Second Amendment advocates have responded to President Joe Biden’s newest executive order designed to advance his gun control agenda and his repeated call for a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines.
“Crimes are committed by criminals. Until President Biden and his allies decide to go after violent criminals, violence will continue to spiral out of control as it has. The focus of our laws and efforts should be on the criminal element and not on law-abiding Americans,” a statement from the National Rifle Association reads.
Biden’s order will require background checks on more than just retail firearms sales, promote the adoption and use of “Red Flag Laws,” make gun dealer inspection reports public, call for stricter enforcement of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and request that the Federal Trade Commission issue a report on the marketing of firearms to children by gun makers.
‘Most Anti-Gun President in US History’
Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights, issued a statement calling on Congress to stand against an unconstitutional attempt at gun registration.
“This is an all-out assault on the Second Amendment, and we’re looking into every legislative and legal option to fight back against the most anti-gun president in U.S. history. What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ does Biden not understand?” Brown’s statement reads.
Like the other organizations that responded, Brown said the order wouldn’t reduce crime. Instead, it will make law-abiding citizens criminals if they don’t comply with the government’s voluminous regulations, he wrote.
“The reality is this executive order will do nothing to stop criminals from buying and selling firearms illegally, but it will entrap otherwise law-abiding Americans and put them on the bad side of the ATF. The unconstitutional NICS database should be abolished, not expanded,” Brown wrote.
Gun Owners of America wrote in a statement that it has been expecting such action from the president.
The organization’s senior vice president, Erich Pratt, is quoted as saying that the current background check system fails 90 percent of the time. Pratt doesn’t believe expanding it will make things better.
“Guns will continue to fall into the wrong hands as long as politicians and bureaucrats fail to acknowledge the real elephant in the room—violent criminals freely walking the streets,” Pratt wrote.
Biden also declared his intention to continue pursuing a ban on certain types of rifles and magazines. He claimed that mass shootings tripled in the United States after the previous 10-year ban expired in 2004.
“I’m determined once again to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” Biden said.
The chairman of the Committee for the Citizens’ Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Alan Gottlieb, said Biden’s agenda has nothing to do with safety. Like the other gun rights advocates, Gottlieb believes that Biden’s plan will fail if it’s implemented.
“The only people who will be any safer are the criminals who ignore gun-control laws already,” Gottlieb said.
