Politicians Who Want to Confiscate Guns

“Second Amendment activists have been ridiculed by Democrats and the gun prohibition lobby for years. Their condescending assurances that ‘nobody is going to take your guns’ just went out the window, thanks to O’Rourke.” –Alan Gottlieb, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

How many times have you been condescendingly told, “no one is taking your guns?”

I have. I’ve heard it a lot.

From acquaintances. From family members. From the media. And especially from smug politicians.

Judging by the reaction of Beto O’Rourke’s “Hell yes!” gun confiscation proclamation at the September 12, 2019, Democratic debates, we now have solid proof that yes, they do, in fact, want to take our guns.

If you haven’t seen the clip, you can watch it below.

Here is the transcript of the video:

(DAVID) MUIR: I’m going to — I’m going to work down the row here. But I do want to come to Congressman O’Rourke, because I know this is personal to you. El Paso is your hometown. Some on this stage have suggested a voluntary buy-back for guns in this country.

You’ve gone further. You’ve said, quote, “Americans who own AR-15s and AK-47s will have to sell them to the government, all of them.” You know that critics call this confiscation. Are you proposing taking away their guns? And how would this work?

(BETO) O’ROURKE: I am, if it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield…

(APPLAUSE)

If the high impact, high velocity round, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body, because it was designed to do that so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers.

When we see that being used against children, and in Odessa, I met the mother of a 15-year-old girl who was shot by an AR-15, and that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour because so many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa and Midland, there weren’t enough ambulances to get to them in time, hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.

(APPLAUSE)

We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.

Is Beto the only one with the balls to be real or was it just an attempt to get attention? (A poll conducted in August revealed that the former Texas Representative held only three percent of the vote.)

Beto had the stage and took advantage but a shift has been occurring for years. The anti-gun voice has grown much louder and much more aggressive since the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest music festival and the February 14, 2018, Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. 

For the first time in many, many years, major gun control legislation was passed federally and at the state level, as well as many privately held companies rewrote policies to reflect this new anti-gun agenda.

If you compile everything that has happened, legally and privately, anti-gun politicians, groups, organizations and businesses have been theoretically confiscating our firearms for years.

Following are just a few major actions that happened between 2018-2019:

• November 2018: Washington State passes Initiative 1639 raising the age limit to purchase a firearm, enacting waiting periods, expanding background checks and requiring new storage restrictions.
• December 2018: The Trump administration bans bump stocks with no grandfather clause.
• February 2018: Walmart raises the age of gun and ammo sales to 21 years of age and removes anything resembling an “assault-style rifle” from its website.
• February 2018: Google filters shopping searches to eliminate anything with the term “gun” in it. The filter also (amusingly) inadvertently censors nail guns, glue guns, Laguna Beach, the word trifle, anything with ‘burgundy’ in the description, the Indianapolis Colts, among others.
• March 2018: YouTube announces it will begin to remove and no longer allow firearm instructional videos—”Content intended to sell firearms; instruct viewers on how to make firearms, ammunition, and certain accessories; or instruct viewers on how to install those accessories is not allowed on YouTube.”
• March 2018: Citigroup/Citibank releases a new policy stating the bank will stop funding companies that sell bump stocks, “high-capacity magazines” and “manufacturers of military-style firearms…”.
• April 2018: Dick’s Sporting Goods destroys its remaining inventory of AR-15s, MSRs and “high-capacity” magazines.
• July 2018: A U.S. District Judge orders the removal of all downloadable blueprints to print a 3D gun.
• August 2018: eCommerce platform, Shopify, adopts a new policy banning the sale of firearms, firearm parts and ammo. Major firearms manufacturers affected were Spike’s Tactical and Franklin Armory, plus many others.
• February 2019: H.R. 1296, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019, was introduced into the House. The bill essentially bans the possession of any semiautomatic rifle, as well as semiautomatic handguns with threaded barrels and any other “semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm.”
• September 2019: Walmart announces it will stop selling all handgun ammunition, as well as .223 Remington, 5.56 and any other “short-barrel rifle ammunition.”

These are just a few examples of how anti-gun folks and lawmakers have succeeded in pushing their agenda. How much further would they go? How much further could they go? We know how far they would go…a complete gun-free society…but is that legally possible?

There are constitutional limits to what the president can do with executive action. Essentially, Congress would have to pass a law banning firearms or types of firearms. It is highly improbable that the Democrats will take the Presidency, as well as the majority of the both the House and Senate but stranger things have happened and regardless—if there is a will, there is away. It is not entirely impossible that the next President of the United States could ban firearms and mandate confiscation.

If this were to happen, how would the government execute a nation-wide gun grab? Where would the resources, manpower and money to fund it come from?

It would probably begin with a federal registration system. In states where gun registration is mandatory, not one state has been able to enforce it. The compliance rate is so low, the laws have demonstrated their ineffectiveness. For example, New York reports that less than five percent of MSR owners have registered their firearm.

Next, the government would have to require law enforcement or the military, maybe both, to go door-to-door collecting firearms. Throughout the course of the years, I’ve heard and read that no United States soldier would do this as it is their sworn oath to protect the constitutional rights of Americans. However, a door-to-door gun confiscation has happened, and the U.S. military played a big part.

In the chaotic aftermath of 2015’s Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said, “No one will be able to be armed. We will take all weapons.” And taken they were.

The New Orleans police department, along with the U.S. Army National Guard, went door-to-door in New Orleans and confiscated residents’ firearms. In two weeks, over 1,000 firearms were confiscated without warrants—many times law enforcement and the military approached homes guns drawn and even broke through front doors.

Where do the Democratic presidential candidates stand on gun control and gun confiscation? The following is nine other top wanna-be contenders’ stance on guns.

‘Bingo!’ Joe Biden

Uncle Joe has expressed support for confiscation previously and on Labor Day 2019, told NPR, “The idea that we don’t have elimination of assault-type weapons and magazines that can hold multiple bullets in them is absolutely mindless…I think there’s no compromise”

Elizabeth Warren

Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to create a federal licensing system, pass an “assault weapons” ban requiring owners to register them under the National Firearms Act (NFA), ban “high-capacity” mags and “prohibit accessories that make weapons more deadly.”

Bernie Sanders

Bernie felt the burn when he couldn’t provide a clear answer on gun control during the September 2019 debate, but in March 2019, he said, “This is what real action to stop gun violence looks like. We must follow New Zealand’s lead, take on the NRA and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in the United States.”

Kamala Harris

Senator Harris has said she would give Congress 100 days to act if she were president and then would issue executive orders for a ban on “assault weapons” and would implement a mandatory buy-back program.

Pete Buttigieg

The South Bend, Indiana mayor and naval reserve veteran has the least aggressive stance on gun control by stating he would support an “assault weapons” ban on new sales.

Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang, the candidate that wants to give every American $1,000 a month, has said:

• “Ban the manufacture, sale and transfer of weapons and accessories that make it easier for individuals to commit mass shootings.
• Create a clear definition of “assault weapon” and prevent their manufacture and sale.
• Prohibit the manufacture and sale of bump stocks, suppressors, incendiary/exploding ammunition, and grenade launcher attachments, and other accessories that alter functionality in a way that increases their firing rate or impact.
• Automatically confiscate any weapon that has been modified in a way as to increase its ammunition capacity, firing rate, or impact.
• Create an agency tasked with monitoring gun manufacturing developments and addressing “design-arounds” as they arise.
• Renew a ban on Large Capacity Ammo Feeding Devices (LCAFDs) and after-market non-standard large-capacity magazines.”

Cory Booker

The junior Senator from one of the most gun-restricted states in the country, New Jersey, says, “We’ve seen around this world, countries that have said enough of these assault rifles. They dealt with the problem that got them off their streets. These weapons should not be in this country.”

Below is an interview in which Booker describes a “peaceful” way of taking American’s firearms on CNN.

Amy Klobuchar

Senator Amy “Would This Hurt my Uncle Dick in the Deer Stand” Klobuchar supports a voluntary gun buyback program and a renewed “assault weapons” ban.  When asked she said, “I don’t see banning assault weapons hurts in the deer stand.” (sic)

Julián Castro

Former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Julián Castro, says he would require registration of “assault weapons” under the NFA and institute a buyback program.

I ran across an editorial published in the Washington Post in 1996 that resonates today. In it, the author writes, “Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic—purely symbolic—move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.”

After the bump stock ban, I can’t help but think we’re on this path. What will be next? Silencers? Magazines larger than 10 rounds?

The government has tried to disarm us before and that just so happened to end in war.

How do you feel about the direction we’re headed? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Let your lawmakers know how you feel about gun control, gun laws and gun confiscation by signing this petition.