Barely two years removed from some of the worst violence and rioting in the history of the country, President Joe Biden is encouraging more protests over the summer and asked Americans to make guns a midterm election issue.
The desperate — and unwise — plea comes amid record-low approval ratings for both him and his vice president, Kamala Harris, amid sky-high inflation that has seen a tripling of gasoline and diesel fuel prices in some parts of the country along with the highest food price increases in 40 years.
“Keep marching. It’s important. Look, this has to become an election issue. The way people listen — senators, congressmen — is when people say this is going to affect my vote. Too many people are dying needlessly and what’s even being proposed in the House and the Senate, it’s marginal. It’s important but it’s not all that needs to be done … the answer is, march,” Biden told reporters in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.
“We’re still mildly optimistic, I spoke with (Senator Chris) Murphy several times, yesterday afternoon,” he said.
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The comments are similar to the abhorrent comments he made after the Uvalde, Texas school shooting where he called on people to vote for politicians who support gun control.
He also falsely argued that the right to bear arms, enshrined in the Constitution, is “not absolute,” though prior Supreme Court rulings have noted that the Second Amendment establishes an “individual right” to own firearms.
“Sir, do you think there is anything different in how Republicans will approach the gun reform question now, given the circumstances?” a reporter said.
“Since I haven’t spoken to them, I don’t know. But my guess is, if they have — if they — yes, I think they’re going to have to take a hard look,” the president said.
“Is there one element — is it aid, is it red flag, is it some component that you think could be most successful now?” the reporter said before Biden launched into a rant.
“Well, that’s hard to say because I have not been negotiating with any of the Republicans yet. And I deliberately did not engage in a debate about that with any Republican in — when we were down consoling the families in Texas. So I don’t — I don’t know what is the most — how far it goes,” he 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 on mass murders. And so there’s only one reason for something that can fire, you know, 100 shots,” Biden continued.
“I mean — and I’ll just conclude with this: Look when I first started doing hearings on the issue of what rational gun laws should be, it was during a period when I was a senator and the death rate was going up. Not that many more people were being shot, but the death rate was up. And when I think of — I’m not sure, I think it was (inaudible) hospital in New York — whatever the largest trauma hospital is,” the president said.
“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,” he falsely claimed.
#USA Joe Biden:”…a 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body. So,the idea of these high-caliber weapons…there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of self protection…remember,the Constitution,the Second Amendment was never absolute.” pic.twitter.com/CiQkQ2SN7n
— NiCoLeEliSei (@NiCoLeEliSei1) May 30, 2022
