By: Ashleigh Meyer
Joe Biden has a long history of attacking the NRA and opposing the Second Amendment. Now that he’s eyeing the Oval Office, he’s become even more vocal about his vision for the future of gun laws in America, and they’re looking bleak.
On Wednesday, Biden spoke at a gun safety forum organized by March for Our Lives and Giffords, an anti-gun organization. Before meeting with other Democratic presidential hopefuls at the forum, the Biden campaign released an 11-page gun-control plan that includes, among other things, much stricter regulations surrounding what the left likes to call “assault-style weapons.”
Owners of such weapons, under the Biden plan, would be given the choice to sell their arms through a voluntary buy-back program or register their weapons with the federal government. The registry would function like the one required for actual assault weapons, such as machine guns and would require so-called “assault-style” gun owners to undergo a background check and register their weapons with the ATF. Biden also proposes a ban on any future manufacturing and selling of “assault-style” weapons.
Now, what “assault-style” actually means still puzzles many gun owners and 2A supporters. Does the gun-grabbing left not like weapons that are black? Not like scopes? Not like magazines? We can assume all of those things are on the chopping block. The current registration laws do not impose requirements on any semi-automatic weapons. Mostly because they aren’t assault weapons.
Biden’s plan, though imposing and unconstitutional, is actually more moderate than some Democratic presidential candidates would hope. Beto O’Rourke, for example, with his now infamous, “Hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15” statement, has every intention of instituting a mandatory buyback program. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris have expressed similar sentiments.
In his manifesto, Biden also proposes universal background checks for all weapons sales (with the exception of sales between close relatives), red flag laws, banning “high capacity” magazines, and removing legal protections for gun manufacturers.
Ashleigh Meyer is a professional writer and a Conservative political analyst from rural Virginia.