The standout moment in last night’s Democratic debate at Texas Southern University in Houston was when Beto O’Rourke demonstrated raw courage by demanding that we reduce the slaughter and maiming of innocent men, women, and children, by taking weapons of war off the streets of America.
While O’Rourke was courageous, the other nine candidates weren’t.
The other candidates were afraid of giving gun manufacturer lobbyists, the National Rifle Association (NRA), and Republicans fodder for attack ads they will undoubtedly regurgitate to falsely try to scare the daylights out of prospective voters by claiming that Democrats are hell-bent on confiscating every single gun in the country.
But that wasn’t what O’Rourke was saying.
He simply said that it is time to stop human carnage by making weapons of war illegal and, when those weapons are prohibited, O’Rourke wants to confiscate and destroy those weapons like law enforcement confiscates and destroys gang weapons and other killers like cocaine and heroin.
O’Rourke asserted what too many others in Washington and on the campaign trail refuse to acknowledge: no one but a mass murderer, cop killer, or robber needs an AR-15 or an AK-47.
No hunter or target-shooting enthusiast needs an assault rifle capable of firing hundreds of supersonic rounds in a matter of seconds to take down a deer, an elk, or even a bear or shred a paper target, do they?
If weapon lovers do need assault rifles, do they also need cannons, fifty caliber machine guns, flamethrowers, Gatling guns, or rocket launchers and if so, why?
Beto O’Rourke fearlessly risked his political future and maybe even his life to prevent mass murderers from using weapons of war to fast-track the slaughter and maiming of human beings.
Something wrong with that?
You tell me.