Eric Swalwell gets moment in spotlight at CNN town hall: ‘I’m running for president to stop the shootings’

East Bay congressman doesn’t support impeachment, Medicare-for-All

East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell delivered a passionate call for gun control at a CNN town hall Sunday, a moment in the national spotlight for a presidential candidate who’s struggled to get much traction so far.

Speaking just two days after a gunman shot and killed 12 people in Virginia Beach, Swalwell described his work as an Alameda County prosecutor charging gun crimes and his own fear sending his two-year-old son to preschool.

“There’s this ritual — grief, anger, moments of silence — as an alibi for doing nothing,” he said, railing off a list of mass shootings that resulted in no action from Washington, D.C. “I’m running for president to stop the shootings.”

Swalwell, who wore an orange ribbon pin as a symbol of gun violence, laid out his proposal to ban all 15 million assault weapons in the U.S. and have the federal government buy them back. Assault weapon owners who refused to give them up would go to jail, he said, but pistols, rifles and shotguns wouldn’t be affected under the plan, which was inspired by Australia’s successful efforts to head off mass shootings.