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WASHINGTON — Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., added a new wrinkle to the gun debate recently with a proposal to force Americans to sell off their so-called assault weapons — or else.
Swalwell says he was inspired to act by the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and the surviving students who have since led a nationwide campaign to tighten gun laws. His plan, which he debuted[1] in a USA Today op-ed, is modeled on Australia,[2] which responded to a 1996 mass shooting by forcing gun owners around the country to sell newly prohibited weapons.
But while Australia comes up often in gun debates, almost no prominent figures have proposed national laws that would demand that gun owners turn in existing weapons en masse. Gun safety groups and leading Democrats have rallied around more modest bipartisan measures like expanded background checks and mostly tiptoed around ideas that Second Amendment activists could label "gun confiscation."
Until now, that is. NBC News talked with Swalwell to discuss his plan, its critics, and why he thinks Democrats need to be more aggressive in their thinking on guns. Below is our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
NBC NEWS: Tell me a little about how you came to this idea and why you thought there needed to be a proposal that went further than the existing bills out there now.
Swalwell: It's something I've given a lot of thought to over the last 10 years working as a prosecutor who saw the devastating effects that an assault weapon could do to someone's body, leaving almost little chance of surviving if you are hit.
I told a story in the op-ed about a
