Beto O’Rourke Says He’ll Take Guns Away By Not Taking Them Away: ‘We Don’t Go Door-to-Door’

Former Texas Congressman and current Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke made headlines by declaring “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” but now says he’s going to enforce his proposed mandatory buyback by trusting people to comply with the law.

On Friday night’s edition of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, guest host Joy Reid asked O’Rourke to explain how he proposes to carry out the mandatory buyback that he thrust into the the national spotlight at Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate.

“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, hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” O’Rourke told the debate audience Thursday night, adding “We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.”

Reid mentioned people who threaten violence if the government tries to lawfully take their guns, and asked “how would law enforcement be protected from people who are essentially admitting that the way they would protect their ability to own these weapons is to use them?”

“You know, my faith, my confidence, is in the people of this country,” O’Rourke said, and described going to a gun show and hearing gun owners and vendors express openness to the idea.

“Some of them said look, you know what, I have an AR-15, don’t need it, would gladly sell it back or destroy it, all of them seem like they would follow the law,” O’Rourke said, adding “We are a nation of laws, it’s part of what defines us and distinguishes us from the rest of the world, so I believe that America will comply with the law.”

He went on to add that “Much like we don’t go door-to-door to enforce almost any law in the United States, in fact I don’t think we do that for any law in the United States, this would not be something that we would do.”

“And I only raise that, Joy, because others have said, you know this is something that we would fear if there were a mandatory buyback program,” O’Rourke said. “No, no, we expect people to follow the law, and that’s certainly what I believe will happen.”

Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.