Taking A Stand On Both Sides Of An Issue
September 21, 2019 at 12:45 a.m.
By Gary [email protected]
I’m not a fan.
For one thing, my inbox gets spammed by his campaign asking for donations. I’ve tried to unsubscribe. No luck.
But then there is this whole gun thing. I mean, if you want to confiscate guns, that’s a legitimate position to take. If you don’t want to confiscate guns, that’s also a legitimate position to take.
Problem is, he’s taken both positions.
Here’s the transcript of an radio interview from back in 2018 when Beto was making his now legendary run against Republican Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate.
The interviewer asked, “Throughout West Texas, probably throughout Texas, you get a lot of questions on the Second Amendment. You were recently in Houston … and you were talking about the AR-15, and you said that no one should be able to buy an AR-15. They should not be able to be sold to civilians in the United States. I own an AR-15, lots of my listeners own AR-15s. Why should they not have one?”
Beto:
“Well, to be clear, they should have one. If you purchased that AR-15, if you own it, keep it. Continue to use it responsibly.
“I think Texas has a real opportunity to lead on this issue because we so jealously guard that Second Amendment. We believe in it, we’ll defend it. We have this proud, rich tradition of hunting, of owning guns for self defense, for sport, for collection as you may own that AR-15 for. Just because it is fun to shoot.
“But we also have a really deep understanding of gun safety and the responsibility and accountability that comes with owning that gun. My great-uncle Raymond, who was an El Paso County sheriff’s deputy and captain at the county jail, he was the one who taught me how to shoot and also taught me that responsibility.
“And it is gun owners and non-gun owners alike in Texas who I think are really leading this conversation around things like allowing the CDC to study things like gun violence, around having comprehensive, without exception, universal background checks, and around weapons of war like the AR-15, which were designed and sold to the U.S. military in the first place because it is so good, so efficient, so effective at killing people.”
Then Beto went on to talk about why he had come to the conclusion that the sale and manufacture of AR-15s should be banned.
The interviewer pressed him on the issue, asking if that type of policy wasn’t punishing the majority of law-abiding gun owners who might want to buy an AR-15 over the actions of a tiny minority of bad people.
Beto said this:
“I don’t think so, and again, we support the Second Amendment, if you own a gun, keep that gun. Nobody wants to take it away from you. At least, I don’t want to do that.
“But someone might have mounted the same argument in the 1930s. when we decided that we had so many machine gun killings in this country that there had to be a public policy to meet the challenge. And yes, we reduced your right to buy that machine gun and perhaps those who wanted to responsibly own those machine guns felt as though they were under attack.
“We didn’t take anyone’s machine gun from them and you still meet Texans all the time who have machine guns from that era, keep them as family heirlooms, own them responsibly, aren’t going out gunning anybody down.”
Seems pretty clear. He doesn’t want to take guns away from law-abiding gun owners. He drove that point home twice in a short interview.
Then there was the recent Democrat debate, where, according to one of those spam emails I get from his campaign, “Beto knocked it out of the park.”
They are referring to this headline-grabbing rant:
“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans any more.”
I know politicians flip-flop all the time, but this is a bit beyond the pale. It’s like going from anti-abortion to pro-abortion from one campaign to the next.
And another thing. I saw Beto being interviewed on “Meet the Press” by Chuck Todd. The venerable newsman Todd asked Beto all about his gun comment, but never even mentioned Beto’s previous aversion to gun confiscation.
Oh sure, Todd asked him about a “change of heart” with regard to his use of “very careful wording about guns” when in Congress. But he didn’t pin him down over his repeated and outright denunciation of gun confiscation.
That’s news and politics in today’s America folks. I’m about to throw in the towel.
Latest News
E-Editions
I’m not a fan.
For one thing, my inbox gets spammed by his campaign asking for donations. I’ve tried to unsubscribe. No luck.
But then there is this whole gun thing. I mean, if you want to confiscate guns, that’s a legitimate position to take. If you don’t want to confiscate guns, that’s also a legitimate position to take.
Problem is, he’s taken both positions.
Here’s the transcript of an radio interview from back in 2018 when Beto was making his now legendary run against Republican Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate.
The interviewer asked, “Throughout West Texas, probably throughout Texas, you get a lot of questions on the Second Amendment. You were recently in Houston … and you were talking about the AR-15, and you said that no one should be able to buy an AR-15. They should not be able to be sold to civilians in the United States. I own an AR-15, lots of my listeners own AR-15s. Why should they not have one?”
Beto:
“Well, to be clear, they should have one. If you purchased that AR-15, if you own it, keep it. Continue to use it responsibly.
“I think Texas has a real opportunity to lead on this issue because we so jealously guard that Second Amendment. We believe in it, we’ll defend it. We have this proud, rich tradition of hunting, of owning guns for self defense, for sport, for collection as you may own that AR-15 for. Just because it is fun to shoot.
“But we also have a really deep understanding of gun safety and the responsibility and accountability that comes with owning that gun. My great-uncle Raymond, who was an El Paso County sheriff’s deputy and captain at the county jail, he was the one who taught me how to shoot and also taught me that responsibility.
“And it is gun owners and non-gun owners alike in Texas who I think are really leading this conversation around things like allowing the CDC to study things like gun violence, around having comprehensive, without exception, universal background checks, and around weapons of war like the AR-15, which were designed and sold to the U.S. military in the first place because it is so good, so efficient, so effective at killing people.”
Then Beto went on to talk about why he had come to the conclusion that the sale and manufacture of AR-15s should be banned.
The interviewer pressed him on the issue, asking if that type of policy wasn’t punishing the majority of law-abiding gun owners who might want to buy an AR-15 over the actions of a tiny minority of bad people.
Beto said this:
“I don’t think so, and again, we support the Second Amendment, if you own a gun, keep that gun. Nobody wants to take it away from you. At least, I don’t want to do that.
“But someone might have mounted the same argument in the 1930s. when we decided that we had so many machine gun killings in this country that there had to be a public policy to meet the challenge. And yes, we reduced your right to buy that machine gun and perhaps those who wanted to responsibly own those machine guns felt as though they were under attack.
“We didn’t take anyone’s machine gun from them and you still meet Texans all the time who have machine guns from that era, keep them as family heirlooms, own them responsibly, aren’t going out gunning anybody down.”
Seems pretty clear. He doesn’t want to take guns away from law-abiding gun owners. He drove that point home twice in a short interview.
Then there was the recent Democrat debate, where, according to one of those spam emails I get from his campaign, “Beto knocked it out of the park.”
They are referring to this headline-grabbing rant:
“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans any more.”
I know politicians flip-flop all the time, but this is a bit beyond the pale. It’s like going from anti-abortion to pro-abortion from one campaign to the next.
And another thing. I saw Beto being interviewed on “Meet the Press” by Chuck Todd. The venerable newsman Todd asked Beto all about his gun comment, but never even mentioned Beto’s previous aversion to gun confiscation.
Oh sure, Todd asked him about a “change of heart” with regard to his use of “very careful wording about guns” when in Congress. But he didn’t pin him down over his repeated and outright denunciation of gun confiscation.
That’s news and politics in today’s America folks. I’m about to throw in the towel.
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092