Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke has a plan to get AR-15s and “AK-47s” off the street. Of course, you’ve heard all about his “buyback,” but now he’s explained how he’ll pay for it without costing taxpayers a cent.
“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.”
[…]
“without imposing any new taxes on… Americans.”
Let us see how that would work. First, just for the sake of discussion, I’ll pretend I’d be willing to sell my hypothetical AR to the government (stop giggling; assumption), if they fully reimburse me the cost of the firearm.
So I go out and buy a…let’s call it a $600 AR, so I’ll have something to turn in. I would then sell it to Beto for the $600.
…except the surcharge-which-magically-isn’t-a-tax has to be large enough to allow the government to pay me full cost (they are going to pay full value…right?). So my new AR suddenly costs me $1,200, so they can collect enough cash to pay me the full price.
Um. Now, I want to be paid the full $1,200 I paid for the rifle. So the surcharge becomes that, making the price $2,400.
Lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum.
And the surcharge rapidly exceeds the federal debt, and continues soaring on a hyperbolic trajectory.
Clearly Beto Bobby’s grasp of economics is only exceeded by Congresswoman Occasional Cortex with her Monopoly Money Theory of modern slavery. But that’s another story.
My question is how is anyone going to get taxed when the people selling firearms are put out of business by tools like Beto? Last I checked many of the owners of those gun companies are American as well as employees who work at them.
Its a feature, not a bug.
Why waste any time on a moron who has zero chance of becoming a viable candidate?
Many candidates are in it to influence the policies and platform of the party, and you can see the other candidates lining up with good old beto.
You asked, “Why waste any time on a moron who has zero chance of becoming a viable candidate?”
Because that’s exactly what everyone said four years ago about Donald Trump, in 2015, and yet now look where he’s living, in a government housing project in DC.
At the state level, buybacks at the 100% of cost of original purchase might be a challenge. At the federal level, no big deal. There is no “need” the government lovers will not fund. Deficits mean nothing, and borrowing money is just too easy to ignore. We have seen fiscal conservatives telling us for fifty years that we will be financially ruined (as in nobody will take our money) unless we balance the budget. Yet, the beat goes on, and the US dollar remains the preferred “reserve” currency.
We can do this. We are America.
Modern Monetary Theory is quite possibly the dumbest idea ever. Even dumber than the old Carthaginian priests that self-castrated to show their religious devotion.
Yeah, Visa will let you run up bills and pay the minimums every month. Right up until they won’t. This is different only insofar as we don’t have a “credit limit” that’s set in stone by the rest of the world. But at a certain point they look at us, figure we can’t pay what we owe, and it all goes to shit really, really fast.
The argument in MMT that it doesn’t matter what you do so long as you control the ability to produce your own currency is falsified by numerous countries around the world that did in fact have this ability and managed to ruin their economies by following exactly what MMT proposes. 40 years ago people said this was stupid beyond belief. Now a bunch of idiots think it’s magically become the greatest idea since walking upright became a thing.
Controlling the world’s reserve currency lets us get away with it longer but not forever. Imagine for a moment that AOC’s Green New Deal came to be an actual thing. Just the retrofit for Pennsylvania, one of the 50 states, costs almost as much money as everything in the world is worth (Pennsylvania being estimated by Lefty think tanks, freakin’ Lefties here, to cost $4 quadrillion with the highest estimate of Earth’s value being $5 quadrillion).
No joke here, if an alien race showed up and wanted a “move in ready planet” we couldn’t sell them Earth and pay for the GND for more than a single state in the union. That’s how batshit crazy these people are.
The interesting thing is why the US currency doesn’t collapse like that of the Weimar Republic? Is it simply because of a lack of trust in any other currency to act as medium of exchange?
BTW, cracks me up when people get all excited about “trade imbalance”. If the world were a strict barter economy, “imbalance” might have a practical meaning. However, with currencies, the medium becomes the object. Thus, if i produce nothing for exchange, but have currency to trade for your product, there is no imbalance; value for value. You would not be trading with me because I can produce something different, but of the same value to you. We both trade currency for objects; value for value.
My understanding of our currency not crashing is because it is the currency required to be used in buying oil in the international market. The Saudis agreed to make the cartel adopt this measure as long as we protect them and we promise to buy “x’ amount of their crude whether we need it or not. One of the reasons also is that so many including China have a bunch of U S Treasury note and if the dollar crashed it would really put the hurt on them. It’s what I heard, I am no expert on the matter.
“My understanding of our currency not crashing is because it is the currency required to be used in buying oil in the international market. ”
Did not know that. Your comments present something to ponder.
Thanx
First the Eeuro then the RMB vied to unseat king dollar. Neither succeeded although a few oil producers tried dealing in Euros and that didnt work out.
“First the Eeuro then the RMB vied to unseat king dollar. Neither succeeded…”
Is the dollar king because, in the end, everyone trusts the US won’t screw with dollar valuations the way other countries have?
So many experts continue to claim the end will come, yet….
US debt is ~$22trillion
US GDP is ~ $20trillion
We can’t tax our way out of debt, and if we sold off the entirety of US production, service and any other asset, we would be ~$2trillion short, with no means of ever producing another item of value to sell.
“The interesting thing is why the US currency doesn’t collapse like that of the Weimar Republic?”
There are a number of reasons for this depending on how you look at it. Part of it is what you see above from Schrade and Rusty.
Part of it is also that we don’t have an extraction based empire to support like the Weimar Republic did. That means we don’t have to police it internally and fend of competition from the likes of the Belgians, French and Italians while worrying about the British enforcing ethics on us way the Weimar Republic did. Extractive colonies work well until they become an actual burden and then they become a big one. That’s why China is using the “belt and road” policy, a more creative version of British colonial policy, that minimizes costs while maximizing outputs.
You can, to some extent see the difference both in the mother countries and their former colonies. Most of Africa was under an extractive type of colonization and it’s a mess. The parts that fair better were under British control which, for the most part, was not extractive. Central and South America are mostly basket cases and they were under an extractive form of colonization from Portugal and Spain.
On top of that at this point the world system is built on the dollar, or some would say, the petro-dollar. Change to such a large system comes slowly or all at once but it either way takes A LOT to move it because a big, entrenched system like that has a lot of inertia. Generally, in my view, it’s brought down by something major (like the UK’s empire with WWII) or it’s brought down slowly over time by entropy within the system breaking down until replacement makes sense or the system becomes so bogged down that it cannot respond to challenges from other systems (kind of like how Roman Empire fell apart over a couple of centuries in large part due to internal rot) or just collapses under it’s own weight.
So, not to write a thesis paper here, I’ll just reiterate: MMT is stupid and the people who push it want the short term tactical power gains it gives them at the expense of long term strategic goals and true, lasting power.
“…MMT is stupid and the people who push it want the short term tactical power gains it gives them at the expense of long term strategic goals and true, lasting power.”
That old black magic of short-term, instant gratification thinking.
*breaking things down until
“…the dumbest idea ever. Even dumber than the old Carthaginian priests that self-castrated to show their religious devotion.”
Actually, it isn’t, if you understand true political motivations of the folks trying to implement it.
Ever heard of Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven?
Hard Leftists who wanted badly to ‘collapse the system’ so socialism could ‘save the day’, and replace capitalism.
“The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a socialist system of “a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty””
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy
“Ever heard of Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven?”
Interestingly, I drew parallels between them and Russian policy towards Moldova (as well as Georgia) when I presented a paper on Russian/Moldovan Relations back in late 2008. So yes, I’m familiar with them.
It’s pretty impressive what you can do when you appear to have abilities you do not, as the Russian military did back then (proved in large measure by the invasion of Georgia in 2008, where fully 1/3rd of Russian mechanized infantry and armor vehicles launched from a base ~30Km from the border in North Ossetia, didn’t make to into Georgia because the vehicles broke down).
Ed’s got it right. The world knows that it can always get oil for the US$, even if the USA itself is bankrupt. Hence ‘petrodollars’. This also explains some of the US sponsored ‘government changes’ in oil exporting countries.
Lucky for us, *cough*, “Beto the Magnanimous” has decided we can keep our ARs at a “hunting club”.
How… generous of him…
https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-beto-backs-off-confiscating-ar-15s-keep-it-at-a-hunting-club
Nothing to worry about, nobody is coming for our guns…
That’s right. They can just raid the hunting club and confiscate all of the rifles because of an anonymous tip and red flag laws.
strych9 got this exactly right. The US Dollar being the world’s reserve currency means there is a bunch of it being soaked up for all kinds of international trade, that along with China selling us much of what we buy at amazing discounts, and our large oil exports helps to disguise what is happening to the decrepit old USD.
The only real question is how long is this bubble going to float along constantly getting bigger and bigger before it pops. When it crashes will the government crash with it? Will the Chinese decide they want compensation for their all their worthless t-bills and dollars in the form of land, and demand we give them California? What about the rest of the folks who own piles of worthless US Dollars, will they accept being left holding the bag, or will they demand land or resources as compensation?
“What about the rest of the folks who own piles of worthless US Dollars, will they accept being left holding the bag, or will they demand land or resources as compensation?”
Seems like the entire world profits from maintaining the façade. Removing the mask would destroy every nation. Who would be the first to commit economic suicide?
“…will they accept being left holding the bag, or will they demand land or resources as compensation?”
Ultimately I don’t think this is possible or a realistic outcome.
Instead I think you’d see something somewhat similar to the financial crisis of 07/08. A panicked scramble as everything went to shit and no one knew who owed whom or in what form.
Fox Business used to play a video occasionally of a guy testifying before a Senate committee in the mid 1990’s. It also used to be on YouTube (damned if I can remember the dude’s name right now though). Spark’s Notes is this:
Guy’s a financial wiz and he’s testifying about what will happen in the future based on proposed changes to HUD/banking regulations. The Congress wants to loosen the rules for mortgages because there’s a report out that the number one way Americans statistically amass wealth is to own a house. So, they want more home ownership.
Homeslice points out that if you put in the proposed quota system you’ll crash the whole system because eventually you’ll run out of qualified buyers before you run out of unqualified buyers which means that as you move further out along the bell curve you end up having to write a very risky loan in order to be allowed to write a safer loan. Over time you’ll get to the point, based on demographics where you’ll write more bad loans than you will good loans but, likely, before you hit that point the system will collapse due to the inability of credit to move when people cannot identify what is and what is not a rational risk.
In the middle of this John-Motherfucking-Kerry-Himself questions the guy and says that this is all nice and theoretical, but when will it happen? Homie says he can’t put a date on it because it’s not possible to predict the future with certainty in terms of the rates at which homes will be bought, sold, loans will be given and derivatives created (these were already a long standing financial tool at the time). Kerry asserts that the man is wrong because he cannot give an exact date. The man protests that it’s inevitable but that no, he cannot tell you it will be July 21, 20XX but that he would guess it would take somewhere on the order of two to three decades.
Which argument carries the day? The dumbass one. And what happens a bit over two decades later? Exactly what this guy told the Senate would happen.
And what happens then? A panic that freezes the credit market to the point that even companies doing good business and with decent assets fold because they can’t get any credit to roll over their obligations. In the erudite speak of Le Paris: A shitshow.
“The only real question is how long is this bubble going to float along constantly getting bigger and bigger before it pops.”
Look at what China is doing right now for the answer. If they stop, their economy crashes. Then *massive* civil unrest will break out. President Xi cannot let that happen. So China will keep on pumping RMB into their economy.
The situation in China is even more precarious than many realize. This video is well worth the look, it’s by a South Afrikaner and American currently living in China.
They are going show a construction project that *literally* looks like its 50 years old. It’s only * 3 * years old. The concrete is crumbling into dust. 3 year-old concrete. It’s a typical example of the construction currently going on in China :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XopSDJq6w8E
That video was what is happening the the urban areas.
This video shows the way things are in the interior, rural areas of China. It is *nothing* like what you would visualize if someone said “let’s go to a typical Chinese village.”
Utter squalor. And it’s like that all through rural China. It got that way because of what Mao did in his “cultural revolution”. The people of the 1950s generation are utterly broken people. This video shows and describes how China got that way.
A *highly* recommended view :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9eXi3RL8q4
Cool channel, I’ve never seen them before.
Those guys need better bikes for that show though.
I’d say “can someone get these guys…” but apparently they’re pretty wealthy regardless. So… go buy some crossovers or dirt bikes! The Triumph Tiger is a great traveling bike.
Typical socialist. “How do we pay for it? Just confiscate money from someone the people don’t like, of course!”
People like Beto are why we have the 2A.
It worked with tobacco….
Well, tobacco isn’t a constitutionally protected activity and it kills 10X more people than guns do each year.
Additionally, tobacco companies LIED about the dangers of tobacco and at one time even said smoking was good for you!
To my knowledge and don’t quote me on this because I have been wrong once or twice in the past, but I don’t believe any firearm or ammunition manufacturer EVER said it was good for you to get shot. 😉
I got shot once and it was good for me. Double barreled load of pork rinds. Taught me to stay out of watermelon patches that didn’t belong to me. My Mama said it was good for me.
Beto also thinks it would be just swell if you were required to store your AR, etc. at a range. Trouble is, in my 65 years of shooting, I’ve never seen, or even heard of, a range that does that.
Gun ranges aren’t exactly as common as post offices. Is Bob going to fund the construction of gun ranges all over the country?
Don’t be too sure about that. In MS we have at least twice as many ranges as Post Offices, but only about 1/10th of the number of Baptist churches – although sometimes they are combined church,range,cemetery facilities. 😉 🙂
The Beatoff has no business experience, no leadership experience and damn little understanding of the Constitution or government. Other than that he’s perfectly qualified to be a socialist-democrat Presidential nominee.
His biography reveals he’s never had a real job in his entire life. Wiki mentions his business career and it reads like the resume of somebody who’s just bounced from one temporary gig to another. Usually working for his family. The longest term employment he’s had is a series of government jobs. Any Democratic Candidate who really wanted to eliminate him just has to point to his record and ask if he’s ever had a real job!
When is that a deal breaker? We had a president who never had a real job! And it showed!!!!
Why is he still using oxygen a human could be using!?
One of my favorite evaluation statements used in the US Army is “- Soldier should be required to carry a potted plant at all times to replace stolen oxygen.”
LOL !! Remember it well, back when people used to called out for being dumb and proud of it.
I think Beto is depriving a village of it’s idiot.
“Beto’s Big Buyback: Hyperbolic, Not Hyperbole”
If nothing else, he’s single handedly delivered a 2nd term to Trump…he’s exposed the lefts vicious assault on the Constitution, the 2nd Amendment and law abiding citizens nationwide…
You know what they say. It’s better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you’re a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
They also say never to interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake.
I love how Manufacturers are no longer “Americans” I guess.
Manufacturers, buyers, owners…. Not an American or a taxpayer in that entire group of ne’er do well mouth breathers….
And, just like all taxes on business, it will be passed on to consumers. Just more political sleight of hand and a case study on the power of taxation being synonymous with the power to control.
“And, just like all taxes on business, it will be passed on to consumers.”
Hey! Are you saying that wealthy, international, global reach, evil corporations don’t actually pay taxes? That increasing corporate taxes in order to deplete profits doesn’t actually decrease profits because corporations are only tax collectors, taxes included in the price consumers pay for products and services?
Really?
You ungrateful, commie-pinko, truth-telling SOB…you should be banned from public forums and social media. You are dangerous to the status quo. Do you realize the damage to be done if taxpayers are informed about what you said? You are threatening the entire wealth confiscation scheme that took decades to engineer and make invisible.
Sam I Am you would be surprised at the amount of push back you get when you tell most people that, at least the Democrats. They will accept the fact that when cost of business goes up, corporations will pass the increased cost to the consumers. They refuse to accept the fact that business treats taxes just like any other cost.
“Sam I Am you would be surprised at the amount of push back you get when you tell most people that,…”
While my comment was/is sarc and ridicule, I have personal experience with what you made note of. Been trying for two years to convince a DemoDrone who owns a business, that he doesn’t (his company doesn’t) “pay taxes”. The guy refuses to accept that because he has an accounting ledger that shows all sorts of taxes he must write checks for.
When I pointed out that he does not take money from under his mattress to “pay” taxes” he must get it from somewhere. The business owner admitted that was true. He declared that he “pays” taxes in the form of lost profit; if he didn’t pay taxes, he could keep his prices the same, and generate greater profit. I admitted that the numbers could actually support that idea.
Then I asked how long he thought the increased profit could be sustained. He looked at me as if I had just fallen off the turnip truck and responded, “Forever”. Then I asked what would happen when his competitors figured out that they could take a little less profit, cut their prices, and take market share? Things got quiet for a moment, the the business owner said his competitors would never do that because it would mean they make less profit, an no one intentionally cuts profits.
” his competitors would never do that ”
You might want to point this rocket surgeon in the direction of any biography of John D. Rockefeller. Old John D. was famous for cutting the price on his kerosene, even to the point of taking a loss, when he wanted to move in and take market share from a competitor. Once the competition was crushed, of course, the price of his kerosene skyrocketed.
“You might want to point this rocket surgeon in the direction of any biography of John D. Rockefeller.”
When a business owner lets ideology blind him to the realities of the business, reading a biography is not going to happen. But, as it stands, both the business owner and I oppose raising corporate taxes (or even having corporate taxes).
Brilliant idea! Won’t cost taxpayers a dime! There’s just one thing I don’t get. Beto is also proposing a ban on the sale of scary rifles…. How much money can he raise by taxing the sale of an object that can’t be sold? We should elect him POTUS! He’s just full of good ideas! I think I’ll keep mine.
I would keep mine as well IF they had not already been stolen, all gone, nothing to see here, I was out of town that whole summer, didn’t even file a police report since I had no records of serial numbers… Even got off with around 15 thousand rounds of assorted ammo… Yep, no more guns in this house…..
Yup yup, I noticed that, but you beat me to the punch. Because you can only impose a surcharge on new sales. But if there are no new sales, to whom are these taxed rifles going to be sold if there is a ban? Oh, the police, right? So we will just tax the untaxable government! Brilliant!
The math, while it does fail, even when guns are confiscated for only a fraction of their original cost, is not the weak link here.
The far more critical flaw is in the logic of the source of funding to begin with.
Once John Q. Public realizes that the government WILL take their firearms at a fraction of their original cost, then John Q. Public, not being stupid, will simply STOP buying firearms from dealers.
That effectively eliminates the entire (stated) source of funds for the program. And proves yet again that Democrats are not so good a thinking things through.
Gosh Beta I bought my AR “used” but never fired from a pawnshop. Whattayougonnado about THAT contingency?!? Huh Beatoff?!? The joke continues😖
Could someone please explain to Beaten that a “mandatory” buyback is just another way of saying “confiscation”.
And how does he intend to enforce this “mandatory” buyback? By sending men with guns to oppress the people. Using gun violence to reduce gun violence – anyone else see a flaw in the logic here?
Logic …. LOGIC?? We don’t need no stinking LOGIC ’round here!!!!!
I’m supporting the Warren-O’Roarke ticket. Let’s see if the phony Indian and the fake Mexican can get any votes from actual Americans.
Beto’s plan won’t cost taxpayers a penny because no one is going to sell their weapons to a furry.
If Robert Francis “Beatoff Boy” O’Dourke would pull the thing he carries around on his shoulders,empty tho it is,out of his Commie dream world butt hole he might actually have a clue,but alas he’s hopelessly delusional.
Somebody should remind the left that the long train of abuses mentioned in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence doesn’t specify if the phrase refers to the passing of time or the length of the list.
He’s certainly ready to pay in blood. Blood that ain’t his.
Why does this buffoon still get any press? He is certainly not a presidential contender and the remaining nitwit candidates are still spewing enough nonsense that we don’t need his.
But, I suppose there is still entertainment value….
You can keep that entertainment. I think I’ll just go clean my guns. After that, I’ll paint the living room and watch it dry.
@ Bucephalus
I’m glad someone said that. When I saw his face again I was thinking why are we giving this creep exposure!
There are folks who I wish would just fade into obscurity, people like Creepy Porn Lawyer, Bloombag, Shannon, Hillary, Chris Hanson and Beta are on the list as are most Democrats.
The only purpose for Beta going forward is to expose extreme ideas so less extreme options however unpalatable such as magazine limits seem less extreme.
Bingo! And the maddening part is they think nobody realizes it.
More than entertainment value. Let him shout it all he wants and I hope the media all cover it. All he’s accomplishing is alienating the voters that may lean left, but don’t support the whack jobs currently leading the pack. Might be a good year for a solid libertarian candidate to make a showing. Considering WA is going to the Dems, no matter what, I’ll vote for them.
Haven’t you heard? Bob almost beat Ted Cruze! In Texas!! They’ll probably put that on his tombstone.
I have prayed but one prayer. Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.
Our God is a generous one.
Yep, from crazy old communists, to faux squaws…. He has been generous giving us enemies we can point at and mock!
I heard today on NPR that they had sent a reporter to a TAILGATE party for Pete Butigig! I am sure the people in the other cars around me at the stop light thought I had lost my mind I was laughing so hard! What kind of political campaign for a gay man is so clueless as to have a tailgate party as a campaign event?
If the confiscation is mandatory, how does he allow these deadly weapons of war to be sold?
I was under the impression that his “assault weapons” ban included a ban on the sale and manufacture. So the surcharge would bring in zero dollars. Which leaves him with $0 for a buyback. So we are back to an uncompensated seizures.
If you liked that, you’re going to love his plan to “end mass incarceration” immediately after having criminalized millions of gun owners.
If I understood the proposal correctly, the manufacturers would be charged this “fee”, that they would happily absorb. Perish the thought, it would be added to the sale price, and then of course that ever present sales tax would bite more heavily, or has Beto, via his august wisdom and largess offer a “work around”? By the way, how many terms in the U.S. House of Representatives was this clown elected to by his fellow Texans? He almost made U.S. Senator too.
Stop giving this idiot any credit or responding to his asinine ideas, with less than 1% of the vote why bother answering questions about this moron, he has as much chance as I do to become the President. No one would even show up to work, would you? He would be the only guy in the White House, along with the security guards who would have no guns.
Oh, he’ll see the inside of the oval office all right,,,,on the history channel!🤪
The Australian government paid well over cost for semi auto rifles and got maybe 50% compliance despite some of their claims to have more. Cost about $1000 per firearm. One person found with 110 banned items earlier this year. I think it was ex wife told police.
New Zealand government is offering a maximum of 90% for new dropping to as low as 30% for “very used”. So far under 20% compliance.
Not sure how Beto thinks he could afford or get even 20% compliance in USA. Even using “government money”.
Francis is delusional….
Maybe, maybe, he was thinking about crowd funding or a gofundme grass roots uprising, OR, maybe he just doesn’t have the capacity to think.
I think he was raising a different kind of grass.
I just took a good look at the picture at the top of this article. I may have discovered his problem. I think the boy is on meth.
So, the gun makers will have to sell guns like crazy to pay the taxes the government will use to buy the guns… they sold before…and then sell more guns to raise the taxes to… buy the guns they just sold…?
They must have some really good weed in Texas.
Beto, AKA, Francis the talking ass’s ass. Absolutely ZERO logic. Double the cost to the manufacturer, manufacturing stops. INSTANTLY. No weapons going out, no surcharge coming in, NO “BUYBACK”.
Third grade math.
Another easy third grade math problem: Solve for X: 1 Beto-brain / 1 Third grade math problem = X.
(Hint, X is much less than 1, and has a theoretical possibility of being less than 0)
About all these ARs and ASk he wants to get off our streets, what streets? Where do we have streets with rifles all over them? Personally, if he would say where guns are laying about I volunteer to go pick them up.
If these streets are too far away for me to travel, possibly someone closer by will step up?
Last thing we want is for America’s repeating arms to be unsupervised, out on the streets, using the crosswalks against the signal, playing in traffic.
I see now we need to address this guns on the streets issue. You know, like dog lovers do with Per Rescue. Find a stray and give it a good home.
Doesn’t sound so hard really.
Beto is just a useful for tool for the smoke and mirrors of the others. Nothing more than misdirection. The other bulbs may be dim but keeping an even dimmer one in the mix makes the others look that much brighter by comparison.
O’Rourke’s approach is deceptive in two ways. First, the term “mandatory buyback” is oxymoronic because in a free enterprise system, buying requires the existence of a willing seller. Use of the term “mandatory” negates the need for a willing seller. Without a willing seller, the process is defined as theft. It demonstrates how utterly absurd democrat rhetoric has become.
Secondly, O’Rourke justifies this colossal gun grab with Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 3, which says, “…Congress shall have power…To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states…” Sorry, confiscating legally owned products because they’re unpopular with a political party is not regulating commerce. Felonious at worst, razor thin at best. Not (ahem) buyin’ it.
All this hysteria is totally unnecessary and whipped up by democrats who desperately seek justification to disarm the American public. Big media rarely put the news in perspective. Even Bloomberg’s 2018 data reveals gun homicides declined seven percent, firearm injuries declined 10 percent, fatal child shootings (under 18) declined 12 percent and unintentional shootings plummeted 21 percent.
Generally, since 1991, the murder rate has fallen by 45 percent and the overall violent crime rate has fallen by 48 percent. And since 1999, the statistical probability of a student being killed in school, on any given day by a gun has been one in 614 million.
Further, shooting incidents involving students have been declining since the ’90s. During that time, citizens were buying a record number of firearms. Murder rates nationwide, generally by any means, have dropped 52 percent over 20 years and violent crime by 49 percent to a 41-year low. In 2018, more than 26 million firearms were purchased, a number exceeded only by 27.5 million in 2016 when purchasers were mortified that Hillary might be elected.
All but three mass shooters in recent history passed a background check. Two stole their firearms. The other one bought from a guy who assembled them from parts and sold them from home. They are used in less than 2% of firearm homicides. Only about 323 deaths a year are caused by rifles (democrat assault weapons). In the same year, 496 Americans were killed with hammers and 650 with knives.
Democrats want US citizens to believe making the U.S. safer for criminals will make it safer for their victims. Ask yourself, do you believe being disarmed makes you safer? What kind of political leader would disarm his people while howling about the peril they face?
Bottom line is half the nation’s murders occur in only 63 counties while the other half are spread across the other 3,081 counties. Said another way, 15 percent had one murder and 54 percent of the nation’s counties had no murders at all. Seems the democrats want to change all that. I’d expect conservatives to be smarter. For what it’s worth, 25 percent of all gun crime happens in just four cities, all of which are run by Democrats.
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