Bernie Sanders believes in gun registration for AR-15 rifles, but he will not call for their confiscation like some other Democratic party candidates for president.

The Vermont senator explained why to Cosmopolitan.

Updated clarification: Sanders has said before that he is against the sale and distribution of assault weapons like AR-15s. This article is about his views on confiscation specifically.

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AR-15 semi-automatic rifles have played a prominent role in many mass shootings over the last decade, spurring calls for their ban. They’ve been frequently mentioned during political discussions about gun reform, especially after Beto O’Rourke’s passionate comments during the last Democratic primary debate.



“We’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore,” O’Rourke said.

Bernie Sanders, however, does not share that exact point of view and he said as much during a visit to Cosmopolitan’s offices this week. He supports a sales and manufacturing ban, but not confiscation from those who own AR-15s already. “I would support the registration,” Sanders told Cosmo. “A strong registration gun policy.”

Cosmopolitan’s editor Jessica Pels asked why Sanders doesn’t support full removal like some of the other Democratic candidates running for office, and he said he found other alternatives more effective than confiscation.

“Yeah, I think it sets a precedent of forcing somebody to give up something that they own. You believe in that and somebody else believes in something else. But I think what we can do, way back when Ronald Reagan was president, before that, you could own a machine gun, which is even worse than an assault weapon, you know that really mows down people. And we passed laws for very strong registration, which basically eliminated the private ownership of machine guns. You could not go out and buy a machine gun. I think that’s exactly the direction we should go in terms of assault weapons.”

This stance may surprise some of his fans, but it’s not out of left field. Sanders’ takes on gun reform have raised eyebrows before, even to the point where NBC News called his voting record on gun-related measures a “particular obstacle for energized young voters.” It's not yet clear whether that's true.

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Edit: The headline of this story originally read as "Bernie Sanders Supports Gun Registration, but Not the Ban of AR-15 Rifles," but was edited to clarify Bernie’s position. Bernie Sanders is in favor of banning the sale and distribution of assault weapons, and he is not in favor of the confiscation of AR-15s.