Snopes Backs Up Eric Swalwell on ‘Sarcastic’ Threat to Nuke U.S.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) suggests Snopes debunked the claim he “made [a] serious threat to nuke gun-owners.”

On November 16, 2018, Breitbart News reported that Swalwell defended his push for an “assault weapons” ban, saying that if gun owners defied it “the government has nukes.”

The backlash against Swalwell was incredible. leading him to circle back and say he was being “sarcastic” when he talked about nuking gun owners. He mentioned reporter Joe Biggs, against whom the reference to nukes had been made, and said he “sarcastically [pointed] out USA isn’t losing to [Joe Bigg’s] assault weapon.”

Now Swalwell is tweeting about a Snopes “Fact Check” article which he claims clears his name:

Snopes reported:

In a tweet on 16 November, Swalwell responded to a gun rights enthusiast who said the Democrats’ proposal to confiscate or buy semi-automatic rifles would result in “war” due to resistance from the gun owners, stating “it would be a short war” because “the government has nukes.” They note that he later said he was just making “a joke,” therefore, they suggest it is only partly true to say he intended to nuke U.S. gun owners.

Again, this was the heart of the exchange between Biggs and Swalwell:

If you think about it, nuking U.S. gun owners would be tantamount to simply nuking the U.S. Who would nuke his own country simply to get rid of commonly-owned semiautomatic firearms?

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.