Those watching President Biden’s State of the Union address saw and heard a few things as he entered the United States House of Representatives to address Congress and the nation. Speaker Kevin McCarthy is the new Speaker of the House (R-Calif.). He was seated next to Vice President Kamala Harris, a visual reminder of our government’s dysfunction. Military generals and Supreme Court justices, as well as members of Congress and senators, were present.
President Biden beat the drum once more, demanding that the assault weapons ban be extended. That’s the law he and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein helped pass in 1994, and President Bill Clinton signed into law, prohibiting the sale of modern sporting rifles (MSRs). That ban expired in 2004, and the semiautomatic rifle has since become America’s best-selling centerfire rifle, with over 24.4 million in circulation today.
President Biden chastised Congress for failing to send him legislation to lift the unconstitutional ban on these commonly owned and used rifles. Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen that such a ban is unconstitutional.
What President Biden did not tell the American people – and will not tell them – is what the rest of America thinks about any proposed ban. According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, more than half of the country opposes it.
Cratering Support for Gun Control Continues to Drop:
Respondents to the poll released just days before the State of the Union speech showed that 51 percent surveyed oppose any such ban. That’s a 10-point increase from 2019 when the same question was asked. Just 47 percent of those responding – a nine-point drop – voiced support for banning MSRs, the second lowest percentage reported since the question was put forth in the polls starting in 1995.
That’s not something President Biden will admit to the American public. Instead, he stuck to his worn-out tropes to demonize the rifle as he’s repeatedly done in the past. He called it an “assault weapon.” It’s not. The MSR is a semiautomatic rifle that operates the same way as popular duck-hunting shotguns and semiautomatic handguns used every day for personal protection. One cartridge is expended each time the trigger is pressed.
That’s just one of President Biden’s favorite falsehoods about firearms, which have been fact-checked time and again.
“Do you realize the bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun?” President Biden said in Pennsylvania last summer. Not true. Fox News referenced a Field & Stream study of cartridge speeds that shot that one down.
President Biden, in that same Pennsylvania speech, questioned the rationale of why anyone would use MSRs outside of combat. Again, the president is conflating the military’s automatic M-16 and M-4 with MSRs, but he clearly ignores that these rifles are used for lawful purposes every day, including hunting, recreational target shooting, and self-defense.
He wasn’t done. He also claimed that federally-licensed firearm retailers are “providing the weapons to anybody who has the money.” Again, not true. Firearms are sold only to those who are over the age of 18 and clear the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
Presidential Patterns
This wasn’t the first time President Biden used the State of the Union to spread half-truths. Last year, he scolded Congress to give him one of his gun control wish-list items repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
“Repeal the liability shield that makes gun manufacturers the only industry in America that can’t be sued, the only one,” he said.
Even the Associated Press called him out on that lie.
AP reported “THE FACTS: That’s false. While gun manufacturers do have legal protections from being held liable for injuries caused by criminal misuse of their weapons thanks to the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, they are not exempt or immune from being sued.”
PLCAA protections aren’t dissimilar to other industries, including pharmaceuticals and medical device manufacturers.
President Biden demanded unconstitutional gun bans to score a few cheap political points with radical special-interest gun control groups. The problem for Americans is he does it while ignoring the Constitution, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions to uphold the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens and now ignores the citizens themselves.
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.