Manchin: 'Beto O'Rourke is not taking my guns away from me'

[Celerity]

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/462019-manchin-beto-orourke-is-not-taking-my-guns-away-from-me

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) told reporters Wednesday that presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke is "not taking my guns away from me."

Manchin told a Wall Street Journal reporter that the former Texas representative did not speak for all Democrats when vowing to complete mandatory buybacks for certain high-powered rifles.

"Beto's one human being," Manchin said, according to a Journal reporter. "He gave his own opinion, OK? I think it was very harmful to make it look like all the Democrats. I can tell you one thing: Beto O'Rourke's not taking my guns away from me. You tell Beto that OK?"

Manchin's comments follow O'Rourke's statements on gun control during the Democratic presidential debate on Thursday, when the candidate said, "Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47." O'Rourke has made his support of stricter gun control a centerpiece of his campaign following a shooting in his hometown of El Paso, Texas, that killed 22 people.

snip

[qazplm135]

4. So the answer

Is to say we're going to do something that's never going to happen?

[Celerity]

9. we need to bring back the AWB, absolutely, fuck the NRA and gun-humping RWers

Manchin is the type who in between voting with the Trump and the Rethugs over 60% of time in the last full Congress and endorsing and campaigning for Rethug Collins in Maine will find time to vote against even the milquetoast background checks even though he is not up for reelection until 2024.

[qazplm135]

17. The AWB

Didn't involve going and taking people's guns.

[boomer_wv]

37. No.

Manchin introduced universal background check legislation a few years ago. He's been advocating for it for a while.

[in2herbs]

6. Agree. nt

[Iggo]

35. I suspect that may be true.

[maxsolomon]

2. Molon Labe, Beto!

This nation turns everything into a Binary Opposition. Now it's a Dem Senator purposely misunderstanding a statement by a EX Congressman with zero power.

MSSAs are not "all guns". They are Military-Styled Semi-Automatic rifles. No one "needs" a MSSA. They WANT one, because a. they're thrilling to shoot, b. it pisses off the Libtards, or c. they're scared of their own shadows.

We're decades away from confiscating them, if ever. No one's ever coming for your hunting rifle, dipshits.

[JI7]

3. Beto is going to go to west Virginia and talk gun control

[Devil Child]

5. Thank you Sen. Manchin!

[Celerity]

15. for what? Pushing a RW talking point?

NO major Democrat has said they were going to take all guns. We do need to bring back the AWB.

[Devil Child]

23. For having common sense

Beto is a "major Democrat" running for the highest office on a platform of mandatory confiscation of legally held firearms. This is now a "Democratic talking point" thanks to Beto.

[BannonsLiver]

26. Hypothetically, if this came to fruition would it be enough for you to switch parties and vote GOP?

Just trying to see where the line is.

[Celerity]

27. they are only legal until they are not, and you ARE pushing a RW talking point by conflating

AW's with all guns, just like Manchin and the Rethugs are.

[Prosper]

29. BTW at 284 Policemen to 100,000 citizens we rank

90th in the world for police to citizens. We rank #1 in the world for guns per citizens. Bring the USA up to # 1 for police per citizens and the gun violence where it is highest in cities would go down.

[Grins]

7. Manchin is a hunter...

Manchin is a hunter.
To my knowledge he DOES NOT hunt with an AR-15 or an AK-47 (no respectable hunter does), nor does he own either of them.
His argument is bunk.

[evertonfc]

8. Beto

is my fav canidate but this proposal is a pipe dream.

[Celerity]

10. Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act or Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

It was already done 25 years ago and that was in a FAR less woke nation.

[qazplm135]

19. And it explicitly didn't involve taking guns

Which is what Beto said.

[Celerity]

24. time marches on, I have no problem with an option of a buyback, mandatory if needed,

being on the table for discussion.

There are tens of millions of AW's out there than before, maybe 100 million, and certainly 100's of millions of more guns overall. The 2nd Amendment is NOT a national semi suicide pact.

[42bambi]

11. Beto did not say that he was

taking "guns" away from any of us; what he said was in reference to taking away AK-47's and AR-15's.
I listened to the media just today saying the same thing, that Beto wants to take our guns! Let's be very clear on this important discussion. Our forefathers had not a clue that such weapons would exist when writing the second amendment!

[Celerity]

12. +10000

[Devil Child]

18. Beto proposed manditory confiscation of legal firearms

No wordplay around it. Beto is now a self-declared gun-confiscation candidate.

[MrsCoffee]

42. If you ban them, they aren't legal anymore.

In response to questions about the constitutionality of his proposal, O'Rourke's campaign told CNN that the confiscation of AR-15-style weapons would be legal, and cited Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion from Heller, that the regulation of "dangerous [and] unusual weapons" does not violate the Second Amendment.


I applaud Beto for his stance. Gun clingers don’t have a right to own personal weapons of mass destruction. Our children’s right to life outweighs any imagined slight the NRA has told them they are suffering.

Enough is enough.

[Marengo]

46. Nothing unusual about a rifle that's been available for civilian sales since 1964, and one of...

The most popular selling today. IIRC, something like 1 in 5 of firearms sold are an AR-15 type. Additionally, what is the definition of “dangerous” in this context.

[MrsCoffee]

47. It should be fucking unusual.

Just because we've been wrong since 1964 doesn't mean we should continue.

If we just kept doing things because that's how it's always been done, we wouldn't get very far now would we?

[qazplm135]

22. True or false

The AWB resulted in weapons of any kind being taken away?


False.

[customerserviceguy]

34. By that logic

the First Amendment should apply only to books, newspapers, spoken words in the same room and broadsides, not to radio, TV, or the Internet.

[Rhiannon12866]

39. +1001!

[Midnight Writer]

14. The only President I have ever heard propose a "gun grab" without due process is Trump.

[JanetLovesObama]

20. Manchin is NO Democrat !!!! I have been saying for years

he needs to jump on over to the dark, hateful side. I cannot stand him.

[Funtatlaguy]

21. Beto should challenge Manchin to a debate

[melman]

25. He's a hell of a guy that Manchin

[Celerity]

28. go to a Susan Collins campaign rally next fall and tell him that, lololol

[kacekwl]

30. Shut up Joe, as always

you are the monkey wrench in the gear of getting anything done. Discussion within your party is the way to handle this not public criticism A-hole.

[Nevermypresident]

33. True, but that's not his agenda is it?

[Bidenator]

31. The Ban renewal got crushed after Sandy Hook and has zero chance in the senate now

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2013-apr-17-la-pn-dianne-feinstein-assault-weapons-vote-20130417-story.html

Feinstein won the backing of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who had previously voted against renewing the ban. But 15 of her fellow Democrats, including a number from Western states, and one independent voted against the ban, as did all Republicans except Sen. Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois.

[Tiggeroshii]

32. WHOAH HOLD ON! You can assert a policy disagreement with somebody without threatening their life??!

Who woulda thunkit? I know of some State legislators in Texas who can learn a thing or two from Senator Manchin.

[Bradical79]

36. Never liked Joe Manchin

He values his deadly toys over human lives, like most Conservatives.

[comradebillyboy]

38. I think Beto got out a little too far over his skis as the saying goes.

Buy backs are a good idea. Using the language of confiscation is a bad idea. It brings up very unfortunate imagery of the police knocking on every door.

[cwydro]

45. This.

The repubs will use this against us.

[no_hypocrisy]

40. Why does Joe Manchin need assault weapons?

Isn't that what he's really saying?

[Celerity]

43. Manchin is reading straight from the RW playbook by conflating just AW's with ALL guns

His own office said he doesn't even own any AW's, thus would not be affected at all, yet he still says

I can tell you one thing: @BetoORourke's not taking my guns away from me. You tell Beto that OK?"

It is bullshit.

[BeckyDem]

41. What Beto said about guns is what ALL Democrats should be saying.

Then you work your ass off to make it happen. And you don't stop, period.

[brooklynite]

44. The AWB did NOT "ban" assault weapons...

It banned the manufacturing of new ones. It said nothing about the ongoing ownership of them, and included a grandfather clause to allow for possession and transfer of lawfully obtained ones.

[aikoaiko]

48. Beto's mandatory buyback (confiscation) is hugely problematic.

For one, it is a more extreme policy than the one we implemented for actual machine guns -- the firearms actually used in war.

For machine guns, we only required that they be registered and it worked. Homicides with legally own and registered machine guns went to near zero rates.

There is no logical way to make the case that semi-auto rifles are more dangerous or unusual than machine guns.