NRA-ILA | Did Biden Call Most American Gun Owners Sick?

There are few things in life that one can truly count on. Of course, there’s the old saying about death and taxes, and we know the sun will rise in the East and set in the West. But it’s getting to the point where you can guarantee that, when Joe Biden says anything about firearms, it will be either outrageous, a blatant lie, or just incomprehensible.

Sometimes it’s all three.

On Thanksgiving, while vacationing in Massachusetts, Biden was asked about a shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Va. The president told reporters, “(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”

So Biden went with outrageous, this time.

First, if Biden thinks it is “sick” to “allow” semiautos to be purchased, he must think those purchasing them are also “sick.” That’s tens-of-millions of Americans that the man who was sold as a great uniter appears to have labeled as “sick.”

That’s outrageous.

Second, there’s the notion that semiautos are “allowed” to be sold; as if the government has been simply giving us permission for well over a century to purchase and possess them, and that permission can be rescinded.

Again, that’s outrageous, not to mention unconstitutional.

Finally, there’s Biden’s idea that semiautos have “no social redeeming value.” Tell that to anyone who has used a semiauto to defend themselves, or others, from violent criminals. Tell that to Eli Dicken, Jack Wilson, or Stephen Willeford, who all used semiautomatic firearms to end mass attacks.

Outrageous may not fully-describe such a viewpoint. To borrow Biden’s phrasing, one might consider this opinion—one which seems to reject the idea that innocent victims should be able to use the most effective means available to defend themselves from violent criminals—as “sick.”

But this is where we are today, under the most anti-gun presidential administration this country has ever known. Biden may be willing to say virtually anything, no matter how disconnected from reality, in order to promote his unrelenting disdain for America’s law-abiding gun owners and the Second Amendment.

Even after the recent midterm election, where his party lost control of the House of Representatives while repeatedly pushing a virulently anti-gun legislative agenda, and polling indicates ¾ of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, Biden has said he won’t change his divisive approach to governing.

Of course, one might argue that his comments about semiautos were just another example of Biden’s propensity for unforced errors when speaking without a script. This is, after all, the undisputed, undefeated King of Gaffes.

After his condemnation of all semiautos, he did mention his well-known goal of banning “assault weapons.”

But before anyone dismisses his declaration that it is “sick” to “allow” the purchase of “semiautomatic weapons” to mean he was referring just to “assault weapons,” mountains of evidence indicate otherwise.

First, Biden has repeatedly suggested he wishes to ban 9mm handguns; by far the most popular class of semiautomatic handgun in America.

Second, the murders in Virginia to which Biden was responding did not involve a so-called “assault weapon.” The murderer used a semiautomatic handgun.

And, finally, Joe Biden has been promoting banning “assault weapons” for more than a quarter century. He will gladly tell anyone who listens that he, and he alone, is the reason for the original passage of the 1994 ban on “assault weapons.” A man who is that much of an “expert” on the subject wouldn’t simply mistakenly conflate the term “semiautomatic” with “assault weapon.” Clearly, he considers all semiautomatic firearms to be “assault weapons.”

We’ve known for some time that Joe Biden has utter contempt for the Second Amendment, and has repeatedly tried to eviscerate it. We also know he despises the firearms industry, and hopes to destroy it. Now, apparently, he has decided that most law-abiding gun owners are “sick.” What Biden’s new strategy of vilifying certain American citizens who choose to exercise their rights protected under the Second Amendment means for the future of our right to keep and bear arms remains to be seen.