Did you watch the second installment of the Democrat debates last night? It featured a cavalcade of great ideas on how to reduce, restrict and remove guns and gun rights from American life. A few of the candidates’ “ideas” for how to address the alleged problem of civilian firearm ownership in this country stood out (full transcript here).
First there was, of course, Eric “Nuke Em” Swalwell, who’s built his entire campaign around gun confiscation.
MADDOW:
Congressman Swalwell, among this field of candidates you have a unique position on gun reform. You’re proposing that the government should buy back every assault weapon in America and it should be mandator. How do you envision that working especially in states where gun rights are a flashpoint?
SWALWELL:
Keep your pistols, keep your rifles, keep your shotguns but we can take the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people.
By “the most dangerous weapons,” Swalwell means, of course, “assault weapons.” As in, America’s favorite rifles.
By “the most dangerous people,” the Congressman means “Americans.” As in anyone not part of the military or a law enforcement agency.
He went on . . .
I’ve seen the plans of the other candidates here. They would all leave 15 million assault in our communities. They wouldn’t do a single thing to save a single life in Parkland. I will approach this issue as a prosecutor. I will approach it as the only person on this stage who has voted and passed background checks—but also as a parent of a generation who sends our children to school where we look at what they’re wearing so we can remember it in case we have to identify them later. A generation who has seen thousands of black children killed in our streets and a generation who goes to the theater and we actually where the fire exits are. We don’t have to live this way. We must be a country who loves our children more than we love our guns.
So, as Swalwell’s made clear in the past, his plan is for gun owners to submit to a mandatory “buy back.” Or else.
Fellow Californian Kamal Harris is totally on board with Swalwell’s plan, but she’s in no mood to mess with constitutional niceties like passing legislation when it comes to restricting Americans’ enumerated rights.
Thank you. I think your idea is a great one, Congressman Swalwell. And I will say there are a lot of great idea. The problem is Congress has not had the courage to act, which is why, when elected president of the United States, I will give the United States Congress 100 days to pull their act together, bring all these good ideas together, and put a bill on my desk for signature. And if they do not, I will take executive action and I will put in place—
(APPLAUSE)
—The most comprehensive background check policy we’ve had. I will require the ATF to take the licenses of gun dealers who violate the law. And I will banned by executive order the importation of assault weapons, because I’m going to tell you, as a prosecutor, I have seen more autopsy photographs than I care to tell you. I have hugged more mothers who are the mothers of homicide victims, and I have attended more police officer funerals.
It is enough. It is enough. And there have been plenty of good ideas from members of the United States Congress. There’s been no action. As president, I will take action.
But for pure entertainment value mixed with jaw-dropping incoherence along with a few well-placed self-aggrandizing lies about his record, last night’s title for most vociferous wanna-be gun grabber goes to… Shotgun Joe Biden.
I’m the only person that’s beaten the NRA nationally. I’m the guy that got the Brady Bill passed, the background checks, number one.
(APPLAUSE)
Number two, we increased that background check when—when—during the Obama-Biden administration. I’m also the only guy that got assault weapons banned, banned, and the number of clips in a gun banned. And so, folks, look, and I would buy back those 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.
And lastly, we should have smart guns. No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that trigger. It’s within our right to do that. We can do that. Our enemy is the gun manufacturers, not the NRA, the gun manufacturers.
That’s right, if it weren’t for Biden’s stalwart efforts, both in the Senate and as Barack Obama’s uber-effective Vice President, we’d still have who knows how many clips in our guns.
But has anyone told ol’ Uncle Joe that there are no “smart guns” for sale in the US? And that gun makers have determined that there’s not enough significant demand by the gun-buying public to fund the R&D necessary to make one that works?
Oh, who cares? Joe got a good applause like and sound bite out last night and that’s all that really matters.
Meanwhile, the Democrat presidential candidates continue to elbow each other out of the way, trying to demonstrate that they hate Second Amendment freedoms and the right keep and bear arms even more than those other anti-gun clones on the stage. And so it goes.