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Fact Check The Left: The Three Big Lies Joe Biden Told About Guns Today

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  April 08, 2021 8:45 PM

The gun grab is on, and Joe Biden was there to give a rather lengthy speech about how he intends to chip away at American civil rights. As with anything on gun control, Biden says everything he’s proposing is in keeping with the Second Amendment. And then, he went on to talk about banning so-called "assault weapons," a liberal term, which loosely translates to mean "scary guns." 

The AR-15 is a favorite target of the Left. There is no such thing as an "assault weapon." There is no such thing as a "ghost gun." There is no such thing as a "gun show loophole," and mass shootings did not decrease because there was a 10-year ban on so-called "assault weapons." The ban didn't reduce gun violence. America is not a shooting gallery. Mass shootings are still remarkably rare.

These are some of the biggest whoppers Biden served up today to restart the Democrats' ongoing crusade to confiscate the private property of law-abiding Americans. There are more, but these are the ones that really stand out only because they've been thoroughly debunked or easily discredited. And guess what? You don’t need to be part of the country club of snobby liberal reporters to shred these narratives. 

The Gun Show Loophole

Here’s what President Depends said today on the matter (via WH): 

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I believe the Senate should immediately pass three House-passed bills to close loopholes that allow gun purchases — purchasers to bypass the background checks.  The vast majority of the American people, including gun owners, believe there should be background checks before you purchase a gun.

As was noted earlier, hundreds of thousands of people have been denied guns because of the background checks.  What more would have happened?

These bills, one, require background checks for anyone purchasing a gun at a gun show or an online sale.  

Most people don’t know: If you walk into a store and you buy a gun, you have a background check.  But you go to a gun show, you can buy whatever you want and no background check.

RATING: Totally False (possibly due to dementia)

Biden and the Democrats have once again rehashed this notion that FFL-licensed dealers don’t have to conduct background checks at gun shows. This is not the case at all. Any FFL dealer has to conduct a background check on ALL SALES. The law doesn’t cease to exist once they leave their brick-and-mortar locations. Wherever you do business, background checks must be done. As for private sales, they do happen, most are among family members via inheritances, which is technically a transfer. In terms of all gun sales, private transactions conducted without background checks are guesstimated to not be rising above single digits. That’s hardly a cause for alarm or justification for passing a law that will inevitably lead to a gun registry with this universal background check nonsense. Stephen Gutowski of the Washington Free Beacon, who is a firearms reporter, has more on the "gun show loophole" lie:

Most people do not know what the president said because it is not true. Federal law does not regulate gun sales based on where they occur. Instead, it regulates them based on who is involved in the sale. If a licensed gun dealer is selling a gun to a private citizen, the sale must go through a background check. Licensed dealers can and do sell guns at gun shows.

When a private citizen sells his own used firearms to another private citizen inside their own state, federal law does not require a background check to be performed. Private citizens do often sell guns at gun shows, but such sales can be conducted anywhere else as well. Some states go beyond federal law and require all gun sales or even transfers between private citizens to go through a licensed dealer, as H.R. 8 would require.

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act Offers a Total Legal Shield to Gun Manufacturers 

You know, this was never really an issue until 2016. In 2005, George W. Bush signed into law the PLCAA. It was probably one of the most consequential pieces of pro-gun legislation passed in recent memory. Gunmakers could no longer be sued for frivolous reasons. The number of wrongful death suits that would be lobbed at manufacturers today without this bill would have most likely led to the collapse of the gun industry in America. The woke Left would have been merciless, and with no gunmakers around, it’s just a legal backdoor in shredding our Second Amendment rights. It had to get done, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was an original supporter of this law. He hails from a state that has constitutional carry, and one where close to 70 percent of its residents have a gun in the home. And yet, Vermont is one of the safest places in the country. 

Anyways, here's what Biden said about the PLCAA:

We got that done when I was a United States senator.  It wasn’t easy going up against the gun lobby, but it saved lives.  And we should also eliminate gun manufacturers from the immunity they received from the Congress. 

You realize — again, the people here — because they’re so knowledgeable out here in the Rose Garden.  But what people don’t realize: The only industry in America — a billion-dollar industry — that can’t be sued — has exempt from being sued — are gun manufacturers. 

Imagine how different it would be had that same exemption been available to tobacco companies who knew — who knew and lied about the danger they were causing — the cancer caused and the like.  Imagine where we’d be.

But this is the only outfit that is exempt from being sued. If I get one thing on my list — the Lord came down and said, “Joe, you get one of these” — give me that one. Because I tell you what, there would be a “come to the Lord” moment these folks would have real quickly.  But they’re not.  They’re not. They’re exempt.

Yeah, we have a right to firearms codified in our Bill of Rights. Smoking is not mentioned and it’s an apples to oranges comparison, but Biden’s mind is being eaten by worms, so we’ll give him a pass on that one. It’s exempt from being sued?

RATING: It's so wrong…that a simple Google search could rip it apart.

I mean, this one you can pull apart like warm bread. It doesn’t take long to see this isn’t the case at all. These gunmakers are exempt from lawsuits in which their products were used unknowingly in the process of a crime being committed (via Congressional Research Service): 

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA, P.L. 109-92) was passed in 2005. The PLCAA generally shields licensed manufacturers, dealers, and sellers of firearms or ammunition, as well as trade associations, from any civil action “resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse” of a firearm or ammunition, but lists six exceptions where civil suits may be maintained. This act was introduced in response to litigation brought by municipalities and victims of shooting incidents against federally licensed firearms manufacturers and dealers, some of whom were located outside the state where the injuries occurred. 

Gutowski has more on those exceptions: 

Gun manufacturers can be sued and sometimes are sued over claims of negligence. Remington settled a lawsuit over an alleged design flaw with the trigger on its popular Model 700 rifle, and Sig Sauer has been sued multiple times over an alleged safety defect with its P320 handgun. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which Biden hopes to repeal, provides immunity to the industry over lawsuits stemming from the criminal misuse of guns by third parties.

Even the limited immunity granted to the gun industry is not unique. Numerous other industries benefit from protections against lawsuits that do not implicate willful misconduct on the part of the company. Pharmaceutical companies developing COVID-19 vaccines have immunity from lawsuits over side-effects caused by the life-saving drugs under the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act. The same immunity extends to employers who require vaccinations for employment, according to CNBC.

It's a good law that shields overzealous anti-gun wingnuts from suing American companies out of existence. Period. And Joe has been around forever. He should know about the PLCAA and how it isn’t some all-encompassing legal shield.

C’mon, man. God bless your heart. 

The Assault Weapons Ban Reduced Gun Violence

Oh, this one was one of my favorites from Joe: 

Now, I know this has been a hobbyhorse of mine for a long time — got it done once.  We should also ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country. 

For that 10 years we had it done, the number of mass shootings actually went down.  Even law enforcement officials have told me and told other champions of this legislation they sometimes feel outgunned by assault weapons with large-capacity magazines. 

There’s no reason someone needs a weapon of war with 100 rounds, 100 bullets that can be fired from that weapon.  Nobody needs that.  Nobody needs that.

RATING: You cannot count enough bullet holes that have been shot through this false narrative.

What is this "Escape from New York"? And who are these law enforcement officials? Probably figments of Joe’s imagination. The government telling you what you need and what you don’t need is already creepy and sets a dangerous precedent. Also, it’s our right as law-abiding Americans to own handguns and long guns. Joe Biden has no say in that matter. He doesn’t. 

But the data is quite clear that the "assault weapons" ban did not reduce gun violence. You don’t need to take it from me or conservative media. Liberal reporter Lois Beckett who covers gun politics and has many nuanced takes on how to curb gun violence without banning firearms ripped apart this myth in The New York Times seven years ago: 

…in the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference.

It turns out that big, scary military rifles don’t kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do.

In 2012, only 322 people were murdered with any kind of rifle, F.B.I. data shows.

The continuing focus on assault weapons stems from the media’s obsessive focus on mass shootings, which disproportionately involve weapons like the AR-15, a civilian version of the military M16 rifle. This, in turn, obscures some grim truths about who is really dying from gunshots.

[…]

On Sept. 13, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an assault weapons ban into law. It barred the manufacture and sale of new guns with military features and magazines holding more than 10 rounds. But the law allowed those who already owned these guns — an estimated 1.5 million of them — to keep their weapons.

The policy proved costly. Mr. Clinton blamed the ban for Democratic losses in 1994. Crime fell, but when the ban expired, a detailed study found no proof that it had contributed to the decline.

The ban did reduce the number of assault weapons recovered by local police, to 1 percent from roughly 2 percent.

“Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement,” a Department of Justice-funded evaluation concluded.

Beckett is worth a read, folks. She’s a fair reporter on the Left on this issue. 

Well, up until the summer of 2020, we were living in an immensely safe period in American history. Violent crime has gone down. Gun homicides have been cut dramatically since 1993. The estimates range from a 39-49 percent reduction. There is nuance here. The economy was better, there were more cops, and there was a reduction in the consumption of alcohol, among other things. This all led to crime going down. And this isn’t conservative media — The Washington Post has covered stories that undercut everything Biden said today. 

Honorable Mention: Biden saying no amendment is absolute:

"But no amendment — no amendment to the Constitution is absolute. You can't yell crowd — you can't tell [yell] 'fire' in a crowded movie theater and call it freedom of speech. From the very beginning, you couldn’t own any weapon you wanted to own. From the very beginning that the Second Amendment existed, certain people weren’t allowed to have weapons. So the idea is just bizarre to suggest that some of the things we're recommending are contrary to the Constitution."

Really, Joe?

The president received bad information and even worse talking points today. When "ghost guns" are mentioned, you know the mentally defective was in the room giving him this garbage data that even liberal outlets have called out for being grossly inaccurate. I didn’t even go into that because I don’t deal with things that aren’t real. 

It just shows that the echo chamber in liberal America is dense and loud. Yet, once you dissect the policy, the truth will come out again. Support for stricter gun laws will rise and then fall dramatically as with any mass shooting. It’s a vicious cycle. Democrats offer their misinformed lecture on guns, public support for their anti-gun items rise, normal people point out how ineffectual, inaccurate, or simply stupid these policies are, and equilibrium is reached. In the end, we always win on this issue and liberals always lose. And Joe Biden made it easier to melt these anti-gun talking points like butter.