Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick praised former Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s (D-TX) failed bid for Senate on Tuesday and slammed the Democratic presidential candidate for demanding a government-run gun confiscation program.
While participating in the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) third presidential primary debate, O’Rourke declared in no uncertain terms that if he were to be elected president, he would impose a nationwide gun confiscation program to size millions of firearms from law-abiding citizens.
“Hell yes, we’re going to take away your AR-15, your AK-47,” O’Rourke said at the time amid massive cheers. “We are not going to allow it to be used against our fellow citizens anymore.”
“When I heard Beto’s now infamous statement in the debate last week … my first thought was thank god he lost to Ted Cruz,” Patrick wrote in a statement. “Because the Texas press never asked him any serious questions in that race, it wasn’t clear until now what a radical left-winger he is – the most radical of all the looney leftists and socialists currently running for president.”
“My second thought was he will never be a threat to Texas politics again,” he continued. “He’s stuck in tiny single digits in the polls, so he’s not going to be president, but now the Democrats can’t even put him on the ticket with the hope that he will help win Texas. He’s a gun confiscator – he’s done in our state.”
Accordingly, O’Rourke unsuccessfully ran to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during the 2018 midterm election cycle. As the race tightened to a margin of single digits in the consistently red state, the former Texas congressman received glowing nationwide attention, which ultimately compelled him to launch a bid for the presidency.
However, after his presidential campaign failed to gain traction, O’Rourke faced mounting pressure to drop out of the race and run for the Texas’ U.S. Senate seat against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). Instead, O’Rourke re-launched his campaign to focus primarily on his anti-gun platform.
While O’Rourke declined to run for Senate, speculation further emerged that the former Texas Congressman might make a good presidential running mate, with the hopes that he would give Democrats a chance to flip the state blue. However, O’Rourke’s strong anti-Second Amendment policies have seemingly squelched the likelihood that he would add any benefit to the ticket in the gun-friendly state.
“Now he’s selling T-shirts with his ‘hell yes’ statement – another flailing attempt to hide his naked ambition and distract from his doomed campaign,” Patrick said. “Beto says he has talked to people in Texas who own AR-15s and they support his confiscation plan – so he found some liberal who agrees with him. It’s a big state, but the people I talk to don’t want to give up their guns. They know it is the evil intentions of a shooter, not the gun that is a threat to our safety.”
“I will never support banning the AR-15s, AK-47s, or a phony buyback program – the government can’t buy back something they have never owned,” he continued. “This is what our Second Amendment rights are about – making sure the government can never take away our guns.”