Presidential candidate Eric Swalwell wants universal background checks, ‘assault’ weapons ban

Democratic presidential candidate Eric Swalwell defended his proposal for a ban and forced buyback of so-called assault weapons Thursday by talking about a case he dealt with as a prosecutor more than a decade ago.“We had a young man. He was fired at 40 times, and he was hit just once, in the thigh,” Swalwell told a group of New Hampshire voters.“And his mom asked at the trial, ‘I don’t get it. You would think if you’re going to get shot, getting shot in the leg or arm is where you’d want to get shot,’ but the autopsy doctor testified that because of the sheer energy from the round, he didn’t stand a chance.” A 38-year-old native of Iowa, Swalwell worked as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, after earning his law degree in 2006. He was elected to the U.S. House in 2012 and was re-elected three times.He's a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Judiciary Committee and is co-chair of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. Swalwell also co-founded the United Solutions Caucus and founded Future Forum, a group of young Democratic members of Congress who focus on issues important to millennials, including college costs and student loan debt.In November, before Swalwell became a candidate for president, he had a brief Twitter feud with a pro-Second Amendment advocate, who accused Swalwell of wanting “a war.”“Because that’s what you’d get,” wrote conservative commentator Joe Biggs.Several months earlier in an opinion piece in USA Today, Swalwell proposed a forced buyback of what he called “military-style semiautomatic assault weapons” and wrote that “we should criminally prosecute any who chose to defy (his proposed law) by keeping their weapons.”Swalwell responded in a tweet, which he later – after much pushback-- maintained was a joke,

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