Beto O’Rourke On Guns: Confiscation With Compensation

Let’s give Beto O’Rourke credit. Unlike some of the others running for the Democratic presidential nomination who have camouflaged their extreme views on gun rights, the former congressman from Texas is brutally honest.

If he’s elected president - insert joke here, he’s stuck at 2.3% in the polls - he’s coming for guns owned by law-abiding citizens. And he’s saying so. Ever since the recent mass shooting in El Paso O’Rourke’s been trying to breathe new life into his flaccid candidacy by fully embracing a radical, unworkable plan for gun control.

Ghoulish, sure. But such is politics.

OK, O’Rourke’s not entirely candid. Like all politicians, he’s engaging in a bit of chicanery. He’s calling his plan to get AR-15s and AK-47s out of the hands of law-abiding folks with a “buy back” plan. A mandatory buy back.

As writer Matt Walsh Tweeted Tuesday: “Calling gun confiscation a ‘mandatory buy back’ is like calling armed robbery  a ‘compelled donation.’ “

I know folks who own AR-15s. I don’t know any who bought their weapons from the government. So the feds wouldn’t be buying back anything.

It would be gun confiscation with compensation.

And O’Rourke says anyone reluctant to cooperate with the government’s efforts to “buy” their firearms would have their property taken.

“I want to be really clear that that’s exactly what we are going to do,” O’Rourke said. “Americans who own AR-15s, AK-47s, will have to sell them to the government... as president, I would institute a mandatory buyback of every assault weapon in America.”

Geez, what could possibly go wrong with a plan to seize approximately 10 million AR-15s from unwilling Americans?

Even the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban exempted weapons that were legally owned and manufactured prior to the ban. 

Back then, going door to door to grab guns from folks was considered a fool’s errand. 

Then again, that makes O’Rourke the perfect man for the job.