Democrat presidential hopeful Robert “Beto” O’Rourke told CBS News in an interview this week that he will fund his AR-15 buyback via money from gun manufacturers.
CBS News’s Tim Perry asked, “How much do you think a mandatory gun buyback would cost taxpayers?”
O’Rourke responded:
I think a mandatory buyback can be financed with a surcharge that would be paid by gun manufacturers, those who are making the AR-15s and AK-47s and continue to sell them into our communities despite the terror that they’ve inspired and the lives that have been taken.
O’Rourke said his surcharge would fund a buyback “without imposing any new taxes on…Americans.”
He did not mention that the surcharge would raise the price of the firearm, the equivalent of a new tax.
O’Rourke also omitted FBI crime stats for 2018, which show over twice as many people were killed with fists and feet than were killed with rifles of any kind. Those same FBI stats show over five times as many people were killed with knives and cutting instruments than were killed with rifles of any kind.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation calculates there are 16 million-plus privately owned AR-15s in the U.S.
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.
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