Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s latest twist on his gun grab plan is to possibly allow folks to store their AR-15’s at gun ranges or hunting clubs, which has the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Larry Keane wondering if O’Rourke has really thought through his proposal.
Still, think about this, O’Rourke might have opened the flood gates to a cottage industry. Hunt clubs are a thing in the United States. Many hunters pool their resources to lease properties and access hunting land. Owners of America’s rifle just need to declare themselves a hunt club and they’d have nothing to worry about when O’Rourke comes knocking on their door to collect them. “Sorry, you can’t take that. My house is a hunt club.”
It’s a brilliant idea, even if it is tongue-in-cheek. Of course, if Beto had his way we’d have to have some sort of federal definition of a hunt club, and you can be assured it wouldn’t encompass your private residence. But as Keane points out, O’Rourke’s idea is so un-American it wouldn’t stand a chance of being followed.
In all seriousness, joining a hunt club to own guns might be the way they do things in jolly ol’ England, or Germany, but this is America. The Second Amendment is clear. It doesn’t say Americans can go to their local shooting range, gun club or hunt club and request to check out the rifle they own. Americans right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Not by the government. Not by a gun range or hunt club. Certainly, it can’t be the put under lock and key by a failing politician.
Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is about as popular as a root canal among likely Democrat voters, so I’m not too worried about him coming for my guns. The problem is, virtually every other Democrat running for office is just as opposed to the right to keep and bear arms as O’Rourke is, and one of them is going to end up as the nominee. And if whoever the Democrats pick actually wins in 2020, we may see the rise of homegrown hunt clubs after all.
I know the name of a couple of good realtors in rural Virginia if it ever gets to that point, but in the meantime we should call out “Beto” for his BS at every opportunity. In fact, as Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points out, the Houston Chronicle has done exactly that by taking O’Rourke to task for claiming his gun grab isn’t about confiscating firearms at all.
“It is unreasonable to call what Mr. O’Rourke is proposing anything other than confiscation,” gun law expert George Mocsary, a law professor at the University of Wyoming, told PolitiFact.
“Imagine the situation when an owner of one of the weapons refuses to sell. He or she is issued a fine. The owner still has the weapon, however. Does paying the fine mean that he or she can now keep the weapon and it is perfectly legal? Certainly not,” Mocsary said.
“There is no scenario under which the owner of one of the designated weapons gets to keep it. That is confiscation.”
No matter how much O’Rourke bloviates about his gun grab, at the end of the day it is absolutely confiscation. It’s also unconstitutional, would be largely unenforceable, and is just a really bad idea. Unfortunately bad ideas become bad laws all the time, and no matter how silly and laughable O’Rourke’s proposal may be, Second Amendment supporters should still take the calls for a gun ban and confiscation seriously.
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