Democrat presidential candidates on “Night 1” talked about guns and their control schemes…
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
Two nights of debates among nearly two dozen Democrat candidates for president left one strong impression among America’s gun owners: Disarmament is on their agenda
In remarks reminiscent of the promises of a former president who assured Americans they could keep their doctors and health care plans, Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Eric Swalwell brought his gun control scheme to Debate Night No. 2, insisting, “Keep your pistols, keep your rifles, keep your shotguns, but we can take the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people.”
This was one night after Vox.com reported that among Democratic voters, “gun policy” is second only to “climate change” as a major concern. It was during the first of the two debates that New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s proposal to require licensing of gun owners brought a strongly negative reaction from gun owners.
…And they kept it up on Night 2, with a different set of presidential hopefuls. (Screen snips, YouTube, NBC)
Near the end of second evening’s “top tier” debate between candidates Swalwell stuck to his gun control scenario of getting citizens to surrender their so-called “assault weapons” in a mandatory “buy-back” that amounted to forced surrender of firearms in exchange for payment. He talked about frightened children, asserting that “parents now send their kids to school remembering what they’re wearing ‘in case we have to identify them later.’”
Sen. Bernie Sanders chimed in, declaring that the United States is experiencing a “gun crisis” and vowing that he would ban the sale and distribution of “assault weapons.”
Harris declared she would “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 the most comprehensive background policy we’ve had.”
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, citing his military service in Afghanistan, remarked, “As somebody who trained on weapons of war, I can tell you that there are weapons that have absolutely no place in American cities or neighborhoods in peacetime. Ever.”
Biden’s contribution was little more than a cliché, “If more guns made us safer, we would be the safest country on Earth.”
The former vice president also insisted that “smart gun” technology should become mandatory.
“We should have smart guns,” Biden stated. “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.”
Their remarks all followed by 24 hours the positions espoused by Booker and several of his fellow candidates who appeared for the two nights of debate in Miami, Florida. Readers responding to coverage of the senator’s remarks in NJ.com wondered if Booker, the former Newark mayor and an avowed anti-gunner, ever read the Bill of Rights.
Writing at Townhall, Beth Baumann observed, “People like Booker are dangerous, especially when it comes to our Constitutional rights. We shouldn’t need permission to own a gun. We shouldn’t need a piece of paper to exercise our Second Amendment rights.”
Writing at the Washington Examiner, Kaylee McGhee criticized Booker’s “misconstruction of Second Amendment rights and what exactly they entail.”
“Under the Constitution,” McGhee observed, “there is a fundamental distinction between rights and enumerated powers. Acting on rights clearly listed in the Bill of Rights, such as the right to bear arms, does not require the government’s permission. But the government’s regulation of such rights does require permission — permission that must be granted by the people…
“The more we allow government to define and restrict the scope of our rights, the more freedoms we will lose,” McGhee added. “This is about more than bump stocks and school safety. This is about the Constitution and the people who sanction it.”
Perhaps as alarming as the Democrats’ attitude towards the Second Amendment right was the way that NBC’s Chuck Todd couched the question during the first night’s debate: “Many of you are calling for tighter gun restrictions, some of you are even calling for restoration of the assault weapons ban, but even if it’s put in place, there’s still going to be perhaps hundreds of millions of guns still out there on the streets. Is there a role for the federal government to play in order to get these guns off the streets?”
The impression emerging from the two nights of debate, at least for Second Amendment activists, is that none of the candidates understands that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental right rather than a regulated government privilege.
The rhetoric amounted to more regulations, more restrictions and more demonization of firearms. And it rang hollow with gun rights activists.
The election is 16 months over the horizon. Between now and then, all of these Democrats will be traveling the country trying to sell themselves, and their programs. When it comes to selling gun control, they may soon discover that rights activists aren’t buying.
