Many of the Democratic presidential candidates have similar views on gun reform for the country. Every candidate supports universal background checks, assault weapon bans, high capacity magazine bans, red flag laws, holding gun manufacturers closing loopholes and taking on the National Rifle Association.

Sen. Kamala Harris expressed this shared unity while speaking to a group of Moms Demand Action in Ames this past October.

“There’s no room for a discussion that’s about party affiliation and arguing Democrat or Republican,” Harris said. “It literally is affecting all of us.” 

While the Democratic candidates share a large number of views on gun reform, they do have some differences that have caused lines to be drawn. One topic that has sparked discussion between candidates has been the debate about mandatory versus voluntary buybacks of assault weapons.

A mandatory buyback program would require all residents who own assault rifles to sell the firearm to the government. A voluntary buyback program, in contrast, would give residents the option of selling their assault rifles to the government.

Rep. Beto O’Rourke has proposed the idea of a mandatory buyback system which has gained him a lot of attention from his comments made during the Houston Democratic primary debate last September.

“Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” O’Rourke said during the debate.

This plan has received pushback by some of his fellow candidates such as Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend and Indiana who has criticized the plan as being a “shiny object.” During the Columbus Democratic primary debate last October, Buttigieg attacked O’Rourke’s plan.

“We are this close to an assault weapons ban. That would be huge. And we’re going to get wrapped around the axle in a debate over whether it’s ‘Hell, yes, we’re going to take your guns?'” Buttigieg said.

Buttigeg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar have said that mandatory buybacks would become too divisive of an issue and hurt the chances of passing an assault weapons ban.

“So if we want to get something done—and I personally think we should start with a voluntary buyback program,” Klobuchar said during the Houston debate.

While buyback programs are designed to drastically reduce gun violence in this country, some candidates have said that they are not enough.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is one of these candidates. She has said that she sees buybacks as one of many necessary measures needed in relation to gun reform.

During the Houston debate Warren said, “It’s not going to be one and done on this. We’re going to do it, and we’re going to have to do it again, and we’re going to have to come back some more until we cut the number of gun deaths in this country significantly.”

Warren has identified the filibuster as an obstacle. A filibuster occurs when a senator refuses to yield the floor. This can prevent bills from ever coming to a vote in the Senate and stall these bills from becoming law.

“We have a Congress that is beholden to the gun industry. And unless we’re willing to address that head-on and roll back the filibuster, we’re not going to get anything done on guns,” Warren said during the Houston debate.