Democrat Debate: Candidates Push Gun Laws That Failed Two Days Ago in California

Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, John Hickenlooper, and others during the Democrat debate pushed universal background checks and other gun controls that failed to prevent Sunday’s Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting.

Klobuchar said she watched President Trump “fold” when he had a chance to push universal background checks, and she pledged she will not “fold” if elected. She pledged to “get universal background checks passed” and “the assault weapons ban.” She said she will also do something about “magazines.”

Buttigieg said, “Ninety percent of Republicans want universal background checks.” He said people also want “the common sense solutions, like red flag laws,” as well as a ban on “assault weapons.”

Hickenlooper talked about passing universal background checks in Colorado and lamented that the federal government has yet to put such checks in place.

Sanders also pledged “universal background checks” and said he would end the “gun show loophole.”

Ironically, California has had an “assault weapons” ban for approximately three decades, and the state has had universal background checks for over two decades. Such background checks necessarily close the so-called “gun show loophole,” so it is safe to say that loophole has been absent in California for roughly 25 years. Moreover, California has a confiscatory red flag law. Yet the gunman who struck the Gilroy Garlic Festival on July 28, 2019, was able to shoot three people fatally and wound over 12 others.

Prior to the Gilroy shooting, our nation witnessed the April 27, 2019, Poway Synagogue shooting in San Diego; the November 7, 2018, Borderline Bar & Grill shooting in Thousand Oaks; and the April 18, 2017, downtown shooting in Fresno; among many others.

California gun controls failed to stop any of these attacks.

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.