Updated Wednesday at 8:50 a.m. with auto worker saying Biden “went off the deep end”
WASHINGTON — Beto O’Rourke’s endorsement at a Dallas honky tonk on the eve of Super Tuesday gave Joe Biden a huge jolt in Texas last week. But it also came at a price, associating him with a demand for mandatory buybacks of assault-style weapons that came back to bite him Tuesday, and could haunt him into the fall.
As the former vice president stumped in Detroit, an auto worker accused him of being a gun-grabber and cited his new alliance with O’Rourke, who memorably declared at a Houston presidential debate in September that "hell, yes, we are going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
That inflamed gun rights advocates, who view “mandatory buyback” as a euphemism for confiscation that would violate their constitutional rights.
“You are actively trying to diminish our Second Amendment right and take away our guns,” the man said.
“You’re full of [expletive],”Biden shot back. “I’m not taking your gun away, at all."
Gun rights are a perennial topic in presidential campaigns. Republicans and gun rights groups pounced on O’Rourke’s “hell yes” comment, after a rampage at a Walmart in his hometown left 22 people dead, calling it evidence that Democrats would readily trample the Second Amendment if given a chance. The NRA used the Biden-O’Rourke alliance to paint the Democratic front-runner as a dangerous radical on guns, asserting that he would name the Texan as his “gun control czar,” which may not be much of a stretch.
Groups working to curb gun violence were dismayed at O’Rourke’s comment at the time, fearing that such an aggressive stance would make it harder to find common ground with law abiding gun owners. Democratic rivals distanced themselves. Biden seemed to toss aside any such qualms as he basked in O’Rourke’s support the night before the Texas primary, embracing the former El Paso congressman without explicitly promoting confiscation.
“I’m going to guarantee you, this is not the last you’ve seen of this guy," Biden told a raucous crowd at Gilley’s, his arm on O’Rourke. "You’re going to take care of the gun problem with me. You’re going to be the one that leads this effort. I’m counting on you.”
Joe Biden promises Beto O'Rourke, who pushed for gun confiscation for legal gun owners, will “be the one who leads" his gun control effort pic.twitter.com/qjgft8wFkt
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 3, 2020
The comments set gun rights groups afire.
“By saying he’ll put O’Rourke in charge of all of this, Biden has gone all-in against American freedom,” the editor in chief of the NRA publication America’s 1st Freedom wrote. “For decades now, Americans who cherish their Second Amendment have noticed that confiscation is clearly the endgame gun-control activists and like-minded politicians have in mind. ... By saying O’Rourke would be his point person on the gun issue, Biden has declared he would try door-to-door-style confiscation.”
Before dropping out on Nov. 1, O’Rourke acknowledged that indeed, he would send law enforcement to the homes of gun-owners who refused to turn in a banned weapon, just as they would go door to door to find suspects of any crime.
But Biden’s platform does not include mandatory buybacks, and Factcheck.org has debunked that allegation. Rather, his platform offers a voluntary buyback program for gun owners who don’t want to register their “assault weapons” under the National Firearms Act.
Conservatives have pelted Biden for his alliance with O’Rourke.
“He said he was coming to take our AR-15s. I have one, so I want to invite him to my house first and see how that goes,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Trump’s Texas campaign co-chair, said on Fox News the night after the Dallas endorsement. “That just added two or three points to President Trump’s victory in November, if it’s the Biden-and-Beto show. ... Let him send [O’Rourke] out there to take our guns and he takes the whole Democrat Party down, so, great move, Joe.”
On Friday, GOP Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado posted a video daring Biden and O’Rourke to pry away the AR-15 he keeps in his office at the U.S. Capitol: “If you want to take everyone’s AR-15s in America, why don’t you swing by my office in Washington, DC, and start with this one."
O’Rourke’s response: “This guy makes the case for both an assault weapons ban and a mandatory buyback program better than I ever could. These are weapons of war that have no place in our communities, in our politics or in our public discourse.”
Both Buck’s tweet and O’Rourke’s caught viral attention online, reflecting the strong feelings on both sides of the gun debate.
This guy makes the case for both an assault weapons ban and a mandatory buyback program better than I ever could. These are weapons of war that have no place in our communities, in our politics or in our public discourse. https://t.co/ce5PvaxqMk
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 6, 2020
After the Gilley’s rally, Biden joined O’Rourke and his wife, Amy, for dinner at a Whataburger near downtown Dallas, saying at one point during the livestreamed meal that if elected, he would follow through on enlisting O’Rourke as his point person on gun violence: “And by the way, this guy can change the face of what we’re dealing with, with regard to guns — assault weapons — with regard to dealing with climate change, and I just want — I’m warning Amy, if I win, I’m coming for him.”
On Tuesday morning, Biden was stumping at a Fiat-Chrysler auto plant in Detroit on the day of the Michigan primary when a worker named Jerry Wayne pointedly accused him of trying to take his guns. News crews and co-workers with cell phones captured the tense exchange.
“I support the Second Amendment," Biden insisted. "The Second Amendment – just like right now, if you yell ‘fire,’ that’s not free speech. … I have a shotgun. I have a 20-gauge, a 12-gauge. My sons hunt. Guess what, you’re not allowed to own [absolutely] any weapons. I’m not taking your gun away, at all. You need a hundred rounds?”
Wayne responded by invoking O’Rourke, and “viral” footage of his endorsement, which conservative media have amplified in the last week.
“You were with Beto and you said you were going to take our guns,” he said.
“I did not say that. I did not say that,” Biden insisted. “We’ll take the AR-14s away,” he said, misspeaking. He was no doubt referring to AR-15s, the most popular rifle in America, with an estimated 17.7 million in private hands. “Here’s the deal. Are you able to own a machine gun?”
“Machine guns are illegal,” the man said.
“That’s right. Well AR-15s [should be] illegal,” said Biden, who at one point in the exchange told Wayne to not be “such a horse’s ass.”
On Wednesday morning, Wayne told Fox & Friends that Biden “went off the deep end," though he didn’t begrudge the salty language, saying, “I use it all the time. Most people use it all the time.”
After the confrontation in Detroit, the Trump campaign highlighted a CNN interview Biden gave last August in which he readily acknowledged that he would ban AR-15s, a popular assault-style rifle, and suggested that he might confiscate them, too.
"To gun owners out there who say, well, a Biden administration means they’re going to come for my guns,” asked CNN’s Anderson Cooper, at which point Biden interjected, "Bingo. You’re right, if you have an assault weapon. … They should be illegal, period.”
