The day after his visit to Uvalde, Texas, in the wake of the devastating school shooting there, President Joe Biden pointed to the need for an assault weapons ban. Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Biden said, “I know that it makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds. I know it makes—and I know what happened when we had rational action before, back in—when the crime bill was—the law that got passed. It did significantly cut down mass murders.”
He added, “And so there’s only one reason for something that can fire, you know, 100 shots.”
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Biden’s point about the previous assault weapons ban is an important one:
“So the idea of these high-caliber weapons is of—there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of thinking about self-protection, hunting. I mean, I just—and remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute. You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weapons,” Biden continued.
But, he said, Congress must act on this issue, because “there’s a Constitution. I can’t dictate this stuff. I can do the things that I’ve done. And any executive action I can take, I’ll continue to take. But I can’t outlaw a weapon. I can’t, you know, change the background checks.”
Asked about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tasking Sen. John Cornyn with leading Republican negotiations on gun laws, Biden described them as “rational Republicans,” saying, “I think there’s a recognition in their part that they—we can’t continue like this. We can’t do this.”
We can’t continue like this, but McConnell and Cornyn absolutely want that.
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Time to put to rest the failed 'good guys with guns' myth perpetrated on the American people
Manchin: This time is different. Like he said Parkland was. Like he said Sandy Hook was