BELLEVUE, WA – Democrat presidential hopeful Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s outburst on gun control during Thursday evening’s presidential debate, and the applause that followed, effectively erased any doubts about the true intent the candidate, his party and their followers have toward the Second Amendment, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“Hell, yes,” O’Rourke blurted, “we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47!”

“O’Rourke’s comment was brutally revealing,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and so was the reaction from the audience. His intent to confiscate privately-owned firearms got the biggest cheer of the evening. Even more alarming was the fact that not one of his colleagues on stage made an effort to disagree. That should concern every gun owner in the country.

“Second Amendment activists have been ridiculed by Democrats and the gun prohibition lobby for years,” he continued. “Their condescending assurances that ‘nobody is going to take your guns’ just went out the window, thanks to O’Rourke, who even said the same thing last year while campaigning for the U.S. Senate.

“O’Rourke can’t walk that back,” Gottlieb observed. “His outburst is getting more media attention than anything else he’s said on the campaign trail. The reaction from the audience, and the silence of other candidates confirms what we’ve been saying. Just look online; they’re already selling T-shirts with his comment on the front!

“Thanks to O’Rourke,” he noted, “Democrats have just graduated from being the ‘party of gun control’ to officially being the ‘party of gun confiscation,’ and nobody in the firearms community is going to forget that.

“From this moment forward,” he predicted, “when Democrats talk about ‘gun reform’ or ‘gun safety,’ the whole country will know they’re not just talking about gun control, they’re talking about taking firearms from law-abiding citizens who have committed no crime.

“Obviously,” Gottlieb stated, “O’Rourke’s party is no longer interested in piecemeal erosion of the Second Amendment. Their intent now is to smash it. How can Democrats expect any gun owner to believe otherwise unless the party, especially the other candidates, immediately disavow and condemn O’Rourke’s remark? Their silence is both deafening, and damning.”