By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The Washington Times is reporting that President Joe Biden is “sticking to his gun ban plans” as a focus of his reelection campaign for 2024, while one of the country’s leading Second Amendment advocates says the president is a “one-trick pony” when it comes to guns.
Biden has been a perennial gun control advocate since arriving in Washington, D.C. a half-century ago. He has advocated for a ban on modern semi-auto rifles and original capacity magazines since the Clinton ban in 1994. Two years ago during a Townhall presentation on CNN, the president also confessed he has been trying to ban the sale of 9mm pistols.
The Times report notes, “The administration has been highlighting its efforts to combat gun violence, depicting the bloodshed as a public health crisis.”
But Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, told the newspaper that Biden’s perspective is all wrong.
“Biden is a one-trick pony,” Gottlieb reportedly told the Washington Times. “His goal is to ban firearms ownership. Not solve our violent crime problem and make us safer.
“If he cared about public safety,” Gottlieb added, “he would work to help fund more police on our streets and come down hard on people who break gun laws like his son Hunter. He would also push for changes in our mental health system that is underfunded.”
Gottlieb has been a longtime critic of Biden and the overall gun control movement for decades. He now refers to anti-gun organizations and politicians as “gun prohibitionists.” After all, once a person or an organization advocates for a ban on an entire class of firearms, they’re no longer interested in just control, they favor prohibition.
Gottlieb has been advocating instead for more spending on mental health and enforcement of existing laws. As if to underscore his point, an April 11 Rasmussen survey showed 42 percent of likely voters “believe mental health is more to blame for mass shootings in America, while 29% blame access to firearms.”
The Times referred to a Monmouth University poll from earlier this year which said 46 percent of voters support a ban on the sale of AR-15-type rifles, while 49 percent opposed the idea.
A March 30 Rasmussen survey revealed 51 percent of likely voters think stricter gun laws would prevent mass shootings like the one in Nashville.
However, a May 5 Rasmussen poll revealed only 29 percent of American adults trust the government “to fairly enforce gun control laws, while 57% don’t, and another 14% are not sure.”
According to the Washington Times story, declining support for a ban on semi-auto rifles “is mainly among independents with 49% supporting the idea in 2022 compared to 37% this year.”
Gun bans have “lost ground with Republicans,” who were already no fans of such extreme gun control proposals.
And, in an ironic development, the Washington Times noted that gun control proponents “who support Mr. Biden” have been critical of the president for not being more aggressive on gun control. They want him to take executive action on several issues, and they also want him to create a new federal bureaucracy dealing with “gun violence.”
