Joe Biden has a way of twisting and co-opting events to usher in his radical anti-gun agenda. This is evident most recently in his thoughtless tweet demanding his vision of far-left gun control in the wake of an assassination attempt on two Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies.
The former vice president, who is trotted out by his wife as the presidential candidate who “feels” America’s angst, was blithely callous when he tweeted for gun and magazine bans less than 24 hours after a criminal brazenly walked up to a sheriff’s vehicle and fired several times with a handgun, critically wounding two deputies.
Biden’s first instinct was to call for a ban on “weapons of war,” facts be damned. What’s more important to Biden is to establish the “it’s the gun’s fault” narrative. Biden also demonstrated willful ignorance concerning how he and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., are complicit in stoking anti-police animus.
Ignorance or Exposure
Biden either exposes his ignorance of firearms and existing laws or opens up his true intentions on gun control. “Weapons of war have no place in our communities,” his tweet said. “We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”
Surveillance video clearly shows the assailant walk up to the deputies’ vehicle and fire a handgun several times, striking both deputies in the face and head. The criminal wasn’t holding Biden’s vaunted “assault weapon,” a term invented by gun control advocates to scare Americans into adopting the gun control narrative.
The Violence Policy Center’s Josh Sugarmann created the term in 1988 to confuse and mislead the public into believing that commonly owned semiautomatic rifles are the same as machine guns. Sugarmann wrote, “[A]nything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun [and] — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions of these weapons.” In reality, the modern sporting rifle operates in the same manner as other semiautomatic firearms, firing one round with each pull and release of the trigger.
Biden knows this yet perpetuates this myth. He cherry-picks data to support his political agenda but ignores the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s findings that the ban on AR-15 rifles and magazines had no effect on crime reduction. He would reinstate an even more draconian version of the 1994 assault weapons ban. Instead of just banning the sale of modern sporting rifles with certain cosmetic features that have no bearing on the firearm’s function, he’d go further.
Biden’s Gun Control
Biden’s plan would put current modern sporting-rifle owners on government watchlists by forcing them to register their guns under the restrictions of the National Firearms Act, which is the same tax-and-license plan in place for machine guns and firearm suppressors. These permits require fingerprint and photo submissions, tax fees, multiple background checks, and paperwork delays averaging nine months or longer.
It gets worse. Biden’s plan includes a provision to use taxpayer funds to “buy back” privately owned firearms from those who refuse to register with government watchlists. Biden also stood on the campaign stage with Beto O’Rourke, pledging to make him his gun control czar, even after the former representative from Texas shouted “Hell, yes,” he would confiscate modern sporting rifles by force, if necessary.
If he got his way, Biden would put the more than 18 million modern sporting rifles in circulation in jeopardy. He’d also outlaw more than half the firearm magazines in possession today, according to questions raised by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which rejected California’s ban as unconstitutional. That decision is pending an en banc hearing, and 17 state attorneys general signed on, begging the court to keep the ban.
Doing Backers’ Bidding
Biden is purposefully conflating handguns and criminal activity with lawful firearm ownership. The concern is why. Biden’s tweet clearly labels what he sees in the video as a “weapon of war,” and Biden’s backers, including anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who funds the gun control groups Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, don’t want everyday Americans to own firearms.
Bloomberg said Americans can’t be trusted with their constitutional right to own a gun. He made this outrageous claim just days after Jack Wilson, a concealed carry permit-holder and member of the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, responded immediately to a murderer in his church and neutralized the threat just six seconds after it began. Bloomberg is now dumping $100 million into Florida to buy the state for Biden and Bloomberg’s gun control fantasy.
Biden’s call for gun control in the wake of a blatant attack is also tone-deaf to the tacit approval he and Harris gave to the mob targeting police. Biden said, “Yes, absolutely,” when asked if he would support redirecting funding away from police departments. Harris promoted and solicited donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund to bail out rioters, looters, and those attacking police. Those donations include bailing out a two-time rapist and other violent criminals.
Biden’s call to ban guns in the wake of an attack on police shows how obtuse he is. This wasn’t a mistimed tweet or poorly worded platform plank. If Biden has his way, we’ll be left with a disarmed America, rendered helpless against the criminals he refuses to confront.
