“No one’s coming for your guns!”

How many times have you heard that, either in person, or when discussing gun control online? I’ve had friends say it. I’ve had acquaintances say it. I’ve had anonymous strangers say it. I’ve had supposedly “Pro-Gun” Democrats say it times beyond counting, and I’ve had allegedly middle-of-the-road folks say it. Each time I hear it I respond with a dissertation on the history of Gun Control in this country, but no matter what I say it goes in one ear and out the other.

Maybe people will believe the words straight from the horse’s mouth.

During this first round of the Democratic Presidential debates the candidates were all over the place on many issues, as you might expect from such a diverse (not to mention large) group of people, but they all agreed on one thing: “Guns are bad, mmmmkay?”

Beto O’Rourke renewed his call for a ban on the venerable AR-15, saying: “I don’t know that we should raise the age for buying an AR-15 I just don’t think we should be selling AR-15s in this country.”

Eric Swalwell repeated his desire to enact a mandatory “buyback” of so-called “assault weapons”, and graciously said that you can “Keep your pistols, keep your rifles, keep your shotguns- but we can take the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people.”

Bernie Sanders echoed this when he contradicted a 2013 interview in which he said that, “Everything being equal, States should make those decisions.” He refuted the quote, saying that it was a “mischaracterization” of his remarks, and that “We have a gun crisis right now, 40,000 people a year are getting killed.” He went on to say that he believes that what we need is “comprehensive gun legislation” that includes so-called Universal Background Checks, closing the mythical “Gun Show Loophole”, and ending the “Straw Man Provision” (whatever THAT scary sounding term means). He then said that he would endorse a mandatory “buyback”.

Not to be outdone, Cory Booker said that “If you need a license to drive a car, you should need a license to buy and own a firearm.” He then stated that it was time to “start having bold agendas on guns.”

Good ol’ “Double Barrel” Joe Biden called for making nonexistent “smart guns” mandatory, saying “I’m also the only guy that got assault weapons banned, and the number of clips in a gun banned. And so, folks, look — and I would buy back those weapons. We already started talking about that. We tried to get it done. I think it can be done. And it should be demanded that we do it, and that’s a good expenditure of money. And lastly, we should have smart guns. No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that trigger. It’s within our right to do that. We can do that.”

None of this was good enough for Kamala Harris, however. She said that if Congress didn’t “pull their act together” within 100 days she would use an Executive Order to “put in place the most comprehensive background check policy we’ve had” and require the ATF “to take the licenses of gun dealers who violate the law.” Her proposed EO would also ban the importation of “assault weapons”.

Responding to those naysayers who keep blindly claiming that no one is coming to take our guns, I say this: here you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth- so stop being a Jackass.