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Democratic candidates take on gun reform

All of the Democratic candidates for president in 2020 were on board with gun control reform, expressing the desire to ban assault weapons and issue federal licenses for gun owners.

The Democratic debate in Houston, Texas, took place in the same state as the recent mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso that left 25 people dead. The gunman, Patrick Crusius, said he was targeting Latinos because they were “invading” the country. Over Labor Day weekend, another gunman killed nine people in Odessa, Texas.

Beto O’Rourke, an El Paso native who is running for President, said he visited victims of both shootings and concluded that America must ban military-style rifles.

“When we see that being used against children and in Odessa, I met the mother of a 15-year-old girl who was shot by an AR-15. And that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour because so many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa and Midland. There weren’t enough ambulances to get to them in time,” O’Rourke said. “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore!”

Other Democrats, including New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, agreed. Booker, who served as the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, said more attention needs to be paid to inner-city gun violence, as well as mass shooting.