Biden Pushes ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban in Buffalo Speech

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks after visiting a memorial near a Tops grocery st
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images
AWR Hawkins

President Joe Biden spoke in Buffalo Tuesday and pushed for an “assault weapons” ban in the wake of Saturday’s shooting, which killed ten people.

Biden said, “We can keep assault weapons off our streets. We’ve done it before. I did it when we passed the crime bill last time. And violence went down. Shooting went down.”

Biden was referencing the 1994 federal “assault weapons” ban when he talked about having banned such firearms before. That ban was in place from 1994 to 2004, and contrary to Biden’s claims of reduced violence, the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) released a report showing the negligible impact of the ban — negligible at best.

Breitbart News pointed out that The Washington Times in 2004 quoted the soon-to-be-released NIJ report, authored by University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper: “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”

The NIJ report continued, “The ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

The report put matters into perspective by pointing out that “assault weapons” were “rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban.”

Bloomberg correspondent Jordan Fabian tweeted Tuesday that Biden admitted his push for control is an uphill battle:

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.