Eric Swalwell on assault weapons: 'Just take the 15 million that are out there and buy them back'

Bay Area congressman Eric Swalwell on Monday became the latest person to join the incredibly crowded 2020 Democratic presidential race.

His primary policy message of the campaign will be gun control, and he's proposing a mandatory buyback of "military-style semiautomatic assault weapons."

"I will be the first candidate to say that reducing gun violence has to be a top three issue," Swalwell told Esquire. "Last year I wrote a bill calling for a buyback and ban on assault weapons — not just to ban future manufacturing, but to just take the 15 million that are out there and buy them back."

Swalwell stated that the buyback is mandatory.

"I'm the only candidate calling for a mandatory national ban and buyback of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons," he wrote in a Chronicle op-ed. "It's bold and will cost money, but it is constitutional and it rightly treats gun violence as a life-or-death matter. Our children deserve better than an attempt to reduce or contain gun violence. Our goal must be to end it."