Cory Booker Distances Himself from Beto: 'I’m Not Where He is on Gun Confiscation'
Presidential candidate rejects O'Rourke's rhetoric on gun confiscation
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Presidential candidate Cory Booker has kept his distance from former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke's recent spirited rhetoric on gun confiscation.
Booker gave his thoughts on The View on the subject of "mandatory buybacks."
"My point is this — and I'm not where Beto is in the way he's talking about this issue," Booker said.
"Good, because he's crazy," co-host Meghan McCain responded.
"We should watch the way we talk about each other. Seriously, we can't tear the character of people down," Booker replied.
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Though both presidential candidates advocate "mandatory buybacks" of assault-style weapons, O'Rourke has taken a more aggressive stance on the policy.
Beto famously said during a September Democratic primary debate:
"Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15's, your AK-47's."
But Booker focused attention on popular gun control measures like expanding background checks, and the outlawing of assault-style rifles, as well as requiring gun owners to obtain a license.
"We can find the evidence-based way to accomplish this as a country. Other countries have done it. We did it with machine guns," he said.
"Why are we playing into fear-mongerers that want to make you this vision that there's going be people showing up to your house and taking your guns away?" Booker added.
"We have more people die in America in my lifetime than in every single war combined, and we're having arguments that divide us? All Americans agree on gun licensing — 70%, 80% do, agree on background checks, we can do this."
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"I'm not going to let us be divided by false arguments. There are things we can do, that if I'm president of the United States, I will get done," Booker said.
Earlier this week, O'Rourke vowed to use the criminal code to back up his proposal of confiscating AR-15s from Americans.
The former Texas congressman elaborated on his policy in a CBS News interview:
"If we're able to pass mandatory buybacks and I'm able to sign that into law, then I fully expect our fellow Americans to turn in their AR-15s and their AK-47s."
O'Rourke added there would be criminal consequences if people refused to give up their weapons:
"For anyone who does not and is caught in possession or seen in possession of one of these weapons of war — one of these instruments of terror, that weapon will be taken from them, and they will be fined."
