Beto O'Rourke Snaps at Laughing Heckler Over Uvalde Shooting

Storyful
14

Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke snapped at a heckler on August 11, who laughed as he discussed the Uvalde mass shooting at a town hall meeting in Mineral Wells.

This footage, streamed live to Facebook shows O’Rourke surrounded by supporters cheering him on as he addresses the crowd and discusses details of the shooting.

“…and take that weapon that was originally designed for use on the battlefield in Vietnam to penetrate an enemy soldier’s helmet at 500 feet and knock him down dead, up against kids at five feet…” O’Rourke said, when a man’s laughter is heard from one side of the room.

“It may be funny to you mother f****er, but it’s not funny to me,” he responds, as the crowd of supporters cheer.

O’Rourke has previously expressed outrage over the shooting in which a gunman opened fire inside a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school and killed 19 children and two adults. Credit: Amy Bearden/Mineral Wells Area News via Storyful

Video Transcript

BETO O'ROURKE: I'm going to make sure that now, 11 weeks since we lost 19 kids and their two teachers shot to death with a weapon originally designed for use in combat, legally purchased by an 18-year-old who did not try to obtain one when he was 16 or 17 but followed the law that's on the books, ladies and gentlemen, that says that you can buy not one, you can buy two or more, if you want to, AR-15s, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and take that weapon that was originally designed for use on the battlefields in Vietnam to penetrate an enemy soldier's helmet at 500 feet and knock him down dead--

[HECKLER LAUGHING]

Up against kids at 5 feet. It may be funny to you, but it's not funny to me.

[LOUD CHEERING]

We're going to make sure-- we're going to make sure-- we're going to make sure that our kids who are starting their school year right now, that they don't have to worry.