By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
Joe Biden has never let the truth get in the way of a good story, or a campaign speech or the State of the Union Address.
As a result, Biden has received more Pinocchios than a gift shop at Disney, especially when he talks about guns.
Biden has lied about guns 304 times at more than 65 public events since taking office, according to an analysis of official White House transcripts by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. In fact, Biden lies nearly every single time he mentions firearms, gun rights or the Second Amendment.
The analysis does not include the times Biden lied about guns privately behind closed doors, when no official transcript was made of the conversation. Only public events where Biden’s comments were recorded were used for this analysis.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests seeking comments about the President’s near constant firearm falsehoods.
Biden has lied about the efficacy of the 1994 federal Assault Weapon Ban far more than anything else. Once the ban ended in 2004, researchers funded by the Justice Department concluded that it had no impact on violent crime. Two additional studies reached similar conclusions, but Biden consistently claims otherwise.
On June 11, 2022, speaking at a reception for the Democratic National Committee held at a private residence in Beverly Hills, Biden said mass shootings decreased 70 percent during the ban and increased seven times once the ban expired:
“The point of the matter is that we passed it for 10 years, this ban. And significant violent crime and particularly — went to — mass shootings went down 70 percent. But I could only get it passed for 10 years. It had to be reauthorized in 10 years,” Biden said. “The Bush administration came into play. And I’m not — I don’t want to pick on the Bush administration because they weren’t all bad, but they — they didn’t have the courage to try to pass it again. And guess what? Violent shootings went up seven — seven times what they were.”
But on June 16, 2023, speaking at the National Safer Communities Summit, which was held at the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Connecticut, Biden said mass shootings decreased while the ban was in effect but only tripled afterward.
“As I said, we did it once before, in ’94, and 10 years after that, the ban was — mass shootings went down significantly — the number of mass shootings. That’s — when the ban expired, mass shootings tripled,” he said.
Biden has lied about fictitious colonial cannon prohibitions six times, and four times he said anyone planning to overthrow his government would need an F-15. He said they’d need an F-16 once. And Biden has taken credit for stamping out curbside AR-15 deliveries in both New York and Philadelphia.
“And finally — we finally clarified who needs to register as a federal licensed gun dealer, because a federally licensed gun dealer is required by law to run background checks on those he’s selling the weapon to. And in most cities — down in Philadelphia and New York, areas I know well — like up here — you’d see a truck pull up, pull to the curb, and selling weapons — selling guns, selling AR-15. Selling weapons,” he said earlier this month.
Perhaps one of Biden’s strangest untruths concerns the AR-15’s popularity.
“And — and, by the way, you know one of the reasons why the AR-15 is so strongly supported by so many folks in that — in that industry? Number one, it’s the cheapest weapon to make and it’s the highest profit motive they have for any weapon that is made. It makes more money to sell an AR-15 than any other weapon you can buy,” Biden said June 20 at a campaign reception, which was held at a private residence in Kentfield, California.
Biden has mentioned “rogue gun dealers” six times since taking office in an attempt to justify ATF’s zero-tolerance policy, which the agency now uses to revoke federal firearms licenses for the most minor of clerical errors.
“First, we want to crack down on the flow of firearms used to commit violence. That includes taking on and shutting down rogue gun dealers at — and it’s about doing background checks, as well as outright selling of that — making sure the people who are not allowed to have a gun, don’t get the gun in the first place,” Biden said Feb. 3, 2022 at a Gun Violence Prevention Task Force Meeting, which was held at One Police Plaza, New York City.
On June 23, 2021, Biden said these “rogue gun dealers feel like they can get away with selling guns to people who aren’t legally allowed to own them.”
“And I might add: The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn’t buy a cannon,” he said.
Interestingly, Biden’s opinion of the ballistic capabilities of the 5.56x45mm round has shifted over time.
On July 11, 2022, at an event commemorating the passage of the Safer Communities Act, which was held at the White House on the South Lawn, Biden said the “most common rounds fired from an AR-15 move almost twice as fast as that from a handgun.”
A month later, on Aug. 26, 2022, during a reception for the Democratic National Committee, which was held at a private residence in Bethesda, Maryland, Biden said “the velocity of a bullet coming out of assault weapons is three-and-a-half times as fast as a bullet coming out of another weapon.”
But on Nov. 6, 2022, at a rally for New York Governor Kathy Hochul, which was held at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, Biden said this: “And as I point out all the time, what comes out of a muzzle of an assault weapon is five times quicker, faster than comes out of a muzzle of another gun. It can pierce a Kevlar vest. There are not a whole lot of deer out there wearing Kevlar vests.”
Biden has mentioned deer in Kevlar vests a total of 16 times since taking office.
Click here for a chronological list of Biden’s lies about guns, gun rights and the Second Amendment.
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