I’m not convinced that Biden will be the Democrats’ actual candidate in 2024, but I do know that a second term would be a dream come true for the gun prohibitionists and an absolute nightmare for Second Amendment supporters and gun owners across the political spectrum (and divide).

I know Biden has said that he’s “gone the full extent of his executive authority” when it comes to gun control. I just don’t believe him. The gun control lobby has certainly been saying something very different, and I think Biden’s decision to push for a gun ban in Congress is pure politics. He wants Democrats to campaign on an “assault weapons” ban in 2024 in the hopes of taking complete control of Congress as well as winning another term in the White House. Based on recent polling, I think that’s yet another idiotic move by Grandpa Joe, as well as a flagrant violation of the Second Amendment, but he wants to paint Republicans as the party of mass shooters, uncaring cretins who love their guns but hate children. If Biden says he can ban “assault weapons” via executive order, he takes what he believes to be a potent campaign issue off the table. Far better for him to say that it’s up to Congress, at least for the moment.

But if Democrats don’t gain back control of Congress or fail to find enough votes for his gun ban, Biden has an ace up his sleeve. For months now, anti-gunners have been arguing that the ATF could enact a gun ban of its own by reclassifying an untold number of semi-automatic handguns and rifles as machine guns subject to the National Firearms Act (and presumably the Hughes Amendment as well). That would be the nuclear option for Biden as far as a gun ban goes, but there’s no need for him to press the button now. In fact, from his perspective, it behooves him to wait. He can always claim to have been persuaded he does have the executive authority to ban semi-autos at any point during his second term, but in the meantime, he can keep demonizing opponents of his gun ban as amoral enablers of mass murder.

Beyond the threat of an administrative gun ban, a second term for Biden could also give him the opportunity to install anti-gun justices to lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. Thankfully, we had a 6-3 majority in Bruen, but if Chief Justice John Roberts is back to being the swing vote at SCOTUS, I’d be very concerned about the type of gun control laws a 5-4 majority might find acceptable. Keep in mind, right after Bruen, the Court granted, vacated, and remanded four other 2A cases, including “assault weapons” and magazine bans, so the Court is likely to take on more than one gun case over the next four years.

Of course, if Biden wins a second term and Democrats capture Congress, the next Supreme Court case dealing with the Second Amendment is going to be something like 14-5 in favor of overturning Heller and maintaining there is no individual right to keep and bear arms. Democrats have been threatening to pack the Supreme Court over Second Amendment cases since before Bruen, and the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade has cemented their belief that the current Court needs to be blown up and replaced with one stuffed to the gills with anti-gun progressives. Just yesterday, more than a dozen anti-gun groups signed on to an effort to expand the Court to the point that they can overturn Heller and declare your right to keep and bear arms null and void.

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