GOP Rep. Ken Buck wields AR-15 in office, dares Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke to ‘come and take it’

Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican, wielded an AR-15 rifle in his office and dared former Vice President Joe Biden and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke to “come and take it” in a jaw-dropping video posted online Friday.

“I have a message for Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke, if you want to take everyone’s AR-15s in America, why don’t you swing by my office in Washington, D.C. and start with this one,” Rep. Buck said in the video on his office’s web site.

“Come and take it.”

Buck’s office called Biden and O’Rourke “the gun-grabbing duo.”

The video of Buck with the rifle, which was wrapped in an American flag design, was in response to O’Rourke’s stance against high-powered assault rifles being in civilian hands, and Biden’s reference earlier this week that he would tap O’Rourke to help him “take care of the gun problem.”

Buck’s office noted that O’Rourke,  a former Texas congressman who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, had said in a Democratic debate, “hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

Before he made that comment, O’Rourke had been asked at the debate whether he proposed to take away those types of weapons.

He answered, “I am if it is a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield; if they high impact high velocity round when it hits your body shreds everything inside of your body because it was designed to do that so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers.”

Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, on Monday said at a rally of O’Rourke: “I want to make something clear —  I’m gonna guarantee you, this is not the last you’re seeing of this guy — you’re gonna take care of the gun problem with me, you’re gonna be the one who leads this effort.”

A spokesman for Biden’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Buck’s video.

Buck said in a statement on his office web site: “I have always been a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment and will continue to stand up to any attacks on the law-abiding gun owners of Colorado’s Fourth District.”

His fellow congressman, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., blasted Buck in a Twitter reply for violating a cardinal rule of handling a gun by pointing it at the person who shot the video.

“You literally flagged the camera man. First rule of weapons handling, treat every weapon as if it were loaded,” wrote Gallego, who served as a Marine in Iraq. “Second rule, never point the weapon at anything you don’t intend to shoot.”

Buck has permission to have the AR-15 in the U.S. Capitol because he is a member of Congress. It is illegal for non-members of Congress to bring a gun into the Capitol. 

Buck told The Washington Post in 2015 that the AR-15 he keeps in his office is unloaded, has a trigger lock. He said he also had the bolt carrier assembly, which is required to actually fire the rifle, removed before it came to Washington.

In June 2017, a left-wing activist from Illinois named James Hodkinson, who was armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm pistol shot then-House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., U.S Capitol police officer Chrystal Griner, congressional aide Zack Barth and a lobbyist, Matt Mika, while they were practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity in Alexandria, Va. They all survived the shooting.

Hodkinson died after a shootout with police.

In January 2011, then-Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a supermarket in her home state. Giffords, who survived, was shot by a man, Jared Lee Loughner, who was armed with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol that had a 33-round magazine. Six other people died in the attack.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/rep-ken-buck-dares-joe-biden-and-beto-orourke-to-take-ar-15-rifle.html