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Biden slammed after declaring it’s ‘sick’ that ‘we still allow semi-automatic weapons’

November 25, 2022 | | Print Article

President Joe Biden openly advocated for banning semi-automatic weapons on Thanksgiving, a stance that would include a wide range of firearms including pistols.

Following last week’s shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, where 5 people died when a man who identifies as non-binary, according to his lawyer, opened fire, Biden called for a ban on “assault weapons,” which he called “weapons of war.”

“When will we decide we’ve had enough? … We need to enact an assault weapons ban to get weapons of war off America’s streets,” the president said.

On Thursday, while talking to reporters in Nantucket, Mass., where the Bidens spent Thanksgiving, the president seemingly expanded that quest to include “semi-automatic” weapons.

“The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick,” he said. “Just sick. It has no socially redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.”

Real Clear News White House reporter Philip Melanchthon Wegmann took care to note that the 80-year-old president’s vow “would make illegal an overwhelming number of rifles, pistols, and shotguns.”

While it’s questionable whether Biden understands what a semi-automatic weapon is, the National Rifle Association was quick to suggest a translation of his remarks don’t believe Democrats when they say they are not coming for handguns:

A reporter asked Biden in a follow-up if he would be able to see any movement on new gun laws during the lame-duck session before Republicans take control of the House in January.

“I’m going to try,” the president said. “I’m going to try to get rid of assault weapons.”

Democrats have controlled the House and Senate, along with the White House the past two years and have enacted no bans because some members of their caucus know it’s not politically advantageous.

Biden told reporters he is “sick and tired” of mass shootings and called for a renewed push for “much stricter gun laws,” while arguing that red flag laws could “save lives” if they were better enforced in states that have them.

“The idea that we’re not enforcing red-flag laws, period, just based on knowledge, not on parents saying or a loved one saying you should arrest this person now for his own sake, is ridiculous,” he said.

Biden’s empty vow to “get rid of assault weapons,” was popular with the three broadcast morning shows on Friday, as Media Research Center’s Newsbusters site reported that they “collectively donated four and a half minutes” to the topic.

“All three networks gravitated to Biden’s slam that it is ‘sick’ to ‘allow’ semi-automatic weapons to continue to be sold (ABC inexplicably did not have any video),” Newsbusters reported, “and CBS and NBC both aired the interaction between the President and a pool reporter on Thursday, where the reporter pushed Biden from the left: ‘Can you do anything about gun laws during the lame duck, sir?…What will you try and do?'”

Social media did not respond kindly to the president advocating for taking away the ability of millions of Americans to protect themselves in a society that’s increasingly soft on criminals due to Democratic policy — here’s a quick sampling of responses to the story from Twitter:

Tom Tillison
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