As RedState reported (see here and here) last night, Joe Biden’s CNN “town hall” was the disaster you’d expect to have been. The usual brain-melting moments made an appearance, including this 40 straight seconds of me having no idea what this guy is trying to say.
Regardless, one clip really stuck out to me. It came from the question and answer portion of the event where an obviously left-leaning individual asks what Biden is going to do from a federal standpoint to stop gun violence.
Biden’s answer includes a big admission as well as a strawman that really gives the game away.
Now, does he “outright say” he wants to ban handguns? Some would argue that he doesn’t because he doesn’t say “I want to ban handguns.” But practically, that’s exactly what he’s stumping for. If you watch the clip, Biden goes on a rant about no one needing an “assault weapon” that can hold 20 rounds or more. When he mentions the kinds of weapons he’s talking about, he actually says handguns. Now, not all handguns can take 20 round magazines, but a lot of them, including some of the most popular ones, can (probably a Glock if I’m speculating on ownership numbers).
But even his claim that he wants to ban “assault weapons” in general is nonsensical. Long rifles in total make up a tiny fraction of gun violence deaths. We are talking about less than 0.1%. Of those, an even smaller number are committed with modern sporting rifles like the AR15. In other words, the obsession with “assault weapons” as a solution to gun crime is pure idiocy. It’s like trying to cure heart disease by cutting off your thumb.
