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Biden doesn't miss a chance to push gun control

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

President Joe Biden wants gun control. Following the awful tragedy in Uvalde just days after another one in Buffalo, he thinks he’s got his best opportunity to get it.

In truth, he may be right. It doesn’t mean he’s got a good chance, but he’s got a chance.

Earlier this week, the president sat down with New Zealand’s anti-gun prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and true to form, he had to use it as an opportunity to push gun control.

President Joe Biden praised New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday for her success in curbing domestic extremism and guns as he tries to persuade a reluctant Congress to tighten gun laws in the aftermath of horrific mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York.

The long-planned talks between Biden and Ardern centered on trade, climate and security in the Indo-Pacific, but the two leaders’ starkly different experiences in pushing for gun control loomed large in the conversation.

Biden told reporters at the start of his meeting with Ardern that he “will meet with the Congress on guns, I promise you,” but the White House has acknowledged that winning new gun legislation will be an uphill climb in an evenly divided Congress.

The U.S. president praised Ardern for her “galvanizing leadership” on New Zealand’s efforts to curb the spread of extremism online, and said he wanted to hear more about the conversations in her country about the issue. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the two leaders spent part of the meeting discussing “what has been done on gun reform” under Ardern’s watch.

Ardern offered condolences and said she stood ready to share “anything that we can share that would be of any value” from New Zealand’s experience.

“Our experience demonstrated our need for gun reform, but it also demonstrated what I think is an international issue around violent extremism and terrorism online,” Ardern told reporters following her more than hour-long meeting with Biden. “That is an area where we see absolutely partnership that we can continue to work on those issues.”

Of course, this is a game for Biden and his people. They’ve been dedicated to trying to tie gun rights with extremism and this is, in fact, just another example.

Note how often the two are mentioned just a sentence or two apart with no mention of them being separate issues?

In marketing, one thing that is key is repetition. If you keep saying the same thing over and over again, it bores into people’s minds.

On the same token, if you mention two ideas together enough, they start becoming linked in the mind as well.

Further, Ardern’s experiences in New Zealand are irrelevant. What she and her country did has no bearing on what we can or should do here. We’re different nations with different laws.

So why bring it up?

Biden’s hope is that he can link the idea of an assault weapon ban and “response to awful mass shooting” in people’s minds. Remember, he thinks this is the only rational response.

Nothing about this meeting was about discussing or learning from one another, at least not anything seen by the public.

No, this is nothing more than gun control propaganda staged to push this idea on the American people. It’s trying to advance the notion that the only logical response to such tragedies is to punish millions of Americans who did absolutely nothing wrong.

The more they can repeat the idea, the more likely people are to internalize it as the only option.

However, that’s a lie. There are tons of other things we could do that focus on the problem, such as overhauling our mental health system, hardening schools, and so on. Yet none of those advance the gun control agenda, so they’re never mentioned.