By Anders Hagstrom
President Joe Biden announced new executive actions on gun control and called on Congress to go even further at the White House on Thursday, saying gun violence in the U.S. is an “international embarrassment.”
Biden argued that none of the orders he put forward Thursday violated the 2nd Amendment. Biden’s orders will revamp federal policy surrounding so-called ghost-guns, which are self-assembled firearms. He also redesignated pistols with stabilizing braces to be classified as short-barreled rifles.
Biden said that his executive actions were not enough, however, and called on Congress to pass a suite of gun control bills. These include banning assault weapons, allowing gun manufacturers to be sued for crimes committed with their products, requiring background checks for purchases at gun shows, and reauthorizing Biden’s Violence Against Women Act.
Biden’s comments quickly came under fire from conservatives, who accused him both of lying about existing background check laws and emphasizing the wrong kind of gun violence.
Cato Institute research fellow Trevor Burrus also criticized Biden for focusing on the ghost-gun issue, saying such weapons are rarely used in crimes.
“President Biden’s executive order on guns operates under same fallacy often committed by gun-control advocates: go after guns that look or sound scary but are rarely used in crime and, in the process, potentially turn millions of Americans into felons,” Burrus said in a statement to the Daily Caller. “Any gun control policy that doesn’t focus on inner city gun violence and suicides with handguns is not a serious attempt to mitigate gun deaths. But the presence of a gun is not the primary cause of interpersonal gun violence and firearm suicides, and we must broaden our search for solutions that do not focus on guns.”
Originally published by The Daily Caller. Republished with permission.
