Beto O'Rourke Calls for Guns to Be Confiscated from Law-Abiding Citizens
Texas gubernatorial candidate says Americans should not 'be able to keep' their firearms
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Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke is calling for guns to be confiscated from law-abiding American citizens.
On Tuesday, Beto flipped on his stance regarding the Second Amendment by declaring that Americans who already owned AR-15s and AK-47s should not “be able to keep them.”
O'Rourke has been flip-flopping on the issue recently as public opinion has been shifting in the wake of mass shootings.
He announced several months ago that he had abandoned his push for gun confiscation after it had been the centerpiece of his failed 2020 presidential bid.
However, as his campaign for Texas governor is also failing, Beto is now desperate to capitalize on the public sentiment following the recent Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde.
"I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone,” he said in November of 2021 as he started campaigning for governor of Texas.
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"What I want to make sure that we do is defend the Second Amendment," Beto told Texas voters last year.
"I want to make sure that we protect our fellow Texans far better than we’re doing right now."
According to a report from Fox News, O’Rourke’s second one-eighty came around the deadly shooting that took place last week in Uvalde, Texas.
"I think we are fools to believe anything other than that these weapons of war will continued to be used with greater frequency against our fellow Americans,” O’Rourke said at an Abilene town hall on May 21.
"It’s why I’ve taken the position that I don’t think we should have AR-15s and AK-47s in civilian life.
"They belong on a battlefield.”
O’Rourke mentioned confiscation while speaking to veterans during another town hall the same day in San Angelo, saying that he didn’t even believe that people who legally owned AR-15s and AK-47s “should be able to keep them.”
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"My kids are my conscience,” he said of his own children.
"And I may win or lose this race, but I’m always going to have to face them and answer for what I’ve done or failed to do when I had the chance to do something.
"And I just took the position that may not be politically popular or maybe too honest that not only should no one be able to purchase an AR-15 or an AK-47, because they’re designed to kill humans and that high-impact, high-velocity round will just tear up everything inside you.
"You’ll bleed out before we can get you back to life,” he added.
"But I don’t think that the people who have them right now in civilian use should be able to keep them."
O’Rourke’s current position — apparently once again in favor of confiscation — matches the position he took on the campaign trail in 2019 when he told crowds, “Hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15, your AK-47!”
O’Rourke hopes to beat incumbent Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) — and confronted him directly on the issue of gun control during an official press conference just after the tragedy unfolded in Uvalde.
