Beto O’Rourke’s doomed campaign for governor in Texas took a strange twist this week when the former congressman, and now full-time losing political candidate, responded to hecklers by calling them “motherf*ckers” as they laughed while he inaccurately described the design and use of the AR-15 rifle.
Beto’s speeches are usually heavy on emotion and light on facts, as was the case in the town of Mineral Wells where he spoke to a large room of supporters.
When describing the circumstances of the Uvalde shooter being able to legally obtain an AR-15 rifle before carrying out his murderous rampage, Beto’s flourishes and misstatements drew some mild laughter from somewhere in the crowd, and this unfolded:
"It may be funny to you ************, but it's not funny to me, okay?"
Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke snaps at a heckler who appeared to laugh as he discussed the Uvalde mass shooting at a town hall meeting. https://t.co/jHjDTIISSf pic.twitter.com/6rbwMWXvQr
— ABC News (@ABC) August 11, 2022
If you want to hear the uncensored version, check this Breitbart tweet. Language warning.
The crowd, 99% of which were there to support and see Beto, erupted in applause and cheering since their guy just put a heckler in his place.
Beto’s facts were incorrect, but that’s not surprising. The AR-15, in which the “AR” stands for ArmaLite, not “assault rifle,” which is commonly confused, is a semi-automatic weapon never designed to be used on the battlefield.
It’s a civilian model that lost out to higher-powered weapons like the M14 and eventually M16 machine gun for combat use. It was not the AR-15 on the battlefield in Vietnam, as Beto would have you believe, it was the M16.
As the Texas Tribune reports, Beto has been followed and heckled at numerous campaign stops which is probably why his blood was boiling to the point of swearing at his potential future constituents:
O’Rourke’s admonishment of the person drew sustained applause and cheers from the crowd. He quickly moved on in his stump speech, talking about wanting to keep kids safe as the school year begins.
It is unclear who exactly was laughing, but tweets from the event showed there was a group of protesters present holding campaign signs for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. On one live broadcast, the camera panned to the group after O’Rourke’s response and showed one of them laughing.
“Nothing more serious to me than getting justice for the families in Uvalde and stopping this from ever happening again,” O’Rourke tweeted afterward.
It was not the first time O’Rourke has addressed heckling at an event while discussing gun violence. He responded less explicitly last month in Snyder, telling the person, “Might be funny to you. It isn’t to me.”
Nothing is more serious to any reasonable human being than getting justice for the Uvalde families and preventing any future mass shootings, but using hyperbole and lies to do it is not the way to find solutions or common ground.
Beto’s loaded speeches tend to ignore facts and downplay ways that could actually prevent gun violence in favor of gun bans. The federal government just passed a piece of legislation that provided money to states to implement “red flag” laws, among other things, to try and find mass shooters and remove access to firearms before something bad occurs. It’s not a perfect solution and maybe not even a good one, but it’s something that drew bipartisan support.
Was it rude to laugh during Beto’s speech? Yes, probably it was.
On the other hand, Beto is such a thin-skinned politician that he can’t even take the least bit of pushback without exploding in a way that simply makes him look inexperienced and childish.
The recent outburst is reminiscent of his time on the presidential campaign trail in 2019 when he exclaimed, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15…”
Again, much applause from a friendly room of Democratic voters at a presidential primary debate.
The problem for Beto is since that time he’s become identified as a single-issue candidate. Beto is the “gun guy,” which Joe Biden even alluded to when he said he would make Beto the “gun czar” in his future administration. That move never panned out, probably to the betterment of Beto’s political career.
Beto faces an uphill climb in Texas. Despite the annual claims that the state is “trending blue,” elections seem to bring it back to the red column time and time again. Beto had a close race against Sen. Ted Cruz, but it appears he’s having a tougher time against Gov. Greg Abbott.
Whatever happens, don’t laugh at Beto, or he’ll use naughty words at you.
