By: Teresa Mull
Joe Biden isn’t known for making a lot of sense, but this time, he’s said some downright erroneous things about the Second Amendment.
In a recent speech announcing increased gun control efforts, Biden said:
“Rogue gun dealers feel like they can get away with selling guns to people who aren’t legally allowed to own them. There has always been the ability to limit — rationally limit the type of weapon that can be owned and who can own it.
“The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn’t buy a cannon.”
Of course, Biden’s statements are not, as PolitiFact notes, “accurate history.” Even the liberal Washington Post declares in a headline Biden’s words are “false claims.”
In fact, there was no real gun control in the United States until the National Firearms Act was enacted in 1934 in an attempt to keep machine guns out of the hands of gangsters.
Declaring Biden’s claim as “false,” PolitiFact reports:
The Second Amendment limited government power, not the rights of individuals. Laws at the time that limited firearm ownership were primarily racist, aimed at controlling Black people and Native Americans.
This is the same speech, by the way, in which Biden mocked and threatened American gun owners at the same time, saying, “If you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.”
It is interesting to note that PolitiFact points out gun control’s racist roots, as there is a movement now to declare the Second Amendment as racist. Read more about that controversy and find out the true history here.
Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine.