When it comes to gun legislation in Congress, the Democratic minority, which becomes the majority on January 3, 2019, is set to attempt to impose a barrage of stricter regulations on law-abiding firearm owners, with one liberal lawmaker quelling criticism for the party’s agenda by claiming that the U.S. government would bomb its own citizens if people refused to give up their firearms protected by the Second Amendment. Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell (CA-15), who is one of the two dozen or so potential 2020 presidential candidates, has called in the past for gun owners to surrender their firearms as the liberal party set their sights on assault weapons bans.
Responding to a disgruntled person on Twitter who criticized Swalwell’s banning of firearms, the three-term California lawmaker said:
“And it would be a short war my friend. The government has nukes. Too many of them. But they’re legit. I’m sure of we talked we could find common ground to protect our families and communities.”
As can be assumed, Swalwell received immediate backlash. The House Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee member also said that it is “ludicrous” for anyone to need a firearm to protect themselves from the government, arguing that if an assault weapon ban was passed or a mandatory buy-back of assault weapons occurred, people “would just follow the law.”
Earlier this year, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL-23), former head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), announced that she was considering a proposal to ban ammunition in effort to combat school shootings across the country. Democrats argued that the “common sense” measure would mitigate gun violence, with the Florida lawmaker saying, “I really think it’s important to underscore that without bullets a gun is just a hunk of useless metal, and a would-be killer lacks the means to actually kill or maim.”
Wasserman-Schultz’s proposal, however, disregards the decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court in Heller v. D.C. (2008), wherein the majority ruled that a firearm kept from being functional violates the Second Amendment.
Regardless, it is highly unlikely that either assault weapon buy-backs or banning ammunition purchases would have prevented mass shootings like the massacre in Las Vegas, the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, or a range of others. Simply put, no legislation forwarded address the underlying causes of violence in America, nor can it.