Beto O’Rourke, a failed presidential, gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, recently said that he stands by his viral 2019 anti-gun comments.
While appearing on Hasan Minhaj’s podcast “Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know,” O’Rourke was asked if he regretted making “extremely unpopular” comments during a 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate in which O’Rourke said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.”
“This was extremely unpopular and I just want to let you know we’ve all said things on stage that we regret, myself included. Do you regret saying that as you were running for president,” asked Minhaj after showing a clip of O’Rourke.
“No,” said O’Rourke. It should be noted that O’Rourke suspended his campaign just over a month after making those comments. Former President Joe Biden (D) also promised from the campaign trail to have O’Rourke on his team to “take care of the gun problem” with him but never included him in any official capacity.
Minhaj then showed a clip of O’Rourke, during his failed gubernatorial run, confronting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) after a 2022 shooting in Uvalde, Texas, with Minhaj asking if his sentiment that day reflected the “median voter in Texas” or the “median comment in [O’Rourke’s] comments section because clearly the people of Texas … don’t want this change.”
The former congressman dodged answering the question directly, but claimed he finds “common ground” with his opponents in the form of raising the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 to 21, as well as with red-flag laws and so-called “universal” background checks. He added, “This is not my perfect solution, and I’d want more.”
O’Rourke said that his supposedly popular proposals have not been enacted because of “the NRA, among others.”
While O’Rourke is wrong about the popularity of his preferred anti-gun policies, he is right on one thing. The NRA absolutely will continue to fight unconstitutional proposals from O’Rourke and those like him at every level to defend American freedom.
