Joy Behar, one of the host of ABC’s “The View” believes Presidential candidates seeking gun confiscation should not announce their plans, but simply wait until election and move forward with their confiscation plans.
Behar made her comments about keeping gun confiscation a secret during Monday’s episode of the ABC talk show, Fox News reported. She made her comments during a discussion about Democratic Presidential candidate Robert “Beto” O’Rourke’s decision to drop out of the Democratic primary.
O’Rourke had been a vocal proponent of a “mandatory buyback” on AR-15s and other popular semi-automatic rifles and had gained publicity at a September Democratic presidential debate when he said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
Behar said it was foolish for the former Texas congressman to discuss gun confiscation plans openly before he was elected.
“They should not tell everything they’re going to do. If you’re going to take people’s guns away, wait until you get elected – then take the guns away,” Behar said to laughter from the audience. “Don’t tell them ahead of time.”
Prior to Behar’s comments, co-host Meghan McCain said O’Rourke’s open and frank discussion of gun confiscation hurt the Democratic candidates attempting to discuss gun policy.
“I will also say that his stance on gun buybacks — Mayor Pete said it was a shiny object that distracts from achievable gun reform,” McCain said earlier in the segment.
McCain suggested O’Rourke’s remarks could be turned into campaign ads to scare voters from Democratic candidates.
“He did a lot of, like, battleground culture war, and he ran as the most left, most woke candidate and look where he ended,” McCain said.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has also given support for a “mandatory buyback” on certain firearms he deemed “assault weapons.”
During an October gun safety forum, Booker said political gun rights organizations like the NRA have tried to scare voters with the prospect that such a “mandatory buyback” would involve police officers arriving at people’s doors and forcefully confiscating their firearms.
“No, we have models of this happening in other places,” Booker said at the time. “There are ways to do this that get near complete compliance. Do not let the fear mongers dictate our policy.”
Booker’s own home state of New Jersey has been reluctant to comply with other recent gun control policies, such as a “large-capacity” magazine ban. No residents have reportedly turned in their banned magazines, instead opting for other storage options or even hiding them.
O’Rourke also shared similar optimism that citizens would value compliance with a new gun law over their previous gun rights. In an October interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Show, O’Rourke told host Joe Scarborough that ultimately, if people did not comply, police would have to pay a visit to holdout gun owners to confiscate their banned firearms.
“I think just as in any law that is not followed, or flagrantly abused, there has to be consequences or else there is no respect the law,” O’Rourke said.
