President Joe Biden has once again perpetuated a myth about the Second Amendment for which he has previously been called out by Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler, and he also invented another myth about the ballistic nature of the 9mm pistol bullet.
In comments to the media outside the White House, Biden declared, “They said a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.”
He went on to describe firearms chambered for that round as “high-caliber weapons” that are poor choices for “self-protection (or) hunting.” Critics are already noting on social media that the Second Amendment is not about hunting, and that the 9mm is the most popular personal defense caliber in America today, with millions of pistols chambered for that round now in circulation. Additionally, 9mm sidearms are used by many if not most civilian law enforcement agencies, both federal and local.
Biden’s remarks reinforced the comments he made during a CNN Townhall broadcast last year in which he admitted he has been trying to ban the sale of 9mm pistols.
The president evidently has not read Shooting Industry magazine, in which it was reported last year, “For the entire decade, 9mm pistols made up 42.8% of all pistols produced domestically (15,111,566 of 35,315,097). Using advanced math, that’s four of every ten pistols made in the U.S. in the 2010s were chambered in 9mm. For added perspective, 9mm pistols made up 18.6% of U.S. production from 2000–2009.”
Biden did acknowledge he cannot outright ban a whole class of firearms.
“I can’t dictate this stuff,” Biden told reporters. “I can do the things I’ve done and any executive action I can take, I’ll continue to take. But I can’t outlaw a weapon. I can’t, you know, change the background checks. I can’t do that.”
Something else Biden can’t do, or at least shouldn’t try to do, is rewrite history, but he again told reporters, “You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weaponry.”
According to NBC News, the House Judiciary Committee “is planning an emergency session Thursday to mark up a package of gun violence prevention bills and send it to the full chamber for a vote as soon as possible.”
The 41-page bill encompasses a wish list of gun control measures, including raising the minimum age for purchasing any semi-auto rifle or shotgun to 21 years.
But the bill also outlaws straw purchases, which is already illegal.
It would require all firearms to be “traceable,” meaning they would have to have a serial number of some kind. This is another swipe at so-called “ghost guns” built by home hobbyists. However, it prohibits the hobbyist from engraving his/her own serial number, noting, “It shall be unlawful for a person other than a licensed manufacturer or importer to engrave or cast a serial number on a firearm in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce unless specifically authorized by the Attorney General.”
One of the more onerous, and perhaps impossible to enforce, provisions mandates so-called “safe storage.” Guns must be locked up if “a minor is likely to gain access to the firearm without the permission of the parent or guardian of the minor; or a resident of the residence is ineligible to possess a firearm under Federal, State, or local law.”
There are certain narrow exceptions including that the gun owner “carries the firearm on his or her person or within such close proximity thereto that the person can readily retrieve and use the firearm as if the person carried the firearm on his or her person.”
This will almost certainly be challenged in court if it passes, and the likelihood of it getting through the Senate with the required 60 votes is questionable.
