President Joe Biden blasted gun rights advocates for pedaling what he called “phony” arguments about the constitutional right to bear arms as he introduced a slate of limited gun control executive actions.
“Nothing — nothing I’m about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment. They’re phony arguments,” Biden said Thursday during a White House Rose Garden address.
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“The idea is just bizarre,” the president said of claims that his gun control measures are “contrary to the Constitution.”
“No amendment to the Constitution is absolute. You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded movie theater and call it freedom of speech. From the beginning, you couldn’t own any weapon you wanted to own,” he said, a line used during his 2020 campaign.
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Citing gun fatality statistics, including that 106 people die every day in the United States after being shot by a firearm, Biden described the trend as a “public health crisis” and “an epidemic.”
“Let me say it again: Gun violence in this country is an epidemic. And it’s an international embarrassment,” he said.
Biden’s executive actions include directing the Justice Department to propose rules to help “stop the proliferation of ‘ghost guns'” and to “make clear” that a stabilizing brace turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle under the National Firearms Act. Ghost guns are often assembled from kits without serial numbers or background checks.
Biden has also asked the Justice Department to draft model “red flag” legislation for states, which would permit courts temporarily to ban people from buying a firearm if they present a danger to themselves or others.
In addition to community safety funding proposed through the American Jobs Plan and his nomination of David Chipman to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Biden urged Congress to pass bills aimed at closing loopholes in the gun background check system.
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“This is not a partisan issue among the American people,” he said. “This is viewed by the American people as an American issue.”
