Texas representative Vicente Gonzalez (D.) pushed back against calls for a mandatory gun buyback program during an appearance on CNN's Newsroom.
"I don't know that taking everyone's guns and buying everyone's guns back is going to cure the national massacres that we've had in recent history," Gonzalez said.
Host Poppy Harlow mentioned Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke's call for a mandatory buyback program at the most recent Democratic debate. "Is that a bridge too far for you or do you support a mandatory buyback?" Harlow asked.
"I don't know if we need to go that far to cure the issue," Gonzalez responded. "We need more intense background checks, we need to close the loopholes on private sales, we need to limit magazine capacity. We need to do so many other issues before we start going into the idea of buying people's guns back."
He described a buyback program as a "last resort."
O'Rourke's call for a confiscation of AR-15s and AK-47s marked a dramatic reversal from the Democratic Party's previous positions on gun control. Democratic lawmakers had repeatedly insisted that they did not want to take guns away from law-abiding gun owners.
"Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47," O'Rourke said during the debate. "We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore."
After the debate, fellow presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) dismissed concerns about Second Amendment rights, calling objections to gun confiscation "fear-mongering of people on the far right."
Recent polls showed support for a ban on "assault weapons" declining, while expanding background checks received nearly unanimous support.