It has become axiomatic that, when we write about Joe Biden commenting on guns, we will be reporting that he has uttered something patently false. In fact, there are usually several things that he gets completely wrong, and often the things he gets wrong are things he repeatedly gets wrong.
And it’s not just us, or others in the pro-gun community, who are calling out the president for being wrong when it comes to guns, laws, or even our nation’s history. Even some in the legacy media, who generally have no love for the Second Amendment, simply cannot let Biden’s ridiculous statements go unchallenged.
Biden recently went to New York City for a Gun Violence Task Force meeting, seeking to exploit the deaths of two police officers to push his anti-gun agenda. And, as we would expect, he lied.
Some may consider it a bit harsh to accuse Biden of lying, rather than saying he misspoke, had bad information, or just committed another one of his ubiquitous gaffes that have become standard fare for his public appearances.
But it can only be considered a gaffe if it is a one-time mistake, which later gets clarified. With Biden, he is clearly lying when it comes to certain comments about the Second Amendment.
While using the tragic deaths of two of New York City’s finest to try to revive his push to eliminate our right to keep and bear arms, Biden revived a false argument he has used several times.
“We talk like there’s no amendment that’s absolute,” Biden claimed. “When the [Second Amendment] was passed, it didn’t say anybody can own a gun and any kind of gun and any kind of weapon. You couldn’t buy a cannon in — when the — this — this amendment was passed.”
There are actually a few things wrong with that statement, but the most obvious one, regarding cannons, has been disproven before. Even The Washington Post, a media outlet that has a long history of showing open hostility towards the Second Amendment, gave Biden four “Pinocchios”—the harshest rating the paper gives when “fact-checking” politicians and public figures—when he made the same claim last year.
Back then, the Post noted that Biden had already been “fact-checked” before on the issue. The paper’s designated “fact-checker,” Glenn Kessler, even pointed out that the comment was not some “inconsequential flub,” writing, “Every U.S. president has a responsibility to get American history correct, especially when he’s using a supposed history lesson in service of a political objective.”
Not only could people buy (or make or own) cannons prior to the Constitution (one of Biden’s previously debunked claims was that there was a prohibition on private ownership of cannons during the Revolutionary War), but they could do so after it was ratified, and continue to be able to do so today. While there are now certain laws and regulations in place on owning cannons—both at the federal level and in some states—they did not exist during the time Biden references.
In other words, Biden is lying…repeatedly. Maybe it’s time the Post retire four Pinocchios as the worst rating one can get for something the paper “fact-checks,” and add a new designation. We humbly suggest the most egregious lies, especially those constantly repeated, be called “Going Full Biden.”
But the cannon comment wasn’t the only problem with Joe’s remarks, even in just the short quote we offered above.
His claim that the Second Amendment “didn’t say anybody can own a gun and any kind of gun and any kind of weapon” further highlights the fact that Biden has little grasp of what the Constitution, including our Bill of Rights, either says or means.
What the Second Amendment says is that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In other words, it doesn’t qualify who “the people” are, and it doesn’t explain to what types of “Arms” it refers. It makes no reference to what “the people” can do, but it spells out what the government cannot do; it says the right “shall not be infringed.”
These kinds of details matter. What Biden does not seem to comprehend is the fact that the Constitution spells out our government’s power, including limits to that power—in other words, what it can and cannot do. It does not describe what the government may allow the people to do, as Biden seems to imply.
Once again, this is no gaffe by the president, but a repeated lie, which has been “fact-checked” before.
And remember, this is a man with a law degree who was once an adjunct professor at Widener University, where he taught a class on…wait for it…“Selected Topics in Constitutional Law.” If one of those “Selected Topics” was the Second Amendment, some students may want to ask for a refund of their tuition.
Beyond Biden’s inability to understand (or, more accurately, his propensity to lie about) the Second Amendment, our Constitution, and our nation’s history, the president’s New York appearance was replete with all of his favorite anti-gun talking points.
He promoted “going after ghost guns,” making private gun transfers illegal, banning popular semi-automatic firearms and the standard magazines that come with most of them, and working to make it easier to drive gun manufacturers into bankruptcy through a never-ending deluge of meritless civil suits.
Sadly, he did all of this while exploiting the deaths of police officers killed in the line of duty. The officers, Wilbert Mora and Jason Rivera, were shot by an armed assailant while they were responding to a domestic disturbance call. The assailant, who was on probation for a previous conviction in New York, was armed with a handgun that had apparently been stolen in Baltimore in 2017.
In other words, Biden used the tragedy to promote gun control measures that would have had no impact on the killings. A “ghost gun” was not used, and the gun was stolen, so any change to laws regulating the transfer of firearms would have done nothing.
Biden falsely described the stolen handgun used, identified as a Glock, as a “weapon of war.” He then claimed that, while he was in the Senate he “was able to get these weapons…outlawed.” We presume he is referring to the failed 1994-2004 ban on the manufacture (not possession) of certain semi-automatic firearms, but the Glock used does not appear to have been subject to that ban. It was neither part of the list of named firearms to be banned, nor does it seem to fit into the generic list of banned firearms based on cosmetic features.
Perhaps the only policy Biden mentioned that might have an impact on crimes like the one that took the lives of these two officers would be his desire to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). Biden, when apparently talking about repealing the PLCAA, claimed the firearms industry is “the only industry in America that is exempted from being able to be sued by the public.”
That, of course, is a lie.
The PLCAA simply rejects the notion of holding gun manufacturers—even though they have complied with every one of the numerous laws and regulations that control their industry—responsible for the violent acts of criminals. Gun makers are still subject to potential civil suit should they violate the law or manufacture defective products, just like any other industry.
But, should Biden succeed in repealing the PLCAA, it is certainly likely that there will be a flood of reckless lawsuits filed by anti-gun extremists against virtually every gun manufacturer. In spite of the fact that these suits will likely fail, as they did regularly prior to the passage of the PLCAA, their ultimate goal is to drive gun makers out of business under the crushing financial burden of constantly having to defend themselves in court.
In the end, we can just chalk up the president’s recent New York appearance as one more time when he spoke about guns and lied. It’s just one of those things we can always expect: The sun will rise in the east, it will set in the west, and if Joe talks about guns, he will be “Going Full Biden.”
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