By Dave Workman | Editor-in-Chief
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has apparently opened the proverbial can of worms by suggesting that President Donald Trump should “open the U.S. Constitution” so he could “find the First Amendment” and understand people have a right to peaceably assemble “and petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Biden issued the challenge during a speech in Philadelphia about nationwide protests condemning the killing of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis resident who died after a police officer pressed a knee on his neck for several minutes while Floyd was prone on the ground, in handcuffs.
After hearing Biden’s challenge, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms reacted by suggesting the former vice president is the one who “needs a refresher on constitutional rights” because of his gun control efforts.
“If Joe Biden would open the Constitution,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “he would find the Second Amendment. It’s obvious President Trump has already read the Second Amendment, and that Biden and his Democrats wish it didn’t exist.”
Biden has a history of supporting every gun control measure on the table. He championed gun control measures, such as the Brady bill, while serving in the U.S. Senate.
Biden was speaking about the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a police officer placed a knee on his neck for several minutes, even after Floyd declared he could not breathe. That officer was fired and charged with third-degree murder.
President Trump has vowed to call out the military in response to destructive rioting in several major cities including New York, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles. Biden has come under criticism because several of his staffers donated money to a group that provides bail funds for arrested looters.
“It is clear to us that Donald Trump knows the First Amendment protects the right of people to peaceably assemble,” Gottlieb said in a prepared statement. “But unlike Biden, the president understands that the First Amendment does not protect looting, vandalism, arson and felony assault disguised as legitimate protest. President Trump hasn’t been contributing to a bail fund project to get these criminals out of jail, as have members of Biden’s campaign staff, while Biden, himself, would like to see these people released without bail.”
But the national grassroots gun rights organization zeroed on Biden’s anti-gun-rights track record.
“Donald Trump takes an opportunity during nearly every public appearance to declare his loyalty, not just his ‘support,’ to the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb stated. “And what has Joe Biden done? He’ been traveling the country bragging about how he wrote the Brady gun control law, and how he would take on the so-called gun lobby and push for radical restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.”
In a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, Biden declared that his administration would come after legally-owned semi-auto rifles, which he called “assault weapons.” Gottlieb recalled that Biden told former candidate Beto O’Rourke—an extremist anti-gunner—that he would be in charge of gun policy in a Biden administration. O’Rourke is remembered for his emotional outburst during a 2019 Democrat debate in which he declared, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK47.”
Gottlieb said Biden would “turn a fundament right into a government-regulated privilege.”
