Biden calls assault weapon ban the only rational option

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

As we’ve noted previously, President Joe Biden has never been a fan of gun rights. For decades, he’s made it his mission to erode our right to keep and bear arms until there’s almost nothing left for us to defend ourselves with.

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Which many believe is the ultimate goal.

But for now, we still have a lot of our rights intact. Yet according to Biden, the only rational policy is an assault weapon ban.

President Joe Biden, pressed on potential avenues for gun control in the wake of the devastating school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, pointed to an assault weapons ban Monday morning.

“It makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” he told reporters outside the White House after traveling from Delaware. “The idea of these high-caliber weapons — there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of, about self-protection, hunting and I guess — and, remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute. You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weaponry.”

Yes. You. Could.

You most definitely could buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. Hell, you can still buy the exact same cannon without even a background check.

But we’ve debunked that nonsense before.

What about the “rational basis” for so-called assault weapons?

Well, first, let’s understand that these are used in hunting. The Second Amendment doesn’t say a thing about hunting, mind you, but the AR-15 is a great varmint round. Coyote hunters, in particular, seem to enjoy these particular weapons.

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So yeah, they’re useful for hunting.

But what about self-defense? Well, the AR-15 and similar pattern rifles have adjustable stocks and low recoil. That makes them good for just about any member of the family to use to defend the home. Not everyone will be comfortable with a 12-gauge shotgun–a weapon Biden has advised people to use for self-defense–but an AR-15 is a different matter entirely.

In other words, the two areas Biden claims there’s no rational basis for these kinds of weapons? There’s plenty of rational reasons to own them.

But it should be noted that the Second Amendment also reads “shall not be infringed.” The president’s example used to justify gun control is an outright fabrication, and it has to be, because “shall not be infringed” sounds pretty damn absolute to me.

Then again, that’s not the only time Biden played fast and loose with reality.

On Monday, Biden appeared to credit a federal assault rifle ban — which expired in 2004 — for reducing gun deaths previously, saying, “I know what happened when we had rational action before,” adding that the prohibition “cut down mass murders.”

What we know for a fact is that AR-15s were still available during that era. If the AR-15 were the problem, how did a ban that didn’t really ban the weapon stop the weapon from being used in mass shootings?

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Honestly, this is really just ignoring reality.

Plus, frankly, it should be noted that most mass shooters don’t use so-called assault weapons. According to the Rockefeller Institute, almost 75 percent of all mass shooters use a handgun.

For all the doom and gloom about AR-15s, they’re still not the preferred weapon of the mass shooter, and why would they be?

Not that Biden would care. He doesn’t value our rights in any appreciable way and this is obvious.

Let’s be clear, though. The vast majority of folks aren’t remotely interested in giving up their AR-15s. Keep trying to take them and things are going to get sporty really quickly.

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