Last November, the day before Election Day, The Washington Post’s so-called “fact-checker” gave President Biden the dubious distinction of a “bottomless Pinocchio” for, as the newspaper explained, “false or misleading statements repeated so often that they became a form of propaganda. A statement would get added to the list if it had earned a Three or Four Pinocchios rating and been repeated at least 20 times.”
The Post didn’t specifically cite President Biden’s misstatements regarding firearms and your Second Amendment right to own them. But he so often utters false, misleading or incoherent claims about guns that it’s clear he either knows almost nothing about guns or wants to frighten non-gun owners about firearms—or both.
The most consistent—and likely most accurate and truthful—thing President Biden says about firearms is that he wants to ban them. “The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick,” Biden said last Thanksgiving, in effect calling for a ban on many, if not most, of the firearms sold in America today.
In May 2022, Biden made it clear that he doesn’t just want to ban the 25 million semi-automatic rifles currently owned by Americans but handguns, as well. Referring to the 9 mm—the most prevalent handgun cartridge in the world—Biden said, “The idea of these high-caliber weapons is, uh, there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection, hunting.”
In 2019, Biden went even further. “The idea that we don’t have elimination of assault-type weapons, magazines that can hold multiple bullets in them, it’s absolutely mindless,” he said. Think about that. A ban on firearms that hold “multiple bullets” would outlaw every firearm in America except single-shot models.
And to push this agenda, Biden appears more than willing to sacrifice the truth.
Last August, Biden claimed that “the bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun.” Of course this is false, but the legacy media happily parroted the lie.
Biden’s statements regarding firearms and gun laws are so consistently, continually false that even FactCheck.org had to call him out.
Biden claimed “you can buy whatever you want” at a gun show with “no background check.” As you and I both know, the truth is that firearm sellers must obey every federal, state and local law whether they make their transactions at gun shows or anywhere else. Dealers must do background checks, and buyers in many states must still pass background checks whether they purchase a firearm from a dealer or anyone else.
As FactCheck.org pointed out, the Congressional Research Service noted in its 2019 report, “private firearms sales at gun shows … did not appear to be a significant source of guns” for federal and state prisoners convicted of crimes involving firearms. They based this assessment on surveys conducted in 2015 and 2016, but earlier studies going back at least to 1994 came to the same conclusion.
Last February, Biden claimed that the firearm industry is “the only industry in America that is exempted from being able to be sued by the public. The only one.” This is false, too. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), passed in 2005, does one thing only: It protects the firearm industry from being sued into insolvency by plaintiffs seeking to blame the industry for the criminal acts of third parties. Manufacturers can still be sued for defective products, negligence or any criminal conduct.
I don’t have enough space here to go through every one of President Biden’s false statements regarding firearms. My point is this: The only way lies can triumph over the truth is if good people remain silent.
And when it comes to firearms and your Second Amendment freedom to own them, nobody fights for the truth more ferociously than your NRA. We tell the truth about firearms, and we fight to defend it. As the trade publication Library Journal noted decades ago, “the American Library Association and the National Rifle Association lobby are the only ones whose information was considered consistently truthful and reliable by legislators.”
There’s an old joke that law professors tell to future attorneys: “If the truth is on your side, pound the truth. If the law is on your side, pound the law. And if neither one is on your side, pound the table.”
If you want to keep President Biden pounding the table—instead of pounding your Second Amendment rights into submission—renew your NRA membership today.
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