No Democrat on the stage tonight has gone as far as former Rep. Beto O’Rourke in the fight to remove firearms from American streets.
Asked about his plan to require gun owners to sell back their assault weapons to the government, the Texan didn’t blink.
“Hell, yes,” he said, “We're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.”
Explaining why he supported the mandatory buyback -- while others have said it should be voluntary or don't support the idea at all -- O’Rourke offered a graphic explanation.
“If it’s (a) weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield. If the high impact, high velocity round, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body because it was designed to do that so you would bleed to death on a battlefield, and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers,” O’Rourke said, then that’s reason enough to take the drastic steps he’s pushing.
He also discussed the most recent high-profile mass shooting here in Texas.
“When we see (those weapons) being used against children, and in Odessa, I met the mother of a 15-yr-old girl who was shot by an AR-15 and that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour because so many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa and Midland, there weren't enough ambulances to get to them in time,” he said.