9 Big Takeaways From The 6-Hour Gun Safety Presidential Candidate Forum

By De Elizabeth


Nine of the leading Democratic presidential candidates addressed gun policy throughout a 6-hour Gun Safety Forum in Las Vegas hosted by MSNBC, March for Our Lives, and Giffords on Wednesday (October 2). Each candidate had 30 minutes to answer questions from moderator MSNBC’s Craig Melvin plus a number of audience members, some of whom were survivors of gun violence themselves. The forum featured the Democratic candidates who qualified for the second debate; Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and philanthropist Tom Steyer were not in attendance, as well as Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) who canceled his appearance immediately after undergoing an emergency heart procedure.


The town hall-style event came just a day immediately following the two-year anniversary of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. History at a concert on the Las Vegas Strip. And with recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio on the minds of voters, and also because the staggering statistics surrounding the gun violence epidemic across the nation, it’s no surprise that gun-law reform has become one of the most crucial topics ahead of the 2020 presidential election.


The successive 30-minute interviews revealed that while the candidates agree on issues like stronger background checks or safe storage laws, there really are plenty of contradictions on specific policy and approach. Some candidates, like Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke support a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons, while Former Housing Secretary Julián Castro and Former Vice President Joe Biden propose voluntary buyback programs. Candidates also disagreed over the execution of a gun licensing program, with some Democrats calling for regulations at the federal level and others proposing state-regulated licensing.


Nevertheless the 2020 Gun Safety Forum went in back of the inner workings of policy; a couple of candidates discussed about everyday gun violence in their hometowns, police brutality, suicide by firearm, domestic abuse, and the disproportionate ways in which gun violence affects people of color. In case you didn’t watch all six hours, don’t worry — we did. Ahead, learn about some of the key moments from every one of the candidate’s time onstage.


South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg explained that suicide is the segment of the gun violence epidemic that needs to come “out of the shadows.” 


According to EveryTown for Gun Safety, firearm suicides make up most of them of both gun deaths and suicides in the U.S., With nearly 22,000 Residents of the
U.S. Dying by firearm suicide per year. “We’ve got to prepare it OK to talk about it….we are more likely to lose someone to suicide if they attempt suicide with a gun,” Buttigieg said.


Although the mayor made it clear that mental health care and typical sense gun reform are not mutually exclusive. “We have got to discuss the mental health supply without ever allowing to be an excuse to fail to act on gun policy. We’re hearing way also much of that,” he explained, noting that common-sense regulations like extreme risk protection orders can assist save lives if someone with access to a gun is experiencing suicidal ideation. “We’ve got to do a higher class of job in this nation of delivering mental health. Nevertheless if we talk about it, as an example, the way this president talks about it, then you wouldn’t identify that people with mental health challenges are more likely to be a victim than a perpetrator of violent crimes.”


Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro reminded us that gun violence isn’t just the mass shootings that make the news — some communities visualize it every day.


While in his segment, Castro highlighted the significance of tailoring gun violence prevention to everyday occurrences additionally to the instances of mass shootings we routinely read about. With the rates of gun violence disproportionately affecting communities of color, Castro also talked about his plan to raise the excise tax on firearms and ammunitions and use that added funding for public programs to help the most weak neighborhoods.


“There’s no reason that our young people should ever get their hands on a weapon as soon as they’re not supposed to,” Castro mentioned in response to a woman from Chicago whose son was murdered on his way to choir practice. “But we also need to invest in community development programs, community youth programs, gun violence prevention programs that are rooted in our community, that are not from the outdoor, nevertheless from the indoors. That are led from people on the ground, in those neighborhoods.”


Castro also spoken about the significance of creating after-school programs for at-risk youth, explaining that he invested in similar possibilities as Mayor of San Antonio and saw positive results. “We know...Between 3:00 [p.M.] And 7:00, there’s an increased likelihood that our young people will meet violence... I want to give them an enriching and nourishing environment…. I would take the 6 or 7 hundred million dollars from an excise tax from ammunition and guns, and invest them in those efforts.”


Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) addressed the ways gun violence uniquely affects Black males and men. 


Harris recounted an emotional meeting with a grieving Black mother who'd lost her son to gun violence. “She would mention, ‘If I lost my son to a vehicle accident or cancer, maybe somebody would understand how deeply I mourn, although alternatively they’re treating the loss of my son as a statistic, and like I shouldn’t be surprised,’” Harris recalled, before emphasizing: “This is about the devaluation of human life that happens daily In the United States, and particularly about the devaluation of Black males and Black males … As soon as we talk about gun violence...We’ve got to recognize that we have to value these lives.”


Harris also talked out against police brutality, noting that there’s “no question” the demilitarization of American police departments should be a priority for the next president. “The failure of criminal justice policy In the United States was to declare war on the people of our country,” she mentioned. “To do it with the War on Drugs. To declare war on whole communities of people — who required support, who required that we would acknowledge the neglect...And then address it. So let’s begin there, with acknowledging history.”


from then on, Harris outlined some of her plan to reform the criminal justice system, including a proposal to end mass incarceration, legalize and decriminalize pot, and need strict accountability for law enforcement. “Growing up as a Black girl In the United States, no one had to teach me about what was not right about the system,” she said.


Senator Cory Booker got enthusiastic about his personalized connection to issue.


because the former mayor as well as a current resident of Newark, New Jersey, Booker mentioned he’s experienced firsthand the horrors of gun violence, making this provide an emotional fight for him. “This is living with a sense of urgency,” he told moderator Craig Melvin. “As I’ve mentioned before...This is no time for an impotency of empathy. We cannot wait up until this hell visits upon your community for you to be activated in this fight…. We stay in this distraught country now where the levels of gun violence are so high, it’s as though people in certain communities are living in war zones.”


Booker pledged that, if elected President of the United States, he would elevate the types of gun violence that don’t habitually get mainstream media coverage. “We don’t talk about what’s going on about the violence against transgender Americans,” he mentioned, citing the at least 20 transgender people who are known to have been murdered in the U.S. This year. “We don’t talk about domestic violence...Nearly enough. We don’t talk enough in this nation about unarmed Black people being killed by police. We need to have a president who talks about this routinely, and the typical sense things we might would be doing.”


Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) highlighted the significance of gun violence research.


“We need to treat gun violence like the public health emergency it is, and respond with the sort of strength it demands,” Warren emphasized, pointing out that the U.S. Government does federal studies on all issues that are health and safety concerns — so why should gun violence be any different? “The reason isn't because there’s not any violence; we know there really is. It’s just the politics. And the gun industry has managed to block any federal funding going into the studies on gun violence.”


To illustrate her point, the Senator discussed about vehicle safety while in the 1960s, as soon as the rate of auto car fatalities was much higher than it is today. “People were talking about ‘carnage on the roads,’” she explained, going on to mention that companies collected intelligence to decide what types of safety features and regulations would work to decrease auto-related deaths. “I intend to do the same thing with guns.”


Warren’s gun reform platform specifies that she is going to decrease domestic gun violence in the U.S. By 80 percent over the course of two potential presidential terms. Now, 100 Residents of the
U.S. Are killed by guns each day in the U.S. As Warren put it: “If 100 people were dying today from a mysterious virus, we’d be all over this.”


Former Vice President Joe Biden reflected on how things have changed since the Obama administration.


Biden’s tenure as Vice President overlapped with the tragic 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which a perpetrator killed 20 children and six personnel members. That same year, former President Barack Obama brought a number of gun control proposals to the Senate — none of which were passed into legislation. “The regulations we were able to put in by executive group, some of those were very good and supplied real, positive change we may do administratively,” Biden mentioned. “But the problem was, unless you pass them legislatively, a guy like Trump comes along and wipes them out.”


Nevertheless, Biden invoked a positive sea change in the in general culture of the nation, noting that the cry for gun reform has gone from a cause to a movement, thanks to groups like March For Our Lives and Moms Demand Action. “In the meantime, what has changed is the maturation of the American public,” he mentioned. “You [also] have a clear majority of gun owners, a clear majority of members of the NRA who support the positions we’ve taken.”


Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke doubled down (again) on his mandatory buyback program for assault weapons.


O’Rourke’s stance on assault weapons can basically be summed up with one sentence: “Hell yes, we’re gonna take your AR-15.” His gun reform platform was catapulted into the spotlight earlier this year immediately following the mass shooting at a Walmart in his hometown of El Paso, Texas.


Any time asked at the Gun Safety Forum if he “still stands by” his words from the summer, O’Rourke’s response was simple and firm: “Absolutely, I do.” He went on to elaborate: “I stand with everybody here. I stand with this nation. I stand with Gabby Giffords who came to El Paso, Texas, and met with victims from that August 3rd shooting, one of whom is still in the hospital, more than two months later.”


O’Rourke also refuted the idea that his proposals are “playing into the NRA’s hands,” reminding the audience that most Residents of the United States support an assault weapons ban. “The American folks are with us on this issue,” he mentioned. “It’s time to lead.”


Furthermore, he addressed the normal NRA talking point that gun restrictions would infringe on someone’s constitutional rights, explaining: “I wish to prepare this very clear. We all understand our constitutionally protected second amendment rights, nevertheless we never think that those second amendment rights trump our right to live, or our children’s right to live without fear in this country.”


Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) talked about the concealed horrors of everyday domestic violence.


Earlier this year, Klobuchar introduced legislation to help keep guns out of the hands of abusive dating partners, which would help close the “boyfriend loophole” — the glaring omission in our current regulations where abusive spouses are restricted from buying a firearm, although abusive dating partners are not. “It makes no sense at all,” Sen. Klobuchar mentioned of the way the law currently stands.


According to EveryTown, girls in the U.S. Are 25 times more likely to be killed by guns than ladies in other countries; approximately 4.5 million American girls alive today report that they have been threatened with a gun by an intimate partner. What’s more, access to a gun makes it five times more likely that an abusive partner with a gun will kill a woman will be killed by an abusive partner.


“Domestic violence is one of these daily crimes that we don’t habitually talk about,” Sen. Klobuchar mentioned, adding: “Domestic violence...Is not just about the immediate victim, it’s about our entire community. And thus as soon as we think about this gun offer, we just can’t isolate it to the mass shootings.” She went on to cite gun violence prevention tactics like universal background checks, Centers for Infection Control statistics, and straw buying laws as fundamental ways to reduce gun-related deaths in domestic violence situations.


Entrepreneur Andrew Yang addressed how school shooting drills are potentially traumatizing young people.


Yang suggested ending mobile shooter and lockdown drills in schools across the nation, suggesting that such practices might be doing more harm than good by creating anxiety and distrust in young people. He also posed a lengthy “math” problem to the crowd to emphasize his point.


“You have to take that very real impact [multiplied by] the millions of school children in this nation — and add it to their parents,” Yang explained. “And then...Figure out how several lives you could reasonably expect to be saved by having these kids do these mobile shooter drills to prepare…. You have a certain debilitating...Anxiety...Over millions of Americans; that’s a certain cost. Then you have maybe...At the margins, someone get out of harm’s way…. So to me, in case if you've that certain cost plus a very uncertain benefit, you've got to give your kids a chance to go to school and not worry about getting shot.”


According to the National Association of School Psychologists, some drills, depending upon the circumstances, have the potential to produce “anxiety, stress, and traumatic symptoms” in both students and employees. As Yang said: “If you can’t be secure in your own classroom...Your entire sense of the world is shaken.”









Leave a Comment

Have something to discuss? You can use the form below, to leave your thoughts or opinion regarding 9 Big Takeaways From The 6-Hour Gun Safety Presidential Candidate Forum.