Beto O’Rourke vows mandatory buyback of assault weapons if elected president

“I want to be really clear that that’s exactly what we are going to do,” the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said. “Americans who own AR-15s, AK-47s, will have to sell them to the government. We’re not going to allow them to stay on our streets, to show up in our communities, to be used against us in our synagogues, our churches, our mosques, our Walmarts, our public places.”

His comments over the weekend echo an op-ed he wrote earlier this month after a gunman killed 22 people at a Walmart in his hometown of El Paso, Texas.

“All countries have video games. All countries struggle with mental health. All countries deal with hatred. But only America has more guns than human beings — 390 million firearms in a country of 329 million people — which kill nearly 40,000 people every year,” he wrote. “That’s why, as president, I would institute a mandatory buyback of every assault weapon in America.”

The former Texas congressman has made gun control a focal point of his campaign since the mass shooting.

He spoke bluntly Sunday after another mass shooting in Texas, in which a gunman killed at least seven people: “This is f—d up.”

His campaign is now selling a $30 T-shirt of the quote that it says will benefit gun control activists. “100% of the proceeds from the sale of this item will be shared equally between Mom’s Demand Action and March for Our Lives,” the campaign wrote on its website.