President Joe Biden raised eyebrows this week when he called for a ban on all semiautomatic firearms.
Biden says that semiautomatics have “no social redeeming value”
According to the New York Post, Biden made that announcement on Thanksgiving while speaking with reporters in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
“I’m sick and tired of these shootings. We should have much stricter gun laws,” the Post quoted Biden as saying outside the Nantucket Fire Department following a meeting there with first local responders.
“The idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick,” Biden declared before calling the situation “just sick.”
“It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers,” the president insisted.
“I’m going to try to get rid of assault weapons,” he he pledged adding, “I’m going to do it whenever I — I got to make that assessment as I get in and start counting the votes.”
Republicans reject any suggestion of a new gun ban
However, the Post noted that the prospect of such a gun ban passing on Capitol Hill seems very low after Republicans retook control of the House in this year’s midterm elections.
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie alluded to this fact in a tweet on Thursday, saying, “Americans rejected Pelosi’s gun control schemes in the mid terms, yet here is Biden saying he wants to ban modern firearms, and maligning most gun owners.”
What’s more, RealClearPolitics White House correspondent Philip Melanchthon Wegmann pointed out that a semiautomatic ban would have the effect of outlawing most firearms in America.
Banning semi-automatic guns, as Biden proposes here, would make illegal an overwhelming number of rifles, pistols, and shotguns.
— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) November 24, 2022
What’s more, Townhall contributor Gabriella Hoffman contrasted allegations that Second Amendment supporters are being paranoid about potential gun confiscation with the president’s own words.
Them: Biden doesn’t support gun confiscation. You’re paranoid and opposed to sensible gun reforms and safety.
Him: Assault weapons are semi-automatic and therefore should be banned because it’s sick people lawfully purchase them. https://t.co/c3IfQNB9HI
— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) November 24, 2022