Wild-eyed Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has confounded many on the left with his views on firearms. While the Vermont Socialist has espoused radical leftist views on most issues, he’s traditionally espoused a more libertarian view of firearms ownership… until now:

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for making existing gun laws “stronger” and “more enforceable” in the wake of last week’s bloody shooting at a Lafayette, LA, multiplex screening of Trainwreck. Speaking from New Orleans on NBC’s Meet The Press, Sanders told moderator Chuck Todd that “guns used to kill people exclusively, not for hunting, should not be sold in the United States of America.”

With that simple and intentionally loaded statement, Sanders declared the he would ban nearly all handguns, the majority of the most popular rifles, and many common shotguns as well.

Sanders is stating directly that he wants to ban all firearms designed for self-defense, and that he regards the Second Amendment as privilege that allows hunting alone… for now.

I’d like to thank Senator Sanders for finally bringing his real views on firearms forward. Sanders has been moderate on firearms during his political career in Vermont—a constitutional carry state with very few laws restricting where you can carry firearms—and seemed intent on sticking echoing those views as a Presidential candidate, even though they seemed to run in opposition to core socialist values of “the government must control everything.”

Sander’s seemingly incongruous Second Amendment views lasted roughly two weeks after Hillary Clinton took the opportunity to try to outflank him on the left over gun policy. Sanders has now used the shooting in a Lafayette, Louisiana theater by a mentally-ill older man armed with a cheap handgun to outflank her once again, showing that his decades of tepid Second Amendment support was always insincere.

* * *

Texas Governor and Republican President hopeful Rick Perry, who is known to carry a concealed handgun and who has used it in self-defense against wildlife, took the opposite view in favor of the right of self-defense.

Rick Perry, meanwhile, took the opposite tack, suggesting on CNN that moviegoers should be allowed to arm themselves. Asked by State of the Union host Jake Tapper if he thought moviegoers should be allowed to carry guns, Perry replied, “If we believe in the Second Amendment and we believe in people’s right to protect themselves and defend themselves and their families.”

Perry, the former Texas governor now seeking the Republican nomination for president, called the notion of gun-free zones “a bad idea.”

Perry has consistently been a strong Second Amendment supporter, unlike Democrat-until-lately Donald Trump and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and back-pedaling neurosurgeon Ben Carson.