Beto O’Rourke Widely Criticized Over His Gun Confiscation Answer During Reddit Q&A

Democratic 2020 hopeful Beto O’Rourke participated in an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) on the popular link-sharing site Reddit Thursday, and his answer on gun confiscation was widely criticized.

In an AMA thread, users are encouraged to ask whatever questions they want in the comment section, and the creator of the thread can then choose what to answer. Reddit users can either up-vote or down-vote comment based on how well they contribute to the discussion.

O’Rourke’s AMA thread had over 26,000 comments as of Friday afternoon. Though Reddit’s users found some of O’Rourke’s answers satisfactory, he was strongly down-voted for his other answers.

“How will you confiscate the millions of AR 15s?” one user asked. The candidate has previously said that he plans to enact a mandatory gun confiscation program for AR-15s and AK-47s. (RELATED: Beto O’Rourke: Cops Won’t Go ‘Door To Door’ With Mandatory Gun Buyback Plan, Americans Will Comply)

O’Rourke responded:

That answer received over 12,000 down-votes, and Reddit users deconstructed all the things wrong with his answer. One user gave a detailed response to O’Rourke’s question, asking him how he would find so many unregistered guns and how he would pay for the “buyback” program.

Another user tore his answer to shreds, telling him “Literally everything about this is incorrect.”