President Joe Biden claims to have taken more executive action on firearms in his first 18 months than any other president.
And on Thanksgiving, Biden condemned “the purchase of semi-automatic weapons,” a huge category of firearms. He called it “sick” that American voters would exercise their Second Amendment rights.
After that, the president sent White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to control the spin.
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“We’re going to try to get rid of assault weapons… as I get in and start counting votes,” Biden said at a Thanksgiving event in Massachusetts. “The idea that we still allow the purchase of semi-automatic weapons in this country today is sick. It is just sick. It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None.”
Biden left every American wondering about a not only a possible ban on assault weapons, but also a possible ban on all semi-automatic weapons.
On Monday, Jean-Pierre held a press conference for the first time since Biden’s ambiguous statement about guns. She told one reporter that Biden had misspoken (again).
A reporter asked, “Did the President misspeak or does he, in fact, want to ban all semi-automatic guns?… Obviously, that’s a huge category of [semi-automatic] guns, from rifles to pistols to shotguns, that are not assault weapons.”
Jean Pierre retorted, “No, he was — he was talking about assault weapons. That’s what he was talking about on that — on that morning or that afternoon when he was asked that question.”
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The White House has denied any plans for executive action on gun control Instead, Biden wants Congress to address this issue.
“Just a couple of months ago, there was a bipartisan legislation on protecting our communities to really deal with the effects of gun violence,” Jean-Pierre said.
“The President is an optimist, but he also understands that it is — he sees it as his responsibility to continue to make the case. I don’t have anything else to preview as to any additional executive action that will be taken from here.”
Take a look —
KJP to @PhilipWegmann on whether Biden wants to ban all semi-automatic guns: "No, he was–he was talking about assault weapons. That's what he was talking on that–on that morning or that afternoon when he was asked that question." pic.twitter.com/IiUgrmcRB7
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 28, 2022
“When I was in the Oval Office in a meeting with the President, he actually brought this up himself, because he knows how his comments were reported over the weekend. And he wanted to be very clear,” Jean-Pierre alleged.
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“He believes that it’s important to keep this issue — in banning assault weapons — at the front of minds of Americans. He believes that it is — it is — it is also up to him, as President of the United States, to make the case for why it is critical to move forward with assault — assault weapons ban.”
The Horn editorial team