Biden speaks to reporters after returning to the White Home on Monday.
AP
President Biden ranted in opposition to possession of what he known as “high-caliber weapons” Monday — showing to counsel that there needs to be restrictions on the most well-liked handgun in America, the 9mm pistol, and repeating a beforehand debunked declare that the Second Modification prohibits possession of cannons.
Talking to reporters exterior the White Home after returning to Washington from a weekend that included a go to to the location of final week’s mass capturing in Texas, Biden recounted a go to to a trauma hospital in New York, the place he mentioned medical doctors had confirmed him X-rays of gunshot wounds brought on by varied firearms.
“They mentioned a .22-caliber bullet will lodge within the lung, and we are able to most likely get it out — might be able to get it and save the life,” Biden mentioned. “A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the physique.
“So the thought of those high-caliber weapons is, uh, there’s merely no rational foundation for it by way of enthusiastic about self-protection, searching,” the president went on.
Later in his remarks, Biden appeared to rule out the opportunity of taking main government motion on weapons, saying: “I can’t dictate these items. I can do the issues I’ve executed and any government motion I can take, I’ll proceed to take. However I can’t outlaw a weapon. I can’t, you realize, change the background checks. I can’t do this.”
Biden’s statements about 9mm pistols are in step with his rhetoric earlier than getting into the White Home. At a 2019 fundraiser in Seattle, for instance, then-candidate Biden requested his viewers: “Why ought to we enable folks to have military-style weapons together with pistols with 9mm bullets and might maintain 10 or extra rounds?”
Based on Taking pictures Business journal, 9mm pistols accounted for 56.8% of all handguns made within the US throughout 2019. In all, greater than 15.1 million 9mm weapons had been produced on this nation throughout the 2010s. The opportunity of outlawing or in any other case regulating such weapons is prone to be a non-starter amongst conservatives and gun rights advocates.
“Keep in mind, the Structure, the Second Modification, was by no means absolute,” Biden mentioned. “You couldn’t purchase a cannon when the Second Modification was handed. You couldn’t exit and buy numerous weapons.”
Biden has made that declare earlier than, most lately when he introduced new rules to cease the unfold of so-called “ghost weapons,” they usually have been repeatedly declared false by fact-checkers.
“The Second Modification didn't place limits on particular person possession of cannons,” PolitiFact said in April when it rated his declare false.
The web site identified the textual content of the Structure: “A properly regulated militia, being essential to the safety of a free state, the suitable of the folks to maintain and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Regardless of widespread public outrage over Tuesday’s bloodbath at an elementary faculty in Uvalde, Texas, and the racially motivated Might 14 mass capturing at a Buffalo grocery retailer, Biden mentioned he had not but spoken with any Republicans about potential gun management laws, however expressed hope for a compromise.
“I believe issues have gotten so dangerous that everyone is getting extra rational about it,” he mentioned. “Not less than, that’s my hope and prayer.”
Requested whether or not Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) authorizing Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to work with Democrats may result in outcomes, Biden mentioned, “I don’t know.”
“I believe Senator McConnell is a rational Republican. I believe Cornyn is as properly,” he added. “I believe there’s a recognition of their half that they — we are able to’t proceed like this. We will’t do that.”
With out Republican help, Democrats are powerless to cross any gun laws within the 50-50 Senate except they handle to briefly put aside the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold for passing most payments.
Biden’s feedback got here lower than 48 hours after Vice President Kamala Harris known as for an assault weapons ban after attending a funeral for Buffalo capturing sufferer Ruth Whitfield, 86.
“You understand what an assault weapon is? You know the way an assault weapon was designed?” Harris mentioned Saturday. “It was designed for a particular function — to kill numerous human beings shortly. An assault weapon is a weapon of struggle with no place, no place in a civil society.”
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