June Democratic candidates debate in Miami FL: on Gun Control

Bernie Sanders: 2013: state decisions on guns; 2019: federal legislation

SANDERS: No, that's a mischaracterization of my thinking.

Q: It's a quote of you.

SANDERS: Look, we have a gun crisis right now, 40,000 people a year are getting killed. In 1988, when it wasn't popular, I ran on a platform of banning assault weapons and in fact lost that race for Congress. I have a D-minus voting record from the NRA. And I believe that what we need is comprehensive gun legislation that, among other things, provides universal background, we end the gun show loophole, we end the strawman provision, and I believed in 1988 and I believe today.

Bernie Sanders: Buy back assault weapons, and ban their sale

Rep. Eric SWALWELL: Your plan leaves them on the streets. You leave 15 million on the streets.

SANDERS: We ban the sale and distribution [of assault weapons].

SWALWELL: Will you buy them back?

SANDERS: If the government wants to do that and people want to bring them back, yes.

SWALWELL: You are going to be the government, will you buy them back?

SANDERS: Yes.

Eric Swalwell: Mandatory gun buy-back, but not pistols or rifles

SWALWELL: Keep your pistols, keep your rifles, keep your shotguns, but we can take the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people. We have the NRA on the ropes, because of the moms, because of the Brady Group, because of March for our Lives. I'm the only candidate calling for a ban and buyback of every single assault weapon in America. I have seen the plans of the other candidates here. They would all leave 15 million assault weapons in our communities. I will approach this issue as a prosecutor. But also as a parent, of a generation who has seen thousands of black children killed in our streets. And a generation who goes to the theater and we actually look where the fire exits are. We don't have to live this way. We must be a country who loves our children more than we love our guns.

Joe Biden: I'm the guy who got the Brady Bill passed

Rep. Eric Swalwell: But the NRA is taking orders from the gun manufacturers, that's the problem.

Kamala Harris: Executive action on gun control if Congress won't do it

Pete Buttigieg: Trained on military weapons: no place in civilian use

Mayor Pete BUTTIGIEG: We trained on some of these kinds of weapons. If more guns made us safer, we would be the safest country on earth. It doesn't work that way. Common-sense measures like universal background checks can't seem to get delivered by Washington, even when most Republicans, let alone most Americans, agree it's the right thing to do. As somebody who trained on weapons of war, I can tell you that there are weapons that have absolutely no place in American cities or neighborhoods in peacetime, ever.

V.P. Joe BIDEN: I'm the only person that has beaten the NRA nationally. I'm the guy that got the Brady Bill passed, the background checks. I'm also the only guy that got assault weapons banned, and the number of clips in a gun banned. Our enemy is the gun manufacturers, not the NRA, the gun manufacturers.

Amy Klobuchar: No gun confiscation; sensible gun laws don't hurt hunters

Amy Klobuchar: That's not confiscation. You could give them the offer to buy back their gun.I look at these proposals and I say, does this hurt my Uncle Dick and his deer stand, coming from a proud hunting and fishing state? These proposals don't do that. Now these Parkland kids from Florida, they started a national shift. You know why? It's just like with gay marriage. When kids talked to their parents and their grandparents, they say I don't understand why we can't put these sensible things in place, they listen. And if we get bested by a bunch of 17-year-olds it's the best thing that ever happened.

Beto O`Rourke: Weapons of war belong on battlefield, not in our communities

O`Rourke: We talked about ending the sales of assault weapons into our communities. Those weapons of war were designed to kill people as effectively and as efficiently as possible. They should belong on the battlefield and not in our communities. Red flag laws, so if someone poses a danger to themselves or to someone else, they're stopped before it's too late. And what I found is that Democrats and independents and Republicans, gun-owners and non-gun-owners alike, agreed.

Cory Booker: Tired of "thoughts and prayers"--this is personal

In my faith, people say faith without works is dead. The reason we have a problem is we've let the corporate gun lobby frame this debate. It is time that we have bold actions. This is not about policy. This is personal.

Cory Booker: We require licenses to drive; so require licenses for guns

Elizabeth Warren: Seven kids will die today from guns: treat it as emergency

Guns in the hands of a collector who's had them for decades, who's never fired them, who takes safety seriously, that's very different from guns that are sold and turned over quickly. We can't treat this as an across-the-board problem. We have to treat it like a public health emergency. That means bring data to bear and it means make real change in this country, whether it's politically popular or not.

Julian Castro: Dems can get common sense gun reform in 2021

Tim Ryan: We need mental health counseling to prevent mass shootings

Rep. Tim RYAN: These kids are traumatized. We need to start dealing with the trauma that our kids have. We need trauma-based care in every school. 90% of the shooters come from the school they're in, and 73% of them feel shamed, traumatized, or bullied. We need to make sure that these kids feel connected to the school. That means a mental health counselor in every single school. We need to start playing offense. If our kids are so traumatized that they're getting a gun and going into our schools, we're doing something wrong.