Holding an AR-15, GOP Lawmaker Tells Biden to Try to Take It

Ken Buck keeps the weapon in his Capitol Hill office
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 8, 2020 9:56 AM CDT
Holding an AR-15, GOP Lawmaker Tells Biden to Try to Take It
Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., listens as President Trump speaks at a campaign rally last month in Colorado Springs.   (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

A Republican member of Congress has posted a challenging, if not threatening, video on gun control. "I have just one message for Joe Biden and Beto O'Rourke," Rep. Ken Buck tweeted. "If you want to take everyone's AR-15s, why don't you swing by my office in Washington, D.C. and start with this one?" Buck has taken the weapon off his office wall and is holding it when he issues the challenge, which is a reference to something O'Rourke said last year in a presidential candidates' debate, USA Today reports. When he was asked about his plan to buy back assault weapons, the former Democratic House member said, "Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47." Last week, Biden told O'Rourke onstage after receiving his endorsement in the Democratic race: "You're gonna take care of the gun problem with me. You're going to be the one who leads this effort."

O'Rourke responded in a tweet that, "This guy makes the case for both an assault weapons ban and a mandatory buyback program better than I ever could." Biden's website says he'd work to prohibit "the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines" if he becomes president. On his website, Buck said the gun isn't loaded and is locked, per MSN. That prompted a Democratic colleague, Eric Swalwell, to tweet, "No one is coming for your inoperable gun, Ken." Telling the Colorado lawmaker not to "make threats of AR-15 violence," the father of a student killed in the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 tweeted that his daughter was killed by a bullet from an AR-15. Fred Guttenberg posted that he'd been in Washington the day before Buck posted his tweet. If had seen Buck's challenge to "come and take" his AR-15 when he was in town, Guttenberg said, he "gladly would have." (More Ken Buck stories.)

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