One thing you have to hand to the Biden administration, they were honest about it.
Joe Biden ran on gun control, at least in part. He made it clear that gun control would be a major issue for his administration. Since taking office, we’ve seen nothing to suggest that the promise wasn’t sincere.
He reiterated this promise during his state of the union address, pushing for a new assault weapon ban, among other things.
Of course, the assault weapon ban calls were nothing new.
Yet it seems a number of state attorneys general aren’t willing to play along. In fact, 16 of them sent a letter to President Biden.
The letter is a reaction to Biden’s comments on our Second Amendment rights in his State of the Union address.
“We write to address your irresponsible and unconstitutional demand that Congress ban firearms commonly used by law-abiding Americans for self-defense. With every tool at our disposal, we will oppose your attempt to trample on Americans’ fundamental right to defend themselves with guns,” begins the letter from Austin Knudsen, attorney general of Montana, which is also signed by 15 other attorneys general.
The letter stays pointed.
“Anti-gun politicians like yourself use the misleading label of ‘assault weapon’ to scare Americans—expecting us to endorse your efforts to criminalize law-abiding gun owners. We also know that your personal definition of ‘assault weapons’ is staggeringly broad—encompassing all semiautomatic weapons—which are the most common and effective self-defense weapons in use today, employed by over 100 million Americans to defend their homes and families. Last November, in a moment of unscripted candor, you stated to reporters that ‘[t]he idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick. It’s just sick. It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.’”
Of course, there’s a lot more to the letter than this. I invite you to go and read the whole post at America’s 1st Freedom for yourself.
However, this is the meat of the letter, in my opinion, and here they’re absolutely right. Biden has expressed his dismay that people are permitted to own semi-automatic firearms. Never mind that the Glock in many people’s holsters is semi-automatic. It doesn’t matter to him if someone’s favorite bird-hunting shotgun is semi-automatic.
If Biden were to get his way, we’d find ourselves thrust back to the 19th Century regarding our choice of firearms.
He’d do away with the venerable 1911 and the futurist P-90, not just the reviled AR-15.
So these AGs sent a letter calling him out on it.
Will the letter do much? Not really. There’s no force of law behind it, after all. However, there’s also little reason to worry. Congress is divided, with the GOP having the upper hand in general. They hold the House and have the filibuster in the Senate, so there’s little chance of a semi-auto ban coming down the pipe, no matter how many calls Biden issues, which is good because if anyone wants to claim Biden will not come for our semi-auto firearms if given half the chance, they haven’t been paying attention to literally anything over the last couple of years.
Biden will if he gets the chance.
This letter, however, reminds the White House that not everyone is willing to just roll over because they think a “semi-auto ban” would simply cover AR-15s and similar rifles. We’re not going to allow it to happen. But frankly, no one should be complacent and trust that such a ban is never coming.
Give Democrats half a chance, and it will.
