Beto O’Rourke No Longer Wants to Take Away AR-15s: ‘I’m Not Interested in Taking Anything From Anyone’

Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke told reporters Wednesday he no longer wants to take rifles away from Americans.

While running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2019, O’Rourke pitched a mandatory gun buyback program.

ABC’s David Muir asked O’Rourke during a debate, “Are you proposing taking away their guns, and how would this work?”

O’Rourke responded:

I am. If it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield. If the high-impact, high-velocity round, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body, because it was designed to do that, so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers.

“Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” He also said. “We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.”

Hell yeah, we’re going to take your AR-15. If it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on the battlefield, we’re going to buy it back. pic.twitter.com/cCEWkG6y0X

— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) September 13, 2019

But the former congressman has changed his tune.

O’Rourke was in Tyler, Texas on Wednesday, where he spoke about the state’s power grid. At one point, he was asked about his controversial 2019 comments about seizing firearms.

He said, “I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone. What I want to make sure that we do is defend the Second Amendment.

He added,

I want to make sure that we protect our fellow Texans far better than we’re doing right now. And that we listen to law enforcement, which Greg Abbott refused to do. He turned his back on them when he signed that permit-less carry bill that endangers the lives of law enforcement in a state that’s seen more cops and sheriff’s deputies gunned down than in any other.

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