President Joe Biden on Tuesday again called on Congress to enact sweeping gun control legislation. The president spoke to reporters as he left the White House for North Carolina.
“I have done the full extent of my executive authority to do on my own — anything about guns,” he said. “Congress has to act.” Describing the concept of owning a so-called “assault weapon” a “crazy” and “bizarre” idea, Biden said he is left with no options except to “plead with Congress to act reasonably.”
He was responding to Monday’s shooting at the Nashville school allegedly carried out by 28-year-old suspect Audrey Elizabeth Hale.
Biden reiterated his claim that the Second Amendment established a limited right for Americans. “Everybody thinks, somehow, that the Second Amendment is absolute. But you’re not allowed to go out and own an automatic weapon, you’re not allowed to own a machine gun, you’re not allowed to own a flamethrower, you’re not allowed to own so many things.”
These anti-gun comments are riddled with inaccuracies. For example, there are states where flamethrowers are legal, and there is even a flamethrower for a rifle. The Pulsefire UBF, made by Exothermic, mounts under an AR-15 barrel.
There are also states where U.S. citizens may own a machine gun. Federal law only bans private ownership of the weapons to machine guns manufactured prior to 1986.
That doesn’t mean that anyone in the state may run out and purchase one. The yearlong process to acquire one is cumbersome, but some undergo the tedious procedures to legally possess them.
Biden’s comments came after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre asked how many more mass shootings at schools must occur before Congress passes the ban on so-called “assault weapons.”
Going a step further in the war against legal firearm ownership was Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Addressing the organization Tuesday morning, she followed a moment of silence for the victims with a renewed call to ban “assault weapons.”
“Today, we renew our call for common sense gun safety legislation, including a ban on assault weapons,” she said. “This is an epidemic.”
Weingarten went on. “And how many lives will be shattered before we have the courage to do what Scotland did, what Australia did, what New Zealand did, what other great democracies do?”
These countries instituted draconian measures to destroy gun rights after violent attacks. Scotland successfully pushed the U.K. to ban handguns, while Australia in 1996 enacted a mandatory gun buyback program that confiscated semiautomatic rifles and shotguns.
New Zealand followed the 2019 Christchurch shootings at two mosques that claimed 50 lives just days later with a semiautomatic weapons ban.
These actions, of course, require the confiscation of legally owned firearms.
Weingarten later backtracked on what many logically perceived to be a call for gun confiscation.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” the union leader said she did in fact urge an “assault weapons” ban. But she added, “and then someone doctored the speech and said I was calling to confiscate guns. So, all day long that’s what I’ve been dealing with.”
There is not a single decent American who is not shocked and outraged by Monday’s horrific shooting in Nashville. People are heartbroken over the tragic attack on innocent lives, and there are certainly reasonable calls to action to prevent such incidents in the future.
But far too many simply use the deaths to push their personal and collective narratives, that guns and gun owners must be reined in for the safety of all. This is where law-abiding Americans draw the line and refuse to accept blame for the actions of an apparently deranged individual.
