Category: Crap For Brains

Mexican official says new lawsuit against US gunmakers is on the way

There’s no reason to believe the outcome will be any different than the first lawsuit that the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador brought against U.S. gun makers; a dismissal of the case long before it ever reached trial. Still, with AMLO’s cartel strategy of “hugs, not bullets” resulting in even more cartel violence, it’s no surprise that he and other officials are trying to distract from their own failures by pinning the blame on the US firearms industry.

Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told the Mexican Senate on Wednesday that the government’s next lawsuit will be filed in the border state of Arizona, though he didn’t say whether any gun control groups will be a part of this new effort as they were the first time around.

During his speech on Wednesday, Ebrard referred to a bipartisan package of gun safety measures passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden in June. The law blocks gun sales to those convicted of abusing unmarried intimate partners and cracks down on gun sales to purchasers convicted of domestic violence.

“Illicit arms trafficking is already a crime in the United States,” Ebrard said.

“You have to start establishing criminal responsibilities because the companies that are selling these weapons in these counties (in Arizona), which are very few, of course they know where those weapons are going,” he added, but did not specify which companies he was referring to.

Ebrard makes it sound as if there are no laws whatsoever governing gun sales from licensed firearms retailers, even though border state gun dealers not only have to follow the long list of federal regulations surrounding firearm transfers, but even have special requirements placed on them like reporting multiple sales of modern sporting rifles to the ATF.

Frankly, if he really wants to talk about establishing criminal responsibilities, I’d say he should start much closer to home and crack down on the graft, corruption, and theft within the Mexican armed forces.

Continue reading “”

Well, she was unable to define what a woman was either, so her gobbletygook here shouldn’t have been a surprise.

KBJ’s Jumbled Musings on the Fourteenth Amendment

In today’s [Oct 3rd ] oral argument in Merrill v. Milligan, Justice Jackson capped her very long questioning of Alabama solicitor general Edmund LaCour with a speech/question that went on for around four minutes and that runs a full three pages (57:2-60:2) in the transcript. In her speech, Jackson states that the Framers of the 14th Amendment adopted it “in a race conscious way,” as they were “trying to ensure that people who had been discriminated against, the freedmen in — during the reconstructive — reconstruction period were actually brought equal to everyone else in the society.” As she puts it, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 “specifically stated that citizens would have the same civil rights as enjoyed by white citizens,” and the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to ensure that the Act had a solid “constitutional foundation.”

Somehow Jackson leaps from these propositions to the assertion that the 14th Amendment doesn’t embody “a race-neutral or race-blind idea in terms of the remedy” for discrimination against freed slaves.

I don’t understand her leap. By her own account, the very purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was “to make sure that the other citizens, the black citizens, would have the same [civil rights] as the white citizens.” It was designed to remedy a situation in which “people, based on their race, were being treated unequally” by the states. And the 14th Amendment had the same goal.

The proposition that the 14th Amendment requires that the government be color-blind is open to challenge both as to what exactly that means and to whether that meaning is well founded. But Jackson seems to think that the color-blind position is somehow at odds with the fact that the 14th Amendment was designed to ensure equal treatment—when that of course is exactly what advocates of the color-blind position maintain the 14th Amendment requires.

Jackson seems to confuse herself with her own terms. Yes, of course, the Framers can be said to have adopted the 14th Amendment “in a race conscious way”—if that means that the central purpose of the 14th Amendment was to ensure that freed slaves received equal treatment in fundamental ways. By its plain text, the 14th Amendment ensures that states shall not “abridge the privileges or immunities” of citizens, irrespective of their race; shall not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” irrespective of the person’s race; and shall not deny any person the “equal protection of the laws,” irrespective of the person’s race.

But how is this elementary recognition at all at odds with the color-blind position? In his great dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the first Justice Harlan celebrates that the post-Civil War Amendments “removed the race line from our governmental systems.” In his very next sentence, he states that these amendments had “a common purpose, namely, to secure to a race recently emancipated, a race that through many generations have been held in slavery, all the civil rights that the [white] race enjoy.” (Internal quote omitted.) He of course goes on to characterize the amended Constitution as “color-blind.” On what conceivable basis are we to think that there is any tension among Harlan’s statements?

Insofar as Jackson might be arguing that the 14th Amendment allows race-conscious remedies, she doesn’t touch on the critical questions of what counts as a race-conscious remedy and when such a remedy is permissible. Some scholars cite the Freedmen’s Bureau Acts as evidence that the Equal Protection Clause does not require colorblindness. But as law professor Michael Rappaport points out in “Originalism and the Colorblind Constitution,” even apart from the question whether those Acts inform the meaning of the 14th Amendment, they gave benefits to freedmen and refugees (most of whom were white) not on the basis of race but on the basis of the oppression and hardship they were enduring. Further, Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas—leading proponents of colorblindness—agree that states can act to provide benefits to blacks (or persons of other races and ethnicities) when they have been victims of discrimination.

The usual suspects are going gaga over Justice Jackson’s remarks. But neither they nor she appear to understand the position they think they are contesting.

The ‘Bump Stock’ Decision That Should Have Been But Wasn’t

Imagine this. An automobile manufacturer adds a turbocharger to the engine of a passenger car as a way to increase the vehicle’s acceleration. Nanny State bureaucrats at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decide that the turbocharger makes a vehicle to which it is attached go too fast, which renders it “unsafe.” The agency decides that the simplest way to address its concern is to include within the definition of an “automobile” a “turbocharger,” which the agency then can outlaw as an “unsafe motor vehicle.”

“Nonsense,” you say – a car “part” is not a “car,” right? Correct, yet that is precisely what the United States Department of Justice did in 2018 when it deemed by regulatory re-write, that an accessory that could be attached to a rifle to make it fire faster – a “bump stock” – was in fact and by law, a “machine gun” and therefore unlawful to be owned or possessed by individuals.

Thus, by regulatory fiat a piece of plastic, which is all a bump stock is, becomes a “machine gun” for purposes of federal law.

Despite the absurdity of this regulatory maneuver, the Supreme Court on Monday once again declined to hear arguments in cases challenging the constitutionality of the government’s bump stock redefinition.

The Court should have heard arguments in the case, to enable a majority of justices a way to declare such regulatory legerdemain is a constitutionally impermissible exercise of legislative power by the Executive Branch (aside from it being an example of absurd legal reasoning that no president should get away with).

While gun control advocates, including the Biden administration which had urged the Court not to hear the cases, characterize the issue as a “Second Amendment” case, it truly is not. At its core, the legal issues center on regulatory law, not Second Amendment law, and the repercussions extend far beyond firearms.

Like many of Uncle Sam’s bad decisions in recent decades, this one outlawing bump stocks was a knee-jerk reaction to a specific incident – the 2017 mass shooting by a crazed gunman from a hotel window in Las Vegas, Nevada. A number of bump stock-modified rifles were found in the murderer’s hotel room after police breached his barricaded door.

The publicity surrounding the Las Vegas shooting led to calls to change the law and ban the theretofore little-known, but legal, firearm accessory. Congress could not make a decision, so the responsibility fell to President Trump to show the American people he was “doing something.” That “something” was to order his then-Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, to take executive action against the devices.

It eventually fell to Sessions’ successor, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, in late 2018 to actually amend the long-standing definition of a machine gun so as to include a bump stock within its terms. It is this presidential action – changing federal law by the “stroke of a [regulatory] pen” – that has set a dangerous precedent that should concern liberals and conservatives.

Allowed to stand, this precedent permits extensive presidential mischief that can be wrought by Republican and Democrat administrations alike, targeting all manner of activities and products regulated by the federal government, without having to go through the often messy and time-consuming congressional legislative process.

Thanks to this Trump-proposed regulatory maneuver, virtually any federal regulation – including those involving such wide-ranging issues as the environment, health care, banking, firearms, and even abortion, among hundreds more – can serve as the vehicle for a president to unilaterally enact substantive changes to federal laws.

Regardless of why the Supreme Court declined to accept this challenge to what is by every reasoned analysis an abuse of Executive Branch regulatory power, Big Government advocates will be left extremely happy by the decision. It leaves wide open a side door by which this and future administrations can run roughshod over the system of checks and balances so carefully crafted by our Founders, but which has been so often undermined by successive administrations of both major parties.

Things Go Way off the Rails During Joe Biden’s Trip to Puerto Rico

Joe Biden appeared in Puerto Rico on Monday to deliver remarks and to promise aid after the recent hurricane that struck the island. He also had some really head-scratching things to say. And while I realize that the president being senile and giving away your money is basically every other day of the week, the news is the news so let’s get to it.

Here was Biden’s opener, of which I can’t make heads nor tails of.

Based on his reaction, that was supposed to be a joke, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what the punchline was. Looking at Jill Biden’s face, it doesn’t appear that she could either. The president just says random, unfunny things and looks around, expecting people to laugh. Usually, they oblige, but this instance was especially odd because there wasn’t even a semblance of an actual joke told.

In the next bit of embarrassment, Biden decided to claim that he was “raised in the Puerto Rican community at home.”

This is one of those instances I’ve mentioned before where the president tries to say something that presents himself as everything to everyone. One day he will claim to have been a member of the Civil Rights movement and the next, he’ll say he got arrested with Nelson Mandela after fighting a guy named Corn Pop. Oh, and he once drove an eighteen-wheeler while attending shul more than Jewish people do. Of course, none of that is actually true, which is par for the course regarding anything Biden says.

Continue reading “”

It’s nearly impossible these days to tell whether they’re simply political hacking, or if they’re actually this delusional

Blumenthal claims NSSF has “secret gun registry”

For years, the NRA has been held up at the big boogieman for anti-gun lawmakers. They argue that without the organization, they could pass gun control laws by the dozen.

The reality is that the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is a big part of what stops gun control laws from being passed.

And, unfortunately, anti-gunners are waking up to that fact.

It seems that it’s even bad enough that some are concocting conspiracy theories about them. Enter Sen. Dick Blumenthal.

This morning, the Daily Beast published a breathless story exposing the shocking — SHOCKING! — hypocrisy of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Connecticut Senator Dick Blumenthal sent the NSSF a letter Friday afternoon, accusing the trade association of amassing a secret database — a registry, if you will — of gun owner information including personal information and the guns they own.

There’s only one problem. That’s not what happened.

Da Nang Dick leaked his letter to the Daily Beast last week in a naked attempt at an October Surprise, trying discredit them in the run-up to the election. As the Beast wrote . . .

Blumenthal’s letter cites damning details that were exposed when Cambridge Analytica emails were leaked two years ago but received little attention at the time.

“The claim by Cambridge Analytica that NSSF maintains and leverages a database, akin to a registry, of gun owners’ personal information should come as a surprise to millions of law abiding gun owners, many of whom, undoubtedly, would never have consented for firearms manufacturers or retailers to retain, share, and expose their sensitive personal data for political purposes,” Blumenthal wrote.

The claim is that the NSSF hoovers up warranty card registration data from its member companies on millions of gun purchases and they then heartlessly use this ill-gotten information to campaign against good, hard-working, pure-hearted, clean-minded Gunsense™ candidates who are only working for more Gun Safety® laws to save the lives of innocent children.

So what really gives?

Well, it seems that NSSF has a program called Gunvote that tries to reach out to voters. They contract services out to put together lists of voters who might be swayed on Second Amendment issues. These lists use…wait for it…data mining of public information.

You know, just like every other group trying to affect political change in this country does.

So why are The Daily Beast and Blumenthal bringing this up? It’s not like they actually care about the privacy of gun owners. In fact, Blumenthal would salivate at the possibility of a national gun registry. So what’s all this supposed to be about?

It’s simple. Democrats are set to get hammered in the midterms and this is a pathetic attempt at an October Surprise.

The problem is that it’s too easily explained as a big nothing. There is no registry, it’s just a list of potential gun rights voters.

Now, is there likely to be an overlap between those voters and gun owners? Absolutely. However, not all gun owners will pop up in such data mining, and not all who are on this list are gun owners.

It simply isn’t a registry.

But this is an attempt to divide the Second Amendment community. This is like New York Attorney General Letitia James and her attacks on the NRA. She doesn’t care if gun rights advocates are being taken advantage of. She was going after the NRA because they’re in the way of gun control.

In that same vein, Blumenthal doesn’t care about you or me. He doesn’t care about our privacy. What he and The Daily Beast are trying to accomplish here is to sew discontent in our ranks, to make us distrust the NSSF. If we no longer trust the organizations we count on to defend the Second Amendment, it’ll be that much easier for Blumenthal and his buddies to push through gun control.

After all, with no concerted effort to oppose it, it’ll be easy to tell those in the middle that there’s no harm.

What’s more, they might just be right. One of the strengths of the gun community is that we can stand behind strong organizations that will defend our rights.

This is what happened with the NRA and now the target is the NSSF. Don’t let them think for an instant we’re buying it.

SCOTUS turns away challenges to Trump-imposed ban on bump stocks

The Trump administration-imposed ban on bump stocks, crafted through ATF regulations instead of actual legislation, will remain in effect for the foreseeable future after the Supreme Court turned away two challenges to the ban that had been winding their way through the courts since shortly after the ban was imposed in 2019.

The Court declined to intervene to stop the administrative action from taking effect several years ago, but Second Amendment activists and gun rights groups continued to challenge the ban in the years since, and last week justices took up the two cases in conference. Monday’s order list didn’t contain the good news that 2A advocates were hoping for. Instead, the Court rejected the challenges without dissent from any of the six justices who voted earlier this year to overturn New York’s “may issue” carry laws in NYSRPA v. Bruen.

The bump stocks challenge, however, did not deal directly with the scope of the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. The challengers instead said the government did not have authority to ban bump stocks under the National Firearms Act, a law enacted in 1934 to regulate machine guns. In 1968, the Gun Control Act expanded the definition of machine gun to include accessories “for use in converting a weapon” into a machine gun, and the ATF concluded when it issued the ban that bump stocks meet that definition.

The groups challenging the ban said the legal definition of machine gun has been distorted beyond recognition and argue that courts should not defer to the federal agency’s interpretation.

The court turned away two related appeals, one brought by Clark Aposhian, a Utah gun lobbyist who had purchased a bump stock before the ban took effect, and another led by Gun Owners of America and other gun rights groups. Lower courts upheld the ban, although judges on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals were divided in both cases.

To say this is a disappointing result would be putting it mildly, and there most certainly will be consequences to the justices’ refusal to hear either case. The Biden administration has already used the same executive authority that then-President Trump used to direct the ATF to craft its bump stock ban to target unfinished frames and receivers sold in DIY gun-making kits, and the Court’s inaction will only embolden anti-gun officials and the gun control lobby to further abuse the scope of executive branch authority to impose even more gun control laws that don’t have enough support to win congressional approval.

The decision is also very bad news for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who lawfully purchased bump stocks before the ATF suddenly reversed course and declared them to be machine guns. Possession of a bump stock is now the same as possessing a machine gun in terms of federal law, which makes any gun owner who still owns one of the devices subject to a $250,000 fine and the possibility of up to a decade in federal prison.

While the Supreme Court will have other opportunities to weigh in on executive branch overreach that infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, unfortunately that’s because there are other areas of infringement taking place. Not only are the ATF’s new rules on frames and receivers being challenged in court, but the pending rules that could turn millions of AR-style pistols equipped with shoulder braces into short-barreled rifles subject to the registration provisions of the National Firearms Act are also facing litigation. Still, the gun control lobby and the Biden administration are almost certain to take advantage of today’s inaction by SCOTUS, and with gun control groups already lobbying behind the scenes for the ATF to regulate AR-15s and other semi-automatic firearms as if they’re machine guns as well, the ATF could soon take aim at the tens of millions of modern sporting rifles in the hands of gun owners… not to mention the lives and liberties of those gun owners themselves.

Harris on Hurricane Ian: Biden Admin Will Give ‘Resources Based on Equity’ and to ‘Communities of Color’
No, Vice President. It doesn’t work that way.

Vice President Kamala Harris wants the Biden admin to base Hurricane Ian funds and resources based on color.

That’s racist. This is not the time to run with your leftist agenda, Kamala. So disgusting. Just like Don Lemon. The agenda is more important that Ian impacted all communities regardless of wealth or race.

Pathetic and disgusting.

 

Joe Biden Trashes Italy’s Giorgia Meloni in Massive Self-Awareness Fail

As a massive hurricane slammed into Florida on Wednesday evening, the President of the United States attended a fundraiser for the Democratic Governor’s Association. That followed a banner day where Joe Biden asked where a deceased congresswoman was at an event and got confused trying to exit a stage later at the White House.

The optics of Biden hobnobbing with his party’s elite while people’s homes while devastation descended on the Sunshine State wasn’t lost on many observers. So what did the president talk about?

If you guess that he ranted about threats to “democracy,” which is basically the one-note Democrats continue to desperately play over and over this election cycle, pick up your winnings at the window. But it was who Biden cited as an example that raised eyebrows. Apparently, he attacked Giorgia Meloni’s rise, insinuating that what “happened in Italy” illustrated the destruction of “democracy” around the globe.

For those keeping score at home, we are now at the point where Democrats will quite literally claim that a democratic election, voted on by the people, is actually a threat to democracy if the “wrong” people win. In this case, Meloni’s right-wing coalition won an overwhelming victory after Italy’s left ran the country into the ground.

The lack of self-awareness here is so thick you can cut it with a knife. It is self-evident that you can’t claim that “democracy” is in danger if you yourself don’t respect the results of democratic elections. Is Biden suggesting that Italy’s election was rigged? Or is he really saying that any outcome that goes against the globalist left is illegitimate on its face?

Whatever the reason, what Biden is promoting is not “democracy.” It’s authoritarianism wrapped in meaningless fluff disguised as respect for freedom. Real democracy can’t exist if voters aren’t able to choose the representatives without condemnation and hyperbolic proclamations from their supposed betters, of which Biden is decidedly not. The World Economic Forum and the like doesn’t get to decide who governs the people. The people do.

In short, it is not Italy’s Meloni and her coalition that are a threat to free and fair governance. Rather, it is the global left that seeks to cram down its ideology at all costs, even if it means spitting on the choices of voters that go against their wishes.

The backlash that happened in Italy is just the beginning. The left has destroyed so much that so many people held dear, and while Biden lashes out at Meloni, he’s got the same problem at home as his own Democratic Party falters. In the end, outcomes matter, and no amount of squealing about “democracy” is going to keep convincing people to vote against their own interests, whether in Europe or in the United States.

Wife of Top Biden Aide Named Ambassador for Plants and Animals.
Ron Klain’s wife, a supporter of the Green New Deal, gets a plum new gig

The wife of President Joe Biden’s top aide has a fancy new gig at the U.S. State Department.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday announced that Monica Medina, wife of White House chief of staff Ron Klain, will serve as U.S. Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources.

According to the Washington Post, which initially declined to note that Medina is married to Klain, the decision to promote her to the newly established role of “diplomat for plants and animals” is one that “underscores the Biden’s administration’s desire” to fight climate change.

“There’s a direct connection between biodiversity loss and instability in a lot of parts of the world,” Klain’s wife told the Post. “It’s not just about nature for nature’s sake. I think it is about people.”

Medina currently serves in the State Department as assistant secretary for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs. She is an outspoken proponent of the Green New Deal, a controversial legislative proposal sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) that would cost roughly $9 trillion to implement but would have a negligible effect on global temperatures.

“The Green New Deal is a unifying political message that gets back to the basics of creating an economy that works for all people and protects the planet as a result,” Medina wrote in January 2019. A national poll conducted the following month found that just 29 percent of Americans supported the Green New Deal, while 51 percent of respondents said they would rather the government spend trillions of dollars to build a wall on the U.S. southern border.

Medina is also a prominent advocate for fully integrating women into military combat units, which resulted in the lowering of rigorous physical standards to accommodate female trainees.

The Perils of America’s Woke Military
The high – and destructive – cost of Marxism’s infusion into our Armed Forces.

Last week we shared the disturbing news that the Sergeant Major of the Army recommended our soldiers apply for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aka food stamps, to keep up with the growing inflation. I find it unconscionable that we are sending billions of dollars to foreign nations, but our troops are being told to sign up for assistance to afford food.

But this is just a small example of what is happening for our military. The perilous infusion of cultural Marxism into our Armed Forces is far more dangerous.

Recently, the Department of Defense Chief of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Kelisa Wing, who self describes herself as a “woke administrator,” made some very disconcerting comments towards white Americans…or folx as she asserts. I have to ask, how much is this racist person being paid while our soldiers are being told to apply for food stamps? But even more troubling is that such a radical individual is allowed access to our military? How can we have an effective, cohesive fighting force when you have a radical Marxist disparaging one demographic of our military force? Cultural Marxism has no place in our Armed Forces and the last thing we need is an office of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our Department of Defense, a cover for enabling these radicals.

It was not too long ago that our military was being focused on combat readiness, capability, and capacity to fulfill its mission. Now, we have a Secretary of Defense, with whom I served at Ft. Bragg NC, who is issuing memorandums telling members of our military to get used to troops suffering from gender dysphoria entering shower and latrine facilities with them. Basically, female troops are being told that biological men will be naked, showering with them. Now, if you are an adult and want to play make believe, fine, go ahead, but this should not be happening in our military. As well, the American taxpayer should not be responsible for subsidizing hormonal therapies or surgical procedures for individuals affected by this mental condition…the previous diagnosis of the American Psychiatric Association.

Just this past week, the United States Air Force Academy announced new rules about promoting gender neutral language. Can you imagine that the USAFA now advises against saying such simple things as Mom and Dad? They are advising cadets to inquire about a person’s desired pronouns before making any declarations. A few months ago, the U.S. Navy issued a video about correct pronoun usage. Hmm, I can remember some very interesting names that Drill Sergeants would use, and they did not inquire about pronouns. Matter of fact, knucklehead is gender neutral, along with stuck on stupid. There seems to be a lot of that in our military and its senior leadership at this time.

But what has to be most worrisome for our military has been the illegal, immoral, unethical, and unconstitutional COVID shot mandate forced upon our servicemen and women. Earlier this month, seven cadets at the US Coast Guard Academy were expelled for refusing to take the jab; the same has occurred at the United States Military Academy, West Point. And we are all aware of the countless stories of men and women in uniform who are being persecuted for not taking this shot. There are troops who are being segregated into deplorable living conditions, treated like lepers. They are having their constitutional rights denied, such as religious exemptions. They share their stories with us at the American Constitutional Rights Union’s Committee to Support and Defend, America’s constitutional conservative Veterans organization.

What should cause us concern is that our troops are being treated in such a disgusting manner even as we now know that Dr. Deborah Birx admitted they knew the shot would not prevent being infected with the virus. SecDef Austin, Commander in Chief Biden, and Dr Fauci all contracted the virus after having the shot and boosters. Last week, Joe Biden stated that the pandemic is over, so why are we still punishing our troops and mandating this shot on some of the most physically fit in our country? When you study the objective facts and statistics you will see that the infamous shot has caused more harm than what is being reported. There are countless cases of cardiac issues such as myocarditis. One has to ask, will our troops be able to file lawsuits against those who forced this untested shot upon them? Yes, it was only under emergency use authorization, not full FDA approval.

Will there be legislation passed in the U.S. Congress that will allow our troops to seek legal recompense? Will military members who were discharged from the military be reinstated? Heck, if the GOP is successful in the midterm elections, will the Department of Defense office of diversity, equity, and inclusion be defunded? Will our military find senior leaders who will honor their oath to the Constitution, not to political ideology, certainly not to cultural Marxism?

America’s constitutional conservative veterans’ organization, the Committee to Support and Defend, is taking the lead on these issues. Our U.S. military is being led down the perilous road of “wokeness.” The last thing America needs is a politicized military and kommissars advocating an ideology that is anathema to our rule of law, our Constitution…of which our military members take an oath to support and defend.

Steadfast and Loyal.

 

 

BLUF
At this point, after multiple ignored corrections, it’s a stretch to pretend that the president’s misstatements are accidental; he obviously doesn’t care about their truth. What’s important to him and his supporters is achieving their policy goals, even if they have to lie to do so.

President Biden Lies About Guns. Again.
Amidst official hysteria over “misinformation,” the president continues to willfully misrepresent the facts on firearms.

Government lies aren’t new; political fibs have such deep roots in history that you could open a museum of official mendacity and have enough rotating exhibits to keep things fresh. But now, amidst much hysteria over “misinformation,” we see a resident of the White House misrepresent facts in pursuit of restrictions on legal ownership of firearms and ignore corrections. President Biden’s claim that bullets fired from AR-15’s are impossibly speedy is only the latest example of his continuing lies about guns.

“There’s no justification for a weapon of war. None. The speed of that bullet is five times that that comes out of the muzzle of most weapons. It can penetrate your vests,” President Biden huffed last week. “What in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for?” he added.

This wasn’t the first time the president insisted on the supposed superpowers of so-called “assault weapons” and especially of AR-15s, which are popular among gun owners.

“Do you realize the bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun, five times—is lighter—and can pierce Kevlar?” he insisted on August 30 while touting his administration’s “Safer America Plan,” which includes tighter firearms restrictions.

Really? Well, no.

“President Biden’s statement that a bullet shot from an AR-15 travels 5x faster than a bullet shot out of ‘any other gun’ is false,” Greg Wallace, a Campbell University law professor who focuses on Second Amendment issues, told The Washington Post early in September. As for bullets fired from AR-15s piercing Kevlar, “that is true of almost all centerfire rifle bullets. Body armor protection against rifle bullets require steel, ceramic, or composite plates.”

“Biden was clearly wrong in his statement this week,” the Post‘s Glenn Kessler concluded.

In fact, the 5.56x45mm round most commonly fired by an AR-15 (which can be chambered in multiple calibers) is faster than many rifle rounds with a muzzle velocity of roughly 3,100 feet per second, but slower than others (a few exceed 4,000 fps). And speed only partially measures the lethality and utility of a cartridge. Military types, hunters, and enthusiasts are forever debating the issue. So is Biden.

“A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body,” the president improbably claimed in May about the popular handgun cartridge, again while touting gun restrictions. Knowledgeable people had fun pointing out that Biden seemed to have confused the round with a cannon. But Biden lies about cannons, too.

“When the amendment was passed, it didn’t say anybody can own a gun and any kind of gun and any kind of weapon,” Biden insisted with regard to the Second Amendment in February. “You couldn’t buy a cannon in—when the—this—this amendment was passed.”

“As other fact-checkers noted when Biden made versions of this claim at least twice before, nothing in the Second Amendment said that citizens could not own cannons, and there is no evidence that any federal or state laws barred possession of the weapons at the time,” the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org pointed out.

Biden had been called out on precisely that point the previous year, by The Washington Post, and in 2020 when PolitiFact rated his claims as “false.” So, the fibs appear deliberate, not just slips of the tongue. So are his misstatements about legal protections for the firearms industry.

Continue reading “”