Beto O’Rourke has narrowed his campaign down to a single issue – confiscatory gun control. Certainly, after the El Paso mass shooting, the issue has to be on his mind. But set aside an understandable emotional reaction, Beto is – at his core – a coldly-calculating political machine. He knows he has to break out on one all-encompassing universal topic if he hopes to rise from two percent in the polls. If he wants to prove he’s someone who can out-perform no-longer-so-moderate Joe Biden, extreme-on-all-positions Elizabeth Warren and avowed Socialist Bernie Sanders, he has to have an issue that will galvanize the far left, one that isn’t already staked out by the front-runners.
So “Our Beto” chose mandatory national gun control. But not just any kind of gun control. Former Congressman O’Rourke strongly advocates for forced, mandatory gun confiscation. With each passing day, as other Democrat candidates join him in this position, Beto’s gun-grabbing demands grow ever more strident. They have to if this is to remain Beto O’Rourke’s signature issue, the one that will catapult him into the position of the Democrat nominee for 2020. So he’s pushing for: more guns to be confiscated – fewer mentions of buybacks – more exclusions based on magazines and ammo – and an unending demonization by appearances of both the guns and their owners. His “logic:” if it looks “tactical,” it must be evil.
At the third Democrat debate, back on September 12th, Beto roared out a challenge to his opponents on stage, and to the American audience as well. For him – as well as for “his” America – it is time to fish or cut bait. He bellowed with all the faux emotion he could muster that “we” are going to confiscate American’s semi-automatic rifles … but he’ll do that only as the first step – once the assault weapons are gone, he’ll come after all semi-auto rifles and shotguns, then against high-capacity semi-auto pistols, and finally, against all semi-auto pistols. It’s a slippery slope, a steep one, and he’s eager to go snow-boarding on the rights of free Americans.
In this, he’s not alone. Four other Democrats on stage with him at the debate now support confiscatory gun control, even as Socialist San Francisco is declaring The National Rifle Association as a domestic terrorist organization, even though 34 percent of its members are registered Democrats. The other five candidates, not quite so rabid as Beto O’Rourke, still support draconian gun control laws. However, unlike Beto, they support a gradual approach – such as eliminating all offending firearms (as happened in Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain) – in a decade or so. It’s worth noting here that in preparation for the last Summer Olympics games, the British rifle and pistol teams had to leave the country to practice for their run to the Gold. That’s how draconian Beto’s model for America really is.
Go figure.
A quick note: the “assault weapon” which is always the first firearm to be targeted by Democrat gun-grabbers, the one targeted for confiscation (with or without a buyback provision) is nothing more than a short-barreled semi-automatic rifle shooting an intermediate-sized bullet. In other words, it’s a long gun (not a pistol) not materially different in caliber, ammo selection or size from a traditional American “range rifle.” This is the kind of saddle rifle that American cattle ranchers keep handy to shoot pesky varmints, such as prairie dogs, whose burrows can break a cow’s leg. This range rifle, and its first cousin, the “assault weapon,” (a range rifle with a military-looking stock) is not, and never has been, a combat rifle. No national military force has ever used an “assault weapon” (as defined by the Democrats) in combat.
However, what makes the assault weapon so clearly evil is that it cosmetically “looks like” a military-grade weapon. It doesn’t work like a military-grade weapon, but it looks the part. However, so do many air rifles and even high-end squirt guns. Such is the Democrats’ commitment to honesty and practicality that they’re busy demonizing a gun designed primarily for plinking, just because it looks like a rifle the military might use (but doesn’t).
Again, go figure.
Back to Snow-Job Beto and the Seventeen Dwarves. As the Federalist noted recently, “All 10 Democrats who participated in their party’s third presidential debate advocate an end state in which everyone will be banned from possessing what are currently the most popular rifles, rifle magazines and handgun magazines in America.”
Five of those 10 candidates for the Presidency – Beto, of course, plus Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker – want to confiscate your guns, now! Functionality be damned – they want to grab all of your guns and magazines that offend their delicate sensibilities. Of course, these exalted men and women all have heavily-armed bodyguards and security forces who carry the same weapons that would be prohibited to the rest of us. They do this because – and they’d admit if they were honest – their lives matter more than do the rest of ours.
Paving the way for their ultimate (or immediate) universal gun confiscation plan are bills now being written or debated that are intended to impose universal gun registry on all Americans, complete with Federally-issued licenses to own firearms. This is exactly the same path that Nazi Fuhrer Adolph Hitler took when he seized power in 1930s Germany. First, he had the Gestapo register all the guns and identify all the gun owners – then it was an easy matter to confiscate them. We are not suggesting that these Democrat candidates for President are Hitler – they’re not. However, as noted in the new book, Gun Control in the Third Reich, by Independent Institute’s – a think tank – Senior Research Fellow Stephen P. Holbrook – who has written eight previous books about constitutional gun rights in America – when it comes to the realm of gun confiscation, Beto and his pack of gun grabbers are clearly following der Fuhrer’s playbook.
Image by:Gage Skidmore / Flickr