The Problem With Joe Biden’s Great Gun Reset

In his joint presser with New York Mayor Eric Adams, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and a handful of other local leaders, Joe Biden explained his plan to end gun violence in America’s cities – a great gun reset, if you will. But there’s just one problem: It’s built on a mountain of false facts.

In a stunning display of ignorance, the president not only flubbed both his explainer on the Second Amendment and early American history, but also managed to ignore the real reasons for violent crime and pass the blame to inanimate objects. In short, he did precisely as anyone who has ever listened to him or other gun-grabbing Democrats knew he would: once again try to sell one of the most significant assaults on the Second Amendment in recent history.

Same Old Song and Dance

For those who watched or listened, the majority of what the commander-in-chief said was probably familiar. That’s because he has said it all before. Before the president was even elected, Biden’s campaign released its “Plan to End Our Gun Violence Epidemic.” Inside, we see the same list presented at his speech in the Big Apple:

• Pass universal background checks.

• Ban “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines at the federal level.

• Eliminate “ghost guns” by redefining the term “firearm.”

• Grow the list of “prohibited persons.”

• Allow firearm manufacturers to be sued when their products are maliciously misused by criminals.

And if those issues seem familiar to Liberty Nation readers, it’s because we try to bring them up every time the president does. LN’s Graham J. Noble wrote an excellent explanation of the unchanging position of leftists on gun control, regardless of what they may say about common sense and the Second Amendment, and his title says it all: “Don’t Be Fooled: Democrats Still Want Your Guns.”

A Few More Golden Oldies

The president made some bold – and blatantly false – claims about the law and American history. Naturally, these were nothing new either.

According to the president, only in the firearms industry are manufacturers protected from being sued when their products hurt or kill people. This isn’t the first time Biden – or Democrats in general, for that matter – have made this claim, nor that LN has refuted it. The so-called fact is false on two fronts.

First, gun manufacturers aren’t protected from being sued if their products malfunction and injure or kill someone without the trigger being pulled. And even if they were, the industry wouldn’t be the only one with such immunity from liability. In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed into law the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA), which shielded pharmaceutical companies, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and anyone else involved in the vaccine process from being held legally accountable for any injury or death. Such indemnity has never before or since been granted to any other industry in the country.

Second, Biden isn’t talking about manufacturer defects. He means that firearm manufacturers should be sued when violent people use their products to do harm. Under his proposed rules, Glock would be considered responsible for the deaths of NYPD officers Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora because the company committed the sin of manufacturing a firearm that was then purchased legally – with the go-between of some federally regulated firearms dealer, no less – then stolen, and finally used by a violent criminal to commit murder. What other industry is so liable? If someone is stabbed to death with a Stanley screwdriver or even a Schrade hunting knife, can either company be held accountable for those criminal acts? What about a librarian killed in a fit of rage with a hardback from Random House? Must the publisher then pony up?

The Second Amendment isn’t absolute – here’s a favorite of those who want Americans disarmed or, barring that, at least under-armed. That general point may be a classic, but it’s also a debate mired in varying interpretations of the Second Amendment. Biden, however, made a rebuttal easy by once again misstating the history of U.S. gun control. “When the amendment was passed, it didn’t say anybody could own a gun and any kind of gun and any kind of weapon,” the president explained. “You couldn’t buy a cannon when this amendment was passed, and so there’s no reason why you should be able to buy certain assault weapons.”

Twice just in April of 2020, Biden declared that not everyone could buy just any kind of gun even at the founding of the nation. Both times, LN corrected the president, though, sadly, it seems he did not notice.

The Constitution went into effect in 1788, and for the first 146 years of the Republic, there were no federal laws prohibiting anyone from owning firearms for any reason, other than a couple of notable exceptions. The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) made violent felons prohibited persons, and 34 years later – almost two centuries after the Founding – the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) expanded that group to include all felons.

Prior to that, Native Americans and blacks were forcibly disarmed by the federal government, a point one might think too embarrassing for any Democrat to bring up.

Back to the NFA, that was the first nationwide law that restricted what sort of arms the people had the right to keep and bear. In prior explanations, LN pointed out that most of the weapons used during the Revolution and the Civil War were privately owned, including cannons. Even in the World War I era, American soldiers were allowed to bring home their service weapons.

Not only were cannons legal to own before the NFA – they still are! In fact, since the muzzle-loaded, black powder cannons of yore are considered neither a firearm nor a destructive device by the ATF, buying one doesn’t even require a background check.

The Buck Stops Where?

Joe Biden, Eric Adams, and Kathy Hochul have all recently pointed out that the weapons being used to kill New Yorkers weren’t made or, often enough, even sold in the Empire State. Instead, they come up the so-called Iron Pipeline from southern states, like Florida and Georgia. Who is committing the violence? Five NYPD officers were shot in January. While one shooter remains unknown, the other four were New Yorkers. But that doesn’t serve the narrative. Much better to focus on those horrible weapons of war that came up from the South, even if a pistol legally loaded with seven rounds or even a six-shot revolver could have caused just as much carnage. New Yorkers killing New Yorkers won’t justify sweeping gun control at the national level.

~ Read more from James Fite.