For U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), some things will never get old, like calling for a complete ban on America’s most popular semiautomatic rifle, the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR). Or ignoring criminals. Or taking to social media immediately after a tragedy, before facts are known, and pushing for more gun control.
Yet after a deranged, mentally ill, racist murderer took three innocent lives at a Jacksonville, Fla., Dollar General store, Rep. Swalwell did all of those things, once again.
“Ban assault weapons. Buy them ALL back. Choose our kids over their killers,” the one-time failed presidential candidate posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
A gun ban and confiscation is a favored gun control ploy for the California Congressman. The only thing is, he’s dreaming.
Facts Matter
Three innocent lives were tragically lost and there were serious questions raised in the wake of the racist attack on African Americans. The murderer, it’s been revealed, had a history of mental health struggles, including an “involuntary commitment” in Florida under the state’s Baker Act. The murderer who had stopped taking his psychiatric medicine also left several manifestos, a suicide note and painted racist Nazi graphics on his firearms. This person was not well and was set on causing pain to the community and taking his own life.
In giving a press conference update, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters rejected the narrative of blaming the firearm over the murderer.
“The story’s always about guns.” Sheriff Waters said. “This guy’s a bad guy. If I could take my gun off right now and lay it on this counter, nothing will happen… But as soon as a wicked person grabs ahold of that handgun and starts shooting people with it, there’s the problem. The problem is the individual.”
It was also revealed that the murderer criminally misused both an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun. None of the facts mattered to Rep. Swalwell. His solution is always the same. It’s not to lock up criminals or make sure those who can’t trusted are prohibited from possessing guns. He’s got only one answer – take away Constitutional rights from others.
A Long History
This most recent episode isn’t the first time Rep. Swalwell has demanded the government confiscate the private property of law-abiding Americans. He’s done it a lot, actually.
In 2019, Rep. Swalwell went on CNN to talk gun control with Jake Tapper and regurgitated his favorite demand. Tapper asked him about a demand he uttered from 2018.
“We should ban possession of military-style semiautomatic weapons,” Rep. Swalwell said. “We should buy back such weapons from all who choose to abide by the law, and we should criminally prosecute any who choose to defy it by keeping their weapons.”
At the time, the California congressman added hyperbolic threats and that anyone who resisted should be nuked by the U.S. Government. Tapper pushed, asking if criminal prosecution meant the congressman believed Americans who held on to their guns would go to jail.
“They would,” Rep. Swalwell shot back. He added that he wished American gun control was more like New Zealand and Australia. It didn’t matter that Tapper rightly reiterated that “the vast majority of gun-related deaths in this country are not related to these semiautomatic assault weapons.”
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports consistently demonstrate that more murders are committed with knives, fists and clubs than by rifles of all kinds – not just the MSR, AR-15-style rifles Rep. Swalwell wants to ban. Again, the facts don’t matter.
Rep. Swalwell made a similar demand later in 2019, again pushing confiscation. And once again, the congressman held up New Zealand as a shining example. At the time, that country only had a total of approximately 1.2-1.5 million firearms with an expected taxpayer cost of roughly $300 million. Canada’s mandatory buyback boondoggle is even worse.
Still later in 2019, then on the debate stage as a presidential candidate for the Democratic nomination, Rep. Swalwell used his time to call for a mandatory gun buyback and even labeled the several million MSR owners as “the most dangerous people” requiring confiscation.
“Keep your pistols, keep your rifles, keep your shotguns, but we can take the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people,” the congressman said.
Unsurprisingly, Rep. Swalwell’s campaign quickly flamed out.
Who’s Buying
The “most dangerous people” Rep. Swalwell derided as possessing AR-15-style rifles aren’t who he thinks they are. In fact, maybe – just maybe – the congressman would be surprised to learn who is buying MSRs today. Firearm industry data pegs at least 24.4 million MSRs in circulation today since 1990. That makes them more commonly-owned than the number of Ford F-150 pickup trucks on the road today.
Currently, there have been more than 1 million FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications run for the purchase of a firearm for 48 months straight – that’s four years. Industry data also reveals the gun-owning community, including millions of new first-time gun owners, has never been more diverse than it is now, with large percentages of African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and other minority groups all buying firearms, including MSRs.
These are not “the most dangerous people” Rep. Swalwell accuses them of being. They are law-abiding, freedom-loving Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights and they all would likely love to tell Rep. Swalwell where he can put his mandatory confiscation plans.
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
As long as the Liberal/Progressive democrat ideology is allowed to exist with any semblance of political power. Those who believe it will always be a threat to Liberty and Freedom. No different than the ideology that Fascist Nazi’s used to destroy 1930s-40s German society. You deserve the Tyranny and Tyrants…You Allow.
I see the “nuke ’em nut” is at it again….
It would not break my heart to see California break off of the rest of the USA and float out to sea.
Enough with these Cali libs
We are not all libs. Many here in the north would prefer that we split off and join southern Oregon and form an entirely new red state, State of Jefferson. Not that that will ever happen, but it is reflective of local politics.
So we have heard.
Hey Mark, don’t forget about us here in SoCal who would be on the “other side” of the split.
Unfortunately, Bob, a lot of those stupid liberals have migrated to other states such as Montana and Colorado…taking their anti-gun idiocy with them. So that would not entirely solve the problem. But yes, having California break off the map would be a good start, and they could take just as liberal Oregon (the liberal half) and Washington State with them too, while they are at it. But let the one who posts here often (Haz?) who is from California know ahead of time, so he can get he and Mrs. Haz the hell out first, before it goes out to sea. I know there are still a few decent folks in that area. It is just too bad they are in the minority.
On Veterans Day, I heard CA Gov Newsome on Hannity, claim more people are moving to California from Florida than California residents are moving to Florida.
A bald-faced lie, and he knows it…
Illegal immigrants are moving to Cali for free stuff!
‘Ol Haz is digging in and fighting the good fight behind enemy lines.
Besides, it’s hard to imagine replacing the Ventura beach coastline…
I often wonder, Haz, if there are more folks like you in California than many realize? Gruesome Newsome would not want you guys (and gals) to get together and take your state back, after all. Divide-and-conquer always was a tried and true method of warfare, and it works very well. We fight the good fight up here (in Alaska). Until the Russians (or God forbid), the Chinese take us over. We are prime pickin’s for someone. I always wanted to see the red wood trees down there in your national parks. If one is so lucky, maybe your mosquitoes are not as bad as they are up here during the Summer months.
There are, but in the interest of keeping their lives and jobs intact, they fly well below the radar… 🙁
Redwoods (and cousin Sequoias) are magnificent. Mosquitoes are seldom seen in my area.
I’d love the chance to see Alaska one day, and not from a cruise ship’s balcony…
Hmm, no mosquitoes in Cali? Probably because we have them all up here-ha ha. But really, if you come up north, due so in June, as that is when we jokingly have our “one month of Summer”. And that is when Summer Solstice comes around, and you get the all-around daylight. You can visit Prudhoe Bay with a tour guide, and had a co-worker go up there and took pictures, which were neat to see. There is plenty to do up here, it is just a matter of what you want to see, and then putting a schedule (and money, of course) together. A few years after COVID, and before the tourists starting come back, the whales were out in force (on the south coast line), and it was packed with just state people traveling, who were tired of being locked down. Due to the fact that the cruise ships were not up here, the whales were having a great time, and some friends of mine said the sights were just awesome to see. Either way, you will never be bored, and it is never a bad thing fleeing “the land of fruit & nuts”, if only for a short time.
I don’t want California to “float away” but rather to sink to the bottom….and quickly.
Military styled semi auto weapons? Does that mean he wishes to ban M1 rifles? That’s the last military style semi auto I know of. Since then military firearms have been select fire.
And any before that, including Garands too. I guess the Springfield M1A would be history along with the Ruger Mini-14 and Mini 30, even though no one has proposed banning them along with Evil Black Rifles. I wonder why that is?
The Mini-14 escaped the first bans, but they won’t make that mistake again, why ‘Swallows Well’ is after *all* semi-autos… 🙁
I have asked several people who screech about “military-style-weapons-of-war” to explain to me the difference between my Springfield M1 (that actually once belonged to the U.S. Army) and my Remington 742 chambered in 30-06. No cogent responses yet.
For that matter, what is the difference between my Series 70 Government Model and my M1911A1 with U.S. ARMY stamped on the side?
And M-1 carbines.
COME AND TAKE UM SWALLOWSREALWELL….
Canada had mandatory buyback? Knew they were drifting that direction but didn’t realize things had gone that far off the rails. How did it turn out?
It has never been initiated afaik, because they could never agree on the funding–and their PM seriously underestimated the cost when he sought to ban them.
Yeah, like the CA high speed train from nowhere to nowhere, the initial cost sold to the voting folks was grossly underestimated. They don’t have the cash to start a buy-back program and I think they lack a central bank that can magically make more money by simply changing the decimal point in the computer.
No, no…the train will someday go from *somewhere* to *somewhere*. If you Googlz the project, you’ll find that every article/link on just the very first page of results touts a different set of two cities the alleged Phase One will serve.
A complete boondoggle started by Jerry Brown, scaled back by Gavin Newsom, and destined to stagnate until dead. Billions of dollars already gone for something nobody will ever see.
Glorious government waste. It’s what’s for dinner.
It created lots of temp jobs to ‘study’ proposed routes, that you paid for with your taxes… 🙁
For those foolish enough to comply with a buyback, you would be left with a fistful of dollars and the worthless, hollow, empty promises of a politician, the very same politician surrounded by heavily armed agents that your tax dollars pay for, armed with the same weapons they just took off you, why would any same person ever comply with such a thing?
Actually, those ninjas who hide their features behind reflective sun glasses hold fully automatic 10 mm stubby rifles. One, unless you fork over $200 and wait a couple of years you can’t own a fully automatic firearm. You also can’t own one made since 1968. Oh, and another $200 for the short barreled rifle permit. So, no, those are guns that you and I can’t own but the goober mint can certainly own them and arm all sort of nincompoop minions with them. Fortunately, they have a tendency to shoot themselves with them.
Actually, a machine gun requires only one $200 transfer tax stamp, same deal if you were to purchase a SP5K PDW once you’ve registered it as an SBR you do not have to pay the additional stamp for the AOW when you add the vertical grip to it.
i thought the last manufacture date was ’84 or so.
… we can take the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people
The statistics show his focus is on the wrong things and the wrong people.
These SOBs are like broken records.
Criminal control works…gun control doesn’t.
But, they’ll never do anything that would hurt their base.
The only people really worried about your firearms are murderers, thieves, rapists, perverts, kidnappers, tyrants, child molesters and Gun Control sickos like swalwell.
Eric ” Duke Nukem” Swalwell is a first class a$$hole. Even the wackjobs in Kommiefornica dismiss him as a loon.
Not only that, he is as dumb as a rock.
What else can you expect from “Ken-doll” Swalwell, he’s arrogant (likely the result of having a cop father & brother) and hangs around with known convicted stalkers, pedos, bomb threat makers like NH’s legislator (currently incacerated) “Stacie” Laughton (can’t find his real first name).
Barry Laughton
Thank you.
We need to ban all Liberals. No matter where in the USA they exist,round them up and place them in the same state Cali would do ,fence them in. Take away Police and private protective forces.Let them fend for themselves.
Swalwell is a lunatic!
“…Put our kids over their killers…”
Fantastic! So **takes out notebook** I can put you down as pro-life, to help protect all those innocent unborn babies from the doctors who murder them, Mr. Swalwell??
Hello?
worthless POS !
Sorry but to much crap goes on in California. The state is a laughing stock of the country. Gun control is just a part of it . Citizens continue to play stupid games and win stupid prizes. Keep voting for idiots and Nothing will change. Start defunding libs.
Next step will be, all those hunters that use Remington 700 rifle will have to turn them in too..
Since the US military uses these rifles!!!
Therefore they are “Military style weapons”!!!
Don’t forget to turn in your black powder weapins as well. That Brown Bess is an assault musket with a bayonet.
Ehhh, if most of California wanted gunms Swalwell would be all for gunms.
They say whatever it is they think we want to hear.
The poster boy for an Enema Nozzle.
Comments are closed.