Pete Buttigieg: Gun Control ‘Compatible with the Second Amendment’

Democrat presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg used a question and answer session during an Iowa speech to claim numerous gun controls he supports are “completely compatible with the Second Amendment.”

C-Span published the question and answer session, wherein an audience member stood and read aloud a question centered on school shootings. The questioner identified himself as a millennial, “a hunter,” and “a responsible gun owner.” He asked what “policies and measures [Buttigieg] would take to ensure responsible gun laws.” Buttigieg replied:

 Like you, I come from a place where gun rights are taken very seriously, and that’s okay. The reality is, that the gun safety measures we’re calling for are completely compatible with the Second Amendment and, by the way, are widely popular.

Buttigieg then listed gun controls he supports. Those include criminalizing private gun sales via universal background checks and implementing policies pushed by Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a gun control group of which Buttigieg is a member.

He also used the Obama-era moniker of “weapons of war” to describe certain commonly owned semiautomatic rifles and said, “There are some weapons that don’t belong in our neighborhoods in peacetime in America.” He suggested we already know that banning such firearms is compatible with the Second Amendment; that “we’ve already decided that somewhere between a sling shot and a nuclear weapon we can draw a line.”

Buttigieg has also voiced support for other gun controls. On April 20, 2019, Breitbart News reported that one of those additional controls is reinstating the Social Security gun ban.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.