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Beto O'Rourke snapped at a heckler who laughed as he mentioned the Uvalde massacre

Aug 11, 2022, 21:19 IST
Business Insider
Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke speaks during a campaign rally at Republic Square on December 04, 2021.Brandon Bell/Getty Images
  • Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke held a town hall at a campaign stop in Mineral Wells, Texas, on Wednesday.
  • While talking about the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, an audience member laughed.
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Video shows Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke lashed out at a heckler who laughed as he spoke about the mass shooting at Robb Elementary that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.

"It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it's not funny to me," O'Rourke said during a town hall event on Wednesday.

O'Rourke was speaking about the rifle used in the Uvalde mass shooting when the audience member chuckled during a campaign stop in Mineral Wells, Texas.

"You can buy two, or more if you want to, AR-15s, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and take that weapon that was originally designed for use on the battlefields of Vietnam to penetrate an enemy soldiers helmet at 500 feet and knock him down dead up against kids at five feet," O'Rourke said right before the audience member interrupted.

Video shared online by Travis Akers shows the crowd bursting into cheers and holding up Beto signs after he shut down the heckler.

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O'Rourke's long been an opponent of the firearms industry, using his disdain for it as campaign fodder during his previous runs for office. In 2019, following the shooting at an El Paso Walmart, O'Rourke said "hell yes" to the proposition to institute a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons.

"Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47," O'Rourke said. "We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore."

Following the Uvalde massacre, O'Rourke said the shooting was predictable, and that the mass shootings "will continue to happen" without proper action from the government, namely by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

"It'll be some other school, some other Walmart, some other movie theaters, some other church, in some other city until we decide that we've had enough," O'Rourke said in an interview after interrupting a Uvalde press conference held by Abbott, GOP leaders, and local officials.

O'Rourke has been campaigning his way through Texas ahead of the November gubernatorial elections, where he'll face off against the Republican governor, Abbott. According to the Cook Political Report, the state's gubernatorial election is rated as "likely R."

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