During an October 16, 2019, CNN interview, Democrat presidential hopeful Robert “Beto” O’Rourke suggested that mass shooters will hand over their AR-15s under his forced buyback plan.
O’Rourke went through his normal claims that he believes Americans will comply with the buybacks by handing over their AR-15s and similar commonly owned semiautomatic rifles.
Host Alisyn Camerota asked O’Rourke, “You expect mass shooters to follow the law?”
O’Rourke responded, “Our fellow Americans will follow the law, yes.”
Camerota countered, “Mass shooters … don’t follow the law — by definition.” She added, “It doesn’t make sense that people are going to hand over their ‘assault weapons’ if they’re mass shooters. If they want to do harm to people, they’re not going to follow the law.”
O’Rourke responded to Camerota’s line of questioning by suggesting that anticipated compliance with a legislative proposal ought not be the litmus test for whether the proposal is adopted.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation calculates there are more than 16 million privately owned AR-15s in the United States.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News 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.