Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke justified his gun confiscation proposal for AR-15s and AK-47s by claiming each one of them is a “potential instrument of terror” while jabbing his fellow Democrats for being “complicit” in shootings by not passing gun control legislation.
“I can no longer escape the conclusion that if this gun is not right to sell, it’s also not right to own. And having 15 million of them out there, those are each and every one of them, a potential instrument of terror,” the former Democratic congressman told CNN on Wednesday, saying people are terrified “knowing that people who are better armed against them than some are on a battlefield, on the frontlines in these wars that we’re fighting.”
Anchor Chris Cuomo asked O’Rourke if by advocating for confiscation, he is not hurting Democrats in their attempts to pass laws requiring universal background checks, red flag laws, and fixing the background check system.
“Listen, if they had made some progress already, I might buy that argument, but many of those Democrats are complicit in what we see right now. I mean, the Republicans are the most obstinate and the most obstructionist and the most in the pockets of the NRA, but it’s been a bipartisan problem that the Centers for Disease Control couldn’t even study gun violence,” O’Rourke said. “That here we are in 2019 and we still don’t have universal background checks or red flag laws or we allowed the weapons ban to expire, even though this did so much good an save so many lives.”
O’Rourke has remained steadfast in advocating for confiscation of AR-15s and AK-47s, which are the most popular rifles sold. He said he would impose a fine on AR-15 owners to “compel” them to turn in the banned firearms, after which the owners would be compensated in some way.
