 'I Don't Know of Any Other Democrat Who Agrees with Beto O'Rourke' on Guns
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York doesn’t appear to be taking failed Senate candidate and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s plan to confiscate so-called “assault weapons” from Americans all that seriously.
O’Rourke made waves at last week’s 2020 Democratic presidential debate when he reiterated his plan to remove firearms from law-abiding gun owners.
“Are you proposing taking away their guns and how would this work?” ABC anchor David Muir asked O’Rourke, referring to his so-called mandatory “buyback” proposal for AR-15s and AK-47s.
“I am, if it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield,” O’Rourke replied, garnering cheers from the debate audience.
“If the high-impact, high-velocity round when it hits your body shreds everything inside of your body because it was designed to do that so that 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, … hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47, we’re not going to allow it to be used against fellow Americans anymore.”
Under O’Rourke’s plan, the government wouldn’t straight-up seize guns. Instead, owners of so-called “assault weapons” would simply be forced to sell them to the government.
O’Rourke and other liberals call this a mandatory “buyback” proposal, which is somewhat misleading since the government can’t “buy back” something it never owned in the first place.
Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.
Buy your shirt now: https://t.co/kEJxoLvfH5 pic.twitter.com/KKpAKX4IL8
— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) September 13, 2019
Back to Schumer. Speaking to reporters on a conference call Wednesday, the Senate minority leader suggested O’Rourke’s stance on this issue is not in line with what other Democrats believe.
“I don’t know of any other Democrat who agrees with Beto O’Rourke, but it’s no excuse not to go forward,” Schumer said, according to the Albany Times Union.
Comments from Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Chris Coons of Delaware appear to prove Schumer’s point.
“I can tell you one thing: Beto O’Rourke’s not taking my guns away from me,” Manchin said Wednesday, according to the Washington Examiner. “You tell Beto that, OK?”
“Beto is one human being. He gave his own opinion, OK? I think it was very harmful to make it look like all Democrats.”
Coons expressed similar sentiments last week in a Friday interview on CNN.
“I, frankly, think that that clip will be played for years at Second Amendment rallies with organizations that try to scare people by saying, ‘Democrats are coming for your guns,'” Coons said.
“I’m a gun owner. My sons and I have gone skeet shooting and hunting and, frankly, I don’t think having our presidential candidates, like Congressman O’Rourke did, say that we’re going to try and take people’s guns against their will is a wise either policy or political move.”
According to President Donald Trump, O’Rourke’s proposal has made it difficult for Republicans and Democrats to have a conversation about gun violence and how to prevent it.
Dummy Beto made it much harder to make a deal. Convinced many that Dems just want to take your guns away. Will continue forward! https://t.co/87jvaYUkyn
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 18, 2019
“Dummy Beto made it much harder to make a deal,” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
“Convinced many that Dems just want to take your guns away. Will continue forward!”
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