Campaign Action
On Wednesday, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, participated in the 2020 Gun Safety Forum in Las Vegas, Nevada. The forum, sponsored by Giffords, March For Our Lives, and MSNBC, is hosting nine major Democratic presidential candidates to talk about what each plans to do to reduce the epidemic of gun violence. Sen. Bernie Sanders was scheduled to participate, but is unable to due to health issues.
Forum leaders include former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords; Sen. Chris Murphy; and Ariel Hobbs and David Hogg of March For Our Lives. The forum is moderated by MSNBC host Craig Melvin. Candidates are allowed 25 minutes each to speak and at least two questions from the audience.
Buttigieg was the first candidate to participate in the forum today. Before audience questions, Melvin asked Buttigieg about a few specific issues. The first was the relationship between national security threats, domestic terrorism, and white nationalism. Buttigieg has talked about this in his gun plan previously, and he expressed it eloquently at the forum, too.
“There’s this toxic brew,” Buttigieg opened. “One, the lack of commonsense gun law. The other thing is the rise of hate. If we want to be serious about national security, we have to confront white nationalism as the national security threat that it is. This administration has actually cut resources for this.”
“Not all terrorist threats come from abroad,” he continued. He noted that while we usually talk about terrorism as coming from someone with a “brown face,” there’s no significant attention spent on the threat that white supremacy presents.
Melvin asked Buttigieg how he would specifically address urban gun violence in America.
“I lead a city that has about a hundred thousand people,” Buttigieg said. “We, thank God, have not had the kind of national headlines around mass shootings like what happened on Oct. 1 here,” in reference to the anniversary of the Las Vegas massacre, which occurred two years ago.
Then Buttigieg flipped back to his own city and his responses to gun violence as mayor. “You are consoling parents,” he stated, recalling a recent experience. “We were on a high school football field, letting off balloons in the memory of a young man lost to gun violence.
“I’m very proud of the steps we took locally,” he said, in what quickly became a viral clip on social media. “Yet what I’ve realized is that every mayor tackling this issue is doing so with a hand tied behind their back so long as we fail to enact commonsense gun laws in this country.”
Here’s that response in full:
Next up, Buttigieg was pressed on his thoughts about a nationwide gun licensing program. Very similarly to Sen. Cory Booker’s platform in the past,, Buttigieg compares gun ownership and related licensing to what you need to drive a car, fish, or hunt. Instead of just background checks, he said, we need stricter licensing requirements upfront.
And loopholes? Gray areas with people convicted of domestic violence being able to own guns? Hate crimes? For Buttigieg, that’s a big no.
Here’s that clip:
The moderator also asked Buttigieg about a national gun buyback program, something he hasn’t been on board with in the past. Instead, he suggested that the guns people bring in are often not usable; instead, they’re family heirlooms or otherwise too old to use. Then, he changed the subject to red flag laws and pressed the urgency of the question, stressing that we can’t wait for debates to play out. “I’m more interested in the governing than the politics,” he stated.
He went on to credit the younger generation—addressing many in the audience—with changing the political reality and bending it to make things happen.
Buttigieg stressed that we have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to the Second Amendment. “Anyone can have a water balloon, nobody can have a predator drone. Somewhere, we’re going to draw it.”
Here’s that clip:
Audience question one came from Erica Ford and Luis Hernandez of New York City. “When you look at shootings in white communities, you see an abundance of support,” Ford began. “When you look at the trauma, the generational trauma, of gun violence in black and brown communities, it goes silent.”
Hernandez brought up the militarization of schools and called for a ban on guns in schools. “I want to know what you’re going to do to specifically ensure the safety of people like me,” he said, “like Erica, from marginalized communities, who endure gun violence at disproportionate rates, and no one is seeing or doing anything about it.”
Buttigieg agreed that marginalized communities are disproportionately impacted. (They are.) His solution was more measures for fewer guns on streets. He stressed that guns can’t get into the wrong hands. Then he transitioned to culture and young people. He discussed the school-to-prison pipeline. He also brought up the necessity of supporting people in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods who are being pushed out.
Buttigieg discussed the relationship between police violence and race, acknowledging the issues in his own city. “if we really want to save the lives of people who are so vulnerable to being the victims of violence, we need to establish a level of trust. It’s a cultural as well as a policy question.”
Matthew, who is with the Giffords organization, asked the next question. “You and I both know about the high suicide rates of veterans. Firearm suicide affects both veterans and nonveterans alike,” he opened, citing statistics on suicide with guns.
Buttigieg responded by stressing that the epidemic of gun suicide is part of the gun violence crisis that we have to take out of the shadows. “We need to break the stigma,” he said. “Talk about it until it’s as natural to discuss the experience with depression as it is to talk about a physical illness.”
Buttigieg talked about receiving a letter from a 14-year-old girl who said she’s already written a will in case she’s the victim of gun violence. He also mentioned the epidemic of LGBTQ youth suicide, the importance of extreme risk protection orders, and that people who are experiencing suicidal ideation are not lost causes.
Buttigieg recently released a plan to combat gun violence—which he describes, accurately, as domestic terrorism—in a Medium post. “An Action Plan to Combat the National Threat Posed by Hate and the Gun Lobby,” which the 2020 candidate released shortly after mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, includes having Congress pass gun safety legislation, investing more resources in solving the root problem, including ending the spread of violent extremism (hello, Gab and 8chan), including online.
In recent campaigns, Buttigieg has made it clear that he wants universal background checks, red flag laws on confiscating firearms, and a ban on military-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition, which is all basically the unofficial standard for candidates still in the race. Today, he remained consistent and solid.
Compared to other candidates in the race, Buttigieg is relatively moderate on gun reform, though of course still miles ahead of conservatives. But he definitely shone at the forum today, and, in particular, his willingness to talk about police violence and race and about suicide is an important step in expanding his ideas.
If you or are a loved one are struggling with mental health or need support, here are five free resources.
