I watched President Biden’s press conference on 3 February 2022 where he discussed crime, causes of crime and his solutions. There were so many mis-representations, falsehoods and some outright lies that I couldn’t let it pass. I was able to find the transcript of President Biden’s comments on the whitehouse.gov website.
You can find the complete transcript at the website below.
The transcript is written exactly as President Biden spoke, including all of his stumbles and changes of direction in mid-sentence. It is sometimes hard to follow. So as not to inadvertently change the meaning of his statements, I cut and pasted the ones I took issue with below. They are printed in bold followed by my comments in italics.
“I’ve spoken to their families, and — and their loss for the city is also a loss for the nation. You know, the future is cut short by a man with a stolen Glock with 40 rounds — a magazine with 40 rounds. And it’s really a weapon of war.”
1. The man was a felon in possession of a stolen weapon with a high capacity magazine that’s illegal in New York and he used it to murder two police officers. Four laws broken, but you think he would obey more new laws?
2. I don’t know of any country that arms their soldiers with Glock pistols that have 40 round magazines.
“One of the things I was proudest of years ago, when I was in the Senate — I was able to get these weapons and the size of magazines outlawed. That got changed. It got overruled. But I don’t see any rationale to why there should be such a weapon able to be purchased. It doesn’t violate anybody’s Second Amendment rights to deny that.”
1. Bill Clinton’s Assault Weapon Ban was allowed to expire after ten years because it had absolutely no affect on crime. Only law-abiding citizens obeyed the law.
2. It does violate citizens rights to deny access to certain types of weapons. The Supreme Court has defined State militia’s as “All adult male inhabitants.” They further stated, when called “Men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.” Currently, the most commonly used weapon today is what President Biden would call an assault weapon.
“And so, I’ve asked the Congress to provide $200 million to invest in community violence intervention programs as well — they work; they work — where community members with credibility work directly with people that are most likely to commit crimes or be victims of gun crimes. And they work.”
So where is this program working? Because what I am seeing is the top twelve cities that have broken records for homicides are all run by Democrats!
“We need more social workers. We need mental health workers. We need more people who when you’re called on these scenes and someone is about to jump off a roof, there’s not just someone standing there with a — with a weapon; it’s someone who also knows how to talk to people — talk them down.”
Are you going to send Mental Health Workers to domestic disturbances? It’s a well known fact domestic disturbances are the most dangerous scenario police deal with. The two officers that just died in New York were responding to a domestic disturbances. Speeding isn’t even a misdemeanor, it’s just a violation of traffic law. Should mental health workers handle traffic stops too?
“And so, I’m also calling for increased funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the U.S. Marshals offices. I’m confident that if we fund these programs, we’ll see a reduction in violence.”
They’re already funded. They just need to focus on stopping criminals from getting guns. Not working on what the actual definition of ghost gun is. Not trying to decide if an accessory for an AR15 is a stock or an arm brace. Not trying to determine if a replacement trigger for hunters and target shooters that’s easier to pull makes the rifle a machine gun.
They need to be catching and prosecuting straw purchasers to the fullest extent of the law. A woman bought a gun for her convicted felon boyfriend who lived in another State which broke three Federal laws. He used the gun to kill a female police officer who just had a baby. The woman who bought the gun got four months of house arrest and eight months of community service!
“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.”
1. “Rogue” gun dealers, whatever that means, if they are breaking the law, should be shut down and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. How many have you shut down in the past year?
2. All Federally licensed gun dealers (FFL’s) do background checks before selling a gun. The problem is some States do not submit information that would prevent a person from buying a firearm to the NICS (National Instant Background Check System) in a timely manner or not at all.
After the Sandy Hook School mass shooting, two of President Obama’s 23 Executive Orders to fix flaws in current gun laws dealt with fixing the NICS system. Nothing happened. Five years later, the shooter in the Texas First Baptist Church mass shooting was able to legally buy an AR15 from an FFL dealer. His conviction for domestic violence was never submitted to NICS. After this incident made the public aware of flaws in the system (that the NRA fought to fix for years) Congress passed the Fix NICS Act of 2017. It was signed into law by President Trump.
3. Every year 80,000 to 100,000 firearm purchases are denied because the buyer fails the background check. Some of these are mistakes or the person is misidentified. But many denials are convicted felons or drug users that hope their application will slip through the system. Some do. Like Hunter Biden. The penalty for falsifying the application can be up to a $250,000 fine and/or ten years in prison. Enforcement of this law could take a lot of criminals off the street. Unfortunately, the ATF and Justice Department usually prosecute less than 0.1% (that’s 80 out of 80,000) of the fraudulent applicants.
“We talk like there’s no amendment that’s absolute. When the amendment was passed, it didn’t say anybody can own a gun and any kind of gun and any kind of weapon. You couldn’t buy a cannon in — when the — this — this amendment was passed. And so, no reason why you should be able to buy certain assault weapons. But that’s another issue.”
1. It’s the 2nd Amendment. It appears you forgot which one it was.
2. It kinda does say that you can own any kind of weapon. It was written that way so citizens and States would be armed at the same level as the Federal government just in case they took a turn towards being tyrannical.
3. You can buy a cannon! Or a bazooka! Or a grenade! They’re called destructive devices and they are not illegal. They’re just controlled more closely by the ATF under the National Firearms Act (NFA). The same Act that controls machine guns, suppressors (silencers) and sawed of shotguns and short barrel rifles. Pay the $200 tax, pass the background check and you can own them if you can find someone with one to sell.
The whole National Firearms Act thing shows the Federal government did not have the power to prohibit possession of things like machine guns because it didn’t make them illegal. They just placed a high tax (for 1938) on them making them too expensive for most people to own.
And look, one of the things that we focused on, the Attorney General and I — and we’re getting to the point where I think we’re going to be able to have a real impact on it — includes going after ghost guns. Ghost guns are the guns everyone in this room knows that can be purchased in parts, assembled at home, no serial number, and can’t be traced. And they’re as deadly as any other weapon out there. But the fact is: They are out there.
How often are “ghost guns” used in crimes? Is it so many that other methods for criminals to obtain guns like straw purchasers are less important?
How many criminals have the time, skill, and specialized tools to build a ghost gun? There’s more involved besides assembling a bunch of parts. The builder has to do the final machining of the receiver. Drill one hole a couple thousands off and pins fall out, the gun doesn’t work.
Is there a big difference in a ghost gun and a gun with the serial number filed off?
How often does tracing a firearm by the serial number solve a crime? Probably not very often. Canada repealed a gun registration law because after 14 years and a cost of $2.7 billion, it has never been credited with solving or preventing a single crime.
If you commit a crime to the ghost gun, not only are state and local prosecutors going to come after you but expect federal charges and federal prosecution as well.
Isn’t this piling on or stacking charges? I thought you guys were against this. If not, why hasn’t Federal prosecutors gone after all the participants in the Summer of 2020 riots?
We’ve also created a strike force to crack down on illegal gun trafficking across state lines. As the mayor said, as he pointed out, guns that are used to kill people in New York City, they aren’t made in New York City, they aren’t sold in New York City. They are sold in other places. Today, the Attorney General directed all U.S. attorneys in the United States to prioritize combating gun trafficking across state lines and city boundaries.
How’d it work out the last time you were in office and the Federal Government got involved in cracking down on illegal gun trafficking across State lines? Remember Operation Fast and Furious?
“Governor, you worked with the mayor and the NYPD and nine other states to create an Interstate Task Force on Illegal Guns. That’s the kind of leadership that’s going to solve the problem. And I’m eager to hear more about that progress.”
I’m eager to hear about the progress, if any also. Usual Democrat solution to any problem is to form a committee or task force to look into the problem and recommend solutions. Early in his first term, President Obama set up a committee to look into how to increase employment. The committee met multiple times over the next year then they submitted their recommendations. Obama didn’t use any of their recommendations. But it did deflect criticism on the low employment numbers for a year.
“You know, I want more cities and states to use some of the $350 billion we sent to them on the American Rescue Plan to fight crime, to keep our communities safe by hiring more police officers for community policing and paying police overtime, and purchasing gun-fighting technologies, like technologies that hears, locates gunshots so there can be immediate response because you know exactly where it came from.”
Standard Democrat solution to everything: Throw money at it! More police and overtime, okay. But “technologies that hears, locates gunshots so there can be immediate response”. Do an internet search on “Does Shot Spotter work?” Cities that bought into the idea that it would help solve crimes are abandoning the system because it doesn’t work.
“I’ll keep doing everything in my power to make sure that communities are safer. But Congress needs to do its part too: pass universal background checks, ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, close loopholes, and keep out of the hands of domestic abusers — weapons, repeal the liability shield for gun manufacturers. And, folks, you know, it’s the only industry in America, as I said, that’s exempt from being sued. And I think — I find it to be outrageous.”
1. Universal background checks won’t work without universal firearms registration which the Federal government is currently barred from doing by Federal law. You can’t determine if an illegal firearm transfer occurs unless you know who currently owns every firearm in the country, all 400 million of them. States that have passed Universal background check laws have seen no reduction in crime. That’s because criminals don’t get their weapons legally.
2. Ban assault weapons? First you have to figure out what an assault weapon is. Currently it’s pretty much any semi-automatic rifle with a removable magazine. If you could somehow make every rifle (not just assault weapons but rifles) in the country disappear there would have been 375 less murders in 2019, reducing the total murders by 2.6%. Almost three times as many people were killed by blunt objects and bare hands.
3. High capacity magazines? Ten rounds is okay, but eleven rounds is criminal. Will Biden’s security team switch to ten round magazines? Why not? They can be trusted by I can’t?
4. Close loopholes? Obviously referring to “the gun show loophole” which practically doesn’t exist. A survey of nearly 10,000 inmates in the Texas prison system found less than one percent got their firearm at a gun show. More criminals got their firearm ”legally” from a licensed dealer because their information in the NICS was not accurate or they did not become a criminal until after they bought a firearm.
5. Keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. The only way to do that is insure NICS data is always current. And Democrats already dropped the ball on that when Obama was president.
6. Repeal the liability shield for gun manufacturers. Biden repeated the lie that firearms manufacturers can’t be sued. Gun manufacturers can be sued if they sell a product that is unsafe to use or does not work properly. They, like every other company can’t be sued if someone misuses their product. When the driver of a vehicle in a fatal hit and run is caught, the family doesn’t sue the maker of the car he was driving.
Additionally:
1. President Biden did not mention the role gangs play in the current rise in violent crimes.
2. President Biden did not mention how soft on crime prosecutors are immediately releasing criminals so the can continue to commit crimes. Some prosecutors are now saying if you hold a gun to a person head to rob them, but don’t pull the trigger, it’s a misdemeanor.
3. President Biden is blaming the rise in crime on availability of guns and not addressing other crimes. The woman who was pushed onto the subway tracks in front of a train is just as dead as if she was shot. What about criminals who walk in stores, fill their shopping bags then just walk out the door?
4. President Biden did not mention deaths from drug overdoses? In 2021, over 100,000 people died from drug overdoses. This is six times higher than homicides. What happened to the war on drugs?
4. But won’t more strict gun laws make us safer? How’d that work out for Mexico? Their laws limit legal possession to one handgun per household. It must be registered and cannot be carried outside of the home. There is only one gun shop in all of Mexico. It is guarded and run by military personnel. Buying a firearm requires a completed application and background check which takes several months. Yet with all these restrictions, Mexican police seize up to 30,000 guns every year from criminals and cartel members who DO NOT buy their guns at the government run gun store.
5. The problem isn’t availability of guns. If it was, States with so called “lax gun laws” would have higher crime rates. But the exact opposite is true. The problem is we’ve somehow raised several generations of children that believe it’s okay to shoot a stranger in the face and take their belongings because their life sucks.
ALLAN L. PERKINS, Sergeant Major, U.S. Army (Retired)