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Mineral Wells heckler says he was laughing at Beto O’Rourke, not Uvalde shooting

A gun and ammo store owner who laughed as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke spoke about the Uvalde shooting during a Mineral Wells town hall Wednesday night has come forth to say the massacre wasn’t what he was laughing at.

Ron Warren, who owns An Eye for an Eye Guns and Ammo in Mineral Wells, told a reporter for Mineral Wells Area News he was laughing at O’Rourke’s lack of gun knowledge.

“I would’ve went through a burning building with a toothpick to get those babies out, because that’s wrong what happened in Uvalde,” Warren told a Mineral Wells Area News reporter.

Warren, donning a navy blue U.S. Air Force veteran ball cap and a t-shirt calling O’Rourke a curse word in Spanish, was among the protesters who attended Wednesday evening’s event at the Crazy Water Hotel. The town hall was a part of O’Rourke’s 5,600-mile campaign tour of the state.

O’Rourke has heavily hammered the state Legislature’s lack of action following the Uvalde mass shooting that resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two teachers.

Talking to the crowd about the massacre, O’Rourke said the weapon was originally designed for combat use and was purchased by the shooter legally. O’Rourke said the gun was designed to be used in combat and during Vietnam to “penetrate an enemy’s soldier’s helmet at 500 feet and knock him down dead,” pausing briefly before talking about Uvalde, “up against kids at five feet.”

Warren laughed between O’Rourke saying “dead” and “up against kids at five feet.”

O’Rourke then turned to him and pointed.

“It may but funny to you, [expletive], but it’s not funny to me,” O’Rourke said. The crowd roared, and the video of the exchange went viral, amassing millions of views on social media and gaining national attention.

Warren, in an interview with Mineral Wells Area News, said O’Rourke was “telling a spiel that was not true, saying how that you have to shoot at 500 feet, which is a joke, saying that it was for shooting people in the head with, go through their body armor and their helmets.”

The AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle, came out during the 1960s after Colt began making an automatic fire version of the gun called an M16 for soldiers during the Vietnam War, according to NBC. The weapon’s bullets are widely known for their damage to the human body upon impact, and protection against the gun’s bullets largely depends on the type of body armor a person wears.

Warren told the reporter he was supposed to be getting a call from O’Rourke’s opponent, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

“I was for the kids,” Warren said. “I never laughed at those kids. I laughed at a fool who does not know nothing about guns.”

Warren told the reporter that he wouldn’t be willing to have a conversation with O’Rourke about the issue and that they wouldn’t find middle ground.

In response to Warren’s claims, a spokesperson for O’Rourke’s campaign texted a Star-Telegram reporter Friday afternoon and said, “There’s nothing funny about 19 kids being shot to death in their classrooms, and there’s nothing okay about refusing to act so it doesn’t happen again in the state with more shootings than any other since Abbott became governor as gun violence has become the leading cause of death for kids and teens in Texas.”

Warren didn’t immediately return a phone call, text and Facebook message for comment.