Biden promises to continue gun control push

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

In the wake of the Jacksonville shooting, we all kind of knew what we’d hear from President Joe Biden.

After all, the president is notorious for calling for assault weapon bans following any high-profile shooting, even with a so-called assault weapon wasn’t even used.

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So in the wake of Jacksonville, we all knew what was coming, more or less. Yet much of the president’s focus after Jacksonville was on white supremacy as an ideology, something that we should all openly and vocally oppose. Sure, a lot of stuff gets labeled “white supremacy” just to try and demonize it, but since the killer apparently drew swastikas all over his firearms, I think we can conclude the term is applicable here.

As such, it was nice to see Biden trying to focus on the cause of a shooting, rather than the weapon.

It didn’t last, though, as Biden vowed to push for more gun control.

However, the Biden campaign says the president will also soon start leaning more heavily into gun violence on the trail and that the violent extremism characterizing many of the recent mass shootings across the country runs “deeper than just guns.” In that sense, standing up in opposition to “hate and vitriol” marks a “through line” with his 2020 presidential campaign, where he urged voters to reject former President Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda in order to save the “soul of the nation,” according to Biden campaign officials.

“We’re absolutely campaigning on gun violence,” one campaign official confirmed to the Washington Examiner, despite the uphill battle toward legislating Biden’s gun violence proposals and stressed that federal action on gun violence is a top voting issue for young people.

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Now, this time, Biden isn’t harping on so-called assault weapons, which is an interesting change of pace.

However, we also know that it’s been a goal of his to get a renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban, so rest assured that this will be a part of whatever the president decides to propose.

And it shouldn’t be.

After all, does anyone believe that the lack of an AR-15 would have turned this hateful piece of filth into an angel? “Well, I can’t get an AR-15 to slaughter black people, so I guess I’ll volunteer at a community center in a black neighborhood and get to know those I hate instead,” isn’t exactly the logical progression of such a person.

Especially when you compare this shooting to the one in Orange County.

In that case, the killer also killed three people but also wounded six with a collection of guns that would be legal under any gun control scheme currently being considered at the federal level. There was no AR-15, but there was more bloodshed.

And a gun isn’t even needed.

Take this murder-suicide out of New York as an example. In this one, the killer murdered three members of his family and took his own life with a knife.

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All of these are awful, but they also have one common thread–people intent on killing multiple others.

Biden’s perpetual focus on gun control largely requires us to ignore mass murders like in New York and instead pretend mass shootings are the totality of the problem and if we just do away with one particular type of gun, all will be well.

That’s nonsense, as we can clearly see.

 

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