{"id":1314729,"date":"2019-09-17T21:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T03:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/micek-column-beto-was-right-on-call-to-confiscate-guns-mostly\/"},"modified":"2019-09-17T21:56:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T03:56:00","slug":"micek-column-beto-was-right-on-call-to-confiscate-guns-mostly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/micek-column-beto-was-right-on-call-to-confiscate-guns-mostly\/","title":{"rendered":"Micek column: Beto was right on call to confiscate guns\u2026 mostly"},"content":{"rendered":"
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John Micek<\/strong>
JOE HERMITT<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

What if Beto O\u2019Rourke was right?<\/p>\n

The former Texas congressman enraged the right and netted himself something that sounded an awful lot like a death threat when he vowed during last week\u2019s debate to ban (and apparently confiscate) AR-15s and other assault weapons favored by mass shooters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHell, yes, we\u2019re going to take away your AR-15, your AK-47,\u201d the former Texas congressman said during Thursday night\u2019s Democratic primary debate in Houston.<\/p>\n

Critics immediately pounced. In a single, emotion-charged sentence, O\u2019Rourke appeared to confirm the most feverish fears of the NRA and other gun-rights extremists \u2014 that the government really is coming for their guns.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy AR-15 is ready for you, Robert Francis,\u201d Briscoe Cain, a conservative state lawmaker from Texas, snarled on Twitter, using O\u2019Rourke\u2019s full name, Robert Francis.<\/p>\n

It was exactly the sort of reaction you\u2019d expect, and it may also have been exactly what O\u2019Rourke was hoping for, since he\u2019s been doing a slow fade in the polls. And now we\u2019re all talking about him again.<\/p>\n

But what if, putting aside the debate stage theatrics, O\u2019Rourke was right?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to argue that he mainly was.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s long past time for America to again ban these weapons of war, which were illegal to purchase from 1994 to 2004. And one of the best ways to get them off our streets is through a nationwide buyback program \u2014 not through any sort of confiscation program, which would surely lead to unrest.<\/p>\n

And, as PolitiFact notes, \u201cin raw numbers,\u201d researchers at New York University\u2019s medical school found that mass shootings decreased when the ban was in effect and rose afterward. In fact, \u201cthe death toll from mass shootings went from 4.8 per year during the ban years to 23.8 per year afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who\u2019s pushing an expanded background checks measure in the Senate with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, said O\u2019Rourke\u2019s call to confiscate these weapons was \u201can awful and extreme\u201d idea that would derail any efforts at \u201ccommonsense\u201d reform.<\/p>\n

I disagree with Toomey on that count. Surely the world\u2019s greatest legislative body is capable of, as the saying goes, walking and chewing gum at the same time.<\/p>\n

Congress can conduct a debate on both expanding background checks and a potential assault weapons ban.<\/p>\n

Toomey is right, however, that the kind of mandatory buyback envisioned by O\u2019Rourke, and based on a similar program in Australia, more than likely would not garner the votes for passage. A voluntary program, however, just might.<\/p>\n

Momentum for an assault weapons ban is growing in the House. Assuming it can whip up the votes, the chamber\u2019s Democratic majority should pass a ban and then drop it in the collective laps of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Obviously progress is likely to stop there, but the House could then force both of them to explain their inaction to the rest of the country when we\u2019re inevitably having the same discussion again after the next mass shooting.<\/p>\n

The passion underlying O\u2019Rourke\u2019s comments on Thursday, the rage he felt after two shootings in his home state in less than a month left so many dead and wounded, is understandable.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same inchoate rage that so many of us feel as we watch these scenes of carnage unfold on our television screens with mind-numbing regularity. It\u2019s the same anger that so many of us feel when calls for action inevitably fall on deaf ears in Washington and in our state capitols.<\/p>\n

So maybe after the fury over O\u2019Rourke\u2019s comments dies down, we can all consider the fundamental truth behind the Texan\u2019s comments on ABC\u2019s debate stage.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an assault on common sense that we haven\u2019t banned these weapons. And the time for action is upon us.<\/p>\n

An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com<\/a> and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John MicekJOE HERMITT What if Beto O\u2019Rourke was right? The former Texas congressman enraged the right and netted himself something that sounded an awful lot like a death threat when he vowed during last week\u2019s debate to ban (and apparently confiscate) AR-15s and other assault weapons favored by mass shooters. \u201cHell, yes, we\u2019re going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1314729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 14:25:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}