President Joe Biden didn’t wait long to issue an official response to Monday’s shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. If he had, perhaps his statement wouldn’t have been as tone-deaf as it was.
In his official White House statement, Biden expressed his support for the victims and their families, but quickly politicized the tragedy by using the shooting to demand multiple gun control laws.
Biden noted steps his administration has taken to combat gun violence, including the passage of the most significant gun-safety legislation in nearly 30 years. “But more is needed,” he said.
He called on Congress to pass “commonsense” gun safety laws, such as universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and a national “red flag” law that would allow police or family members to get a court order to temporarily confiscate firearms from a person who may present a danger to others or themselves.
The 15-year-old who committed this wanton act of violence didn’t legally acquire a firearm, so “universal” background checks wouldn’t have prevented this attack. There are also no indications at this point that either she or adult family members had done anything beforehand that would have led to an Extreme Risk Protection Order being filed, much less approved by a judge. And despite Biden trying to tie this crime to so-called assault weapons, the murderer used a handgun in carrying out their murderous plot.
None of the gun control demands that Biden issued in response to the shooting would have made a difference, but that didn’t stop him from trying to pin the blame for the shooting on a lack of gun control.
Biden declared that we “can never accept senseless violence that traumatizes children, their families, and tears entire communities apart,” which is true enough. But we should also never accept senseless comments from politicians that exploit those traumatized children, their families, and grieving communities in order to advance a political agenda.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time that Biden has ignored the facts of a particular crime in order to push for his favored gun control policies. Two years ago Biden issued his same vacuous demand for an “assault weapon” ban after a shooting at the University of Virginia left three members of the football team dead, even though the killer used a handgun to carry out the attack. The month before, Biden had also called on Congress to enact a semi-auto ban after a North Carolina teen used a shotgun and a pistol in a shooting spree in his Raleigh neighborhood. As I wrote after the UVA shootings:
This isn’t just a case of Biden or his press team jumping the gun (so to speak) and putting out statements before all of the facts are known. This is about the White House trying to craft a narrative about the evils of modern sporting rifles and gin up support for banning them by associating black rifles with every high-profile crime involving a gun.
If you’re a Second Amendment supporter you’re probably already aware of the fact that, according to the FBI, fists and feet are more common murder weapons than rifles of any kind. Banning so-called assault weapons is not only unconstitutional, given that they’re in common use for a variety of lawful purposes, it’s an absolutely idiotic way to combat violent crime.
For anti-gun Democrats, however, it’s their top priority, and Biden’s okay with gaslighting the American public if it helps Team Blue get an “assault weapons” ban to his desk. They don’t wait for the facts, because they might contradict the preferred narrative. They don’t inform voters, but inflame them instead. And we all know that they’re going to continue to mislead the public in pursuit of gun control’s Holy Grail; the ban and confiscation of tens of millions of firearms currently in the hands of peaceable gun owners.
It’s sick and twisted for the White House to exploit this tragedy in the name of gun control, but it’s not exactly surprising either. Even as Biden prepares to exit the White House, he and his handlers are sticking to their script while ignoring the facts on the ground.
It remains to be seen if there were any warning signs that were missed before the 15-year-old carried out her attack at Abundant Life Christian School on Monday, but we already know that nothing Biden demanded would have stopped her.
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