A complicit mainstream media has heralded Joe Biden as a groundbreaking president, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D) even said he should be put on Mount Rushmore; but let’s cut through the spin and look at what he did (and tried to do) to our constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
Biden Established an Anti-Gun Federal Office
In 2023, Biden created the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which was to be overseen by Kamala Harris and staffed with noted anti-Second Amendment activists.
The purpose of this office “is to employ professional gun-control advocates and amplify their propaganda and agenda with taxpayer dollars,” as reported by the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA).
“The White House Office of so-called ‘Gun Violence Prevention’ is yet another distraction, crafted to divert America’s and the media’s gaze from the Biden crime wave and their soft-on-crime policies destroying our communities. Instead of confronting the real challenges and holding accountable the DAs who turn a blind eye to crime, this administration unfairly targets law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights. It’s becoming increasingly clear that this office is a puppeteering maneuver by the gun control lobby, designed to dismantle our Second Amendment rights,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Randy Kozuch.
Biden Forced through Anti-Gun Legislation
The dubiously named Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) has a friendly name, but it was not written to make us safer. The BSCA was used to strip federal funding for archery and hunting programs in schools and amended the definition of “engaged in business” to include virtually anyone who transfers a firearm, thus requiring them to obtain a federal firearms license.
In September of this year, Biden squeezed in more executive orders before his departure from the White House. Using the BSCA, he even created an interagency Emerging Firearms Threats Task Force chaired by the director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
Biden’s Lies, Lies, Lies
Biden has frequently and deliberately lied about our Second Amendment rights; for example, he has said the firearm industry is “the only industry in America that can’t be sued.” Of course, this isn’t true, but he has also said that repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act—which only protects the firearms industry from frivolous lawsuits—is the one thing he would ask God for.
Biden also repeatedly called for a ban on semi-automatic rifles. He claimed it was one of many “proven measures to reduce gun violence.” This is odd considering that a congressionally mandated study found that the previous Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which ran from 1994-2004, had little, if any, effect on crime.
Biden also liked to say that none of his anti-freedom policies infringed on the Second Amendment when, in fact, they did just that. “Nothing—nothing I’m about to recommend in anyway impinges on the Second Amendment,” said Biden.
His other favorite line is that he “beat the NRA.” This is a strange thing to say, as during his time in the White House more than a dozen states enacted some form of constitutional carry (the total is now 29) and the NRA was instrumental in passing each of these.
Finally, he swept away criminal convictions on tax and gun charges for his son, Hunter, before exiting the Oval Office. He did this despite promising multiple times throughout his presidency that he would never do such a thing.
All of this comes as Americans have been purchasing firearms in record numbers since Biden took office, with more than one million background checks being conducted per month for the purchase of a firearm for over 63 straight months, according to most-recent data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
The reality is that Biden tried to make his presidency a disaster for our constitutional freedoms, but no amount of spin can counter the plain truth that whatever temporary gains he made, he also suffered many losses; and many that will have long-term effects.
