By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The National Shooting Sports Foundation is expressing alarm and news agencies are highlighting remarks by California Congressman Robert Garcia, a Democrat, who said in an interview last week with CNN that “the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight.”
Garcia was talking about the influence Elon Musk is currently having in his effort to reduce government spending and increase government efficiency as head of President Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).
The congressman was being interviewed by CNN’s Brianna Keller regarding his reference to Musk as “a dick.” Fox News ran the clip with the “D”-word edited out, while Must Read Alaska left the remark unedited when they both published film clips with full audio.
Here is what Garcia said to Keller: “Well he is a dick, and I think he’s also harming the American public in an enormous way. What I think is really important and what the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is an actual fight for democracy, for the future of this country, and it’s important to push back on the chairperson of this committee.”
NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Larry Keane, in a commentary posted at the group’s website, added a Second Amendment perspective to the discussion. Observing how Garcia’s remark “reminded the country last week why the Second Amendment is so vital to the United States,” Keane did not spare his criticism.
“Those are chilling and dangerous words coming from a lawmaker who wants to strip every law-abiding citizen of their rights to keep and bear arms,” Keane writes.
Several paragraphs later, Keane declares, “This might be the first time Rep. Garcia has indicated any support for private firearm ownership. He’s in favor of banning Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) and banning adults under 21 from possessing a firearm. He also wants so-called ‘universal background checks’ which would require a national firearm registry to work and would be very convenient that Rep. Garcia would know exactly who owned what firearms and where they are stored. Rep. Garcia wants to institute a federal licensing system. That would be even more convenient because he could ensure only those who support his political agenda would be approved.”
Garcia told the Long Beach Post he was merely “using a figure of speech.” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) didn’t take it that way, instead introducing a censure resolution.
Keane notes Garcia isn’t the first Democrat to talk about actually arming up for a political fight. Back in 2018, another anti-gun California congressman, Eric Swalwell, suggested the government might use nuclear weapons if a war were to break out over Second Amendment rights. When he was president, Joe Biden intimated the same thing.
It raises the question as to why Democrats, who support all sorts of restrictions on firearms owners, are quick to talk about using weapons in the battle over which direction the nation is taking.
