Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke condemned people who showed up to an event he held at Kent State University this week with “assault weapons.”

“It is not enough to stop selling AR-15s and AK-47s when there are more than 10 million of those potential instruments of terror,” Mr. O’Rourke said in a video clip he shared online Thursday. “We must mandate that every single one of them be bought back - back home, off the streets, out of our lives - no longer a threat to every single one of us.”

“None of us should face this terror…nobody should show up with one of these weapons to seek to intimidate us in our own democracy,” the former congressman said. “That’s wrong. That’s wrong.”

Yesterday, people brought assault weapons to our rally at Kent State—where 4 students were shot dead in 1970.



I told them nobody should show up with an AK-47 or an AR-15 to seek to intimidate us in our own democracy.



We need to buy back every single one of them. pic.twitter.com/U7N5fWUlvv — Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) September 26, 2019

Kent State was the site of a deadly shooting in 1970 where four demonstrators were killed by members of the Ohio National Guard.

After the mass shooting in his hometown of El Paso, Texas last month, Mr. O’Rourke has leaned into the issue of gun control and his proposal for the federal government to buy back semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 as he tries to gain traction in the presidential race.

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