CLAIM: During his Thursday night acceptance speech, President Donald Trump stressed that the left will “confiscate your guns” if given power in the November elections.
VERDICT: True. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have both voiced support for a government-mandated buyback of AR-15s and other commonly-owned semiautomatic rifles.
Trump said, “If the left gains power, they will demolish the suburbs, confiscate your guns, and appoint justices who will wipe away your Second Amendment and other Constitutional freedoms.”
His claim that they “will confiscate your guns” is born out by statements both Biden and Harris made during the campaigns they ran in hopes of winning the Democrat presidential primary cycle.
On August 7, 2019, Breitbart News reported that Biden voiced support for mandatory buybacks of AR-15s and other commonly-owned semiautomatic rifles during the first Democrat debate of the primary cycle.
Biden said, “Folks, look, and I would buy back [assault] weapons. We already started talking about that. We tried to get it done. I think it can be done. And it should be demanded that we do it. And that’s a good expenditure of money.” [Emphasis added]
RealClearPolitics reported a CNN interview with Biden in which Anderson Cooper asked him about gun owners who were afraid a Biden administration would take away their guns:
CNN: So, to gun owners out there who say, well, a Biden administration means they’re going to come for my guns?
BIDEN: Bingo. You’re right if you have an assault weapon. The fact of the matter is, they should be illegal, period. Look, the Second Amendment doesn’t say you can’t restrict the kinds of weapons people can own. You can’t buy a bazooka. You can’t have a flame thrower.
In early September 2019, Breitbart News reported Harris’s support for government-mandated buybacks of AR-15 rifles. On September 6, 2019, Bloomberg reported that Harris had not worked out all the details on how the buyback would work, yet she said, “I think it’s a good idea.”
Her support of a mandatory buyback came weeks after then-presidential hopeful Robert “Beto” O’Rourke pushed for “a mandatory buyback of every assault weapon in our country.”
A government-mandated buyback is not a voluntary buyback, but a government-enforced buyback. It is the kind of buyback VOX reports that Australia implemented over the course of 1996-1997.
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 at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.