It is easy to see why politicians such as President Joe Biden (D) are attracted to this falsehood, as it empowers those who use it to take away our right to keep and bear arms, which then gives them the control of the public they desire. Meanwhile, despite all the facts that dispel this lie, they have powerful messengers to spread and defend it in the mainstream media, Hollywood and academia.
Nevertheless, the trouble people like Biden have with selling this deception is that, in order to get around the “shall not be infringed” simplicity of the Second Amendment and all the real data related to crime and gun ownership in America, they’ve had to grow this lie into something so big it is no longer even a fake narrative, but has become a dystopian-type fiction so far from the truth that an increasing number of people just aren’t buying it.
The size of this lie makes it easy to contrast with the real, nonfiction story of America’s lawful gun owners. As this is an important contrast to make, let’s start with Biden’s fiction.
President Biden’s Fiction
First, we should be clear that Biden isn’t all that responsible for creating the Left’s dishonest narrative about America’s lawfully armed citizens. Biden has never been the kind of politician who can formulate big, new visions. No, Biden is the type of elected official who blows along with the political winds within his party. But, as president, he presides over this narrative. He repeats it. He lives it. He promotes legislation to further it. He says it is true. So, as he is its champion, we’ll hang it on him.
And what a narrative it is. In this story of contemporary America, the good are bad, and the bad, if not good, are just misunderstood. Indeed, law-abiding gun owners are cast as villains in this fiction, at least as people seduced by objects deemed too dangerous for non-government officials to own or carry.
This fiction has it that the 42% of American homes Gallup says have guns in them are less safe than those without guns; in fact, all of our nation’s legal gun owners are actually the reason why gang members from Los Angeles to New York City can get their criminal hands on guns, says this misinformation. The only way out of this dangerous situation is for every one of America’s 100-million-plus gun owners to give up their semi-automatic rifles, their pistols—especially 9 mms, says Biden—and, well, the Left will let us know what else citizens can’t have when they get around to expanding their list of politically incorrect guns.
Law-abiding gun owners are cast as villains in the fiction being pushed by President Joe Biden.
In a wild example of the outlandishness of this ever-growing lie, in 2013, after arguing that American citizens shouldn’t be able to own popular semi-automatic rifles, Biden actually told Field & Stream: “Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.”
The mainstream media doesn’t like to remind people of the countless bizarre—and in this case, dangerous—quotes from Biden. Instead, they prefer to go along with the notion that, while armed citizens are dangerous, most criminals are just misunderstood. They’re mostly just socioeconomically disadvantaged people, you know. Have a heart. Prosecuting them is so counter-productive anyway. We can’t prosecute “everyone who lies on a form,” Biden once said while referring to the ATF Form 4473, a background-check form people must fill out before purchasing a gun from a dealer.
There are other exceptions baked into Biden’s story of America’s gun owners. Private-security details should be able to get handguns and carry permits to protect very important people, of course. Also, the important people with the right connections should be able to get carry permits, even as common folk are denied their right to self-defense.
And if one of the elite messes up? Well, the president’s son, Hunter Biden, appears to have violated federal law when he purchased a .38-caliber revolver from a Federal Firearms Licensee (gun dealer) on Oct. 12, 2018. According to Politico, he checked a box on the federal form saying he was not habitually using illegal narcotics, when, in fact, as his own autobiography would later say, he was. Of course, that can be made to go away. He is not, after all, one of the serfs in this society. He is one of the elite crowd and so must be shielded from the legal system.
Regardless, don’t consider these exceptions too deeply, as the real problem, says Biden’s story, are those gun makers and gun stores. Gun manufacturers need to be exposed to being sued out of business, he says. To do that, Biden wants to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), so gun makers and dealers can be sued when a criminal steals a gun and uses it for no good. If common sense tells you this flips justice on its head, Biden might tell you that you’re thinking about it all wrong; what matters is that government authorities have the power to do as they wish with you and your rights.
Indeed, the Biden administration also seems to think the federal government needs Operation Choke Point back, so the bureaucracy can openly attack the financial-services relationships of gun makers and dealers again. This way, gun stores or manufacturers, which are all bad actors in this anti-gun myth, can be driven from society.
As for the NRA, well, this 150-year-old civil-liberties association and its millions of freedom-loving members are no good, says this fictional tale. NRA members are a political obstacle, so they must be disbanded.
Also, another clarification in this convoluted Biden fable needs to be articulated, as not all of the government’s officials are actually good, according to Joe. Sure, President Biden, via White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, has said he is not for defunding the police, but he has arguably appeased this view by neglecting to criticize the mayors and other elected officials in his party who have called for defunding the police. He has let this unfair treatment of the police in this fiction mostly alone, even as the number of law-enforcement officers shot and killed in the line of duty across the United States hit a new, horrific high in 2021, according to the National Fraternal Order of Police. As of Nov. 30, a staggering 58 officers had been murdered on the job in 2021; in fact, 314 officers were shot in the line of duty in the first 11 months of 2021.
Given how this Biden fiction will even treat our men and women in blue, it perhaps is not surprising that in Biden’s story, legally armed citizens are often cast as criminals—this often includes armed citizens who act to stop criminals.
“It is irrational, with all due respect to the Governor of Texas, irrational what they’re doing,” said Biden in September 2019. “And we’re talking about loosening access to have guns, be able to take them into places of worship.” Biden was talking about a law change that allowed people to legally carry in houses of worship in Texas—a change made in reaction to murders of unarmed church goers. Months later, in White Settlement, Texas, Jack Wilson drew a pistol he wouldn’t have been able to legally carry before the law change and stopped a mass murderer with one shot. If Biden’s fiction of this American freedom had had its way, that murderer would likely have been able to kill more parishioners.
To Biden, citizens just can’t be trusted with their freedom. Guns in the hands of average Americans are a “public-health epidemic,” proclaimed Biden’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on CNN.
But perhaps the most-telling example of this fiction took place last November when the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court heard New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. It is unusual for the federal government to take a bold part in a challenge to a state law before the Court, but there was Brian H. Fletcher, acting solicitor general for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) under Biden, arguing that the government can deny any citizen the right to arms, whenever it sees fit to do so.
Fletcher maintained Biden’s fiction by arguing he didn’t think it was a problem that various jurisdictions in New York (and, presumably, elsewhere) can make it all but impossible for people to carry a gun for self-defense. When pushed, he said he thought the Court could ask states to give clearer “guidelines” for the reasons they deny citizens this constitutional right.
The “special need” requirement to exercise Second Amendment rights Fletcher was referring to—even though the Second Amendment was written and ratified as a restriction on government—fits neatly into this Biden narrative. The Biden fiction, in fact, would do away with “shall-issue” laws altogether, and thereby make America into a “may-issue” nation, giving government officials the unchecked power to take away this right whenever and wherever it desires.
This is also the fiction New York Solicitor General Barbara D. Underwood pushed during the hearing for Bruen. “The problem with the shall-issue regimes is they multiply the number of guns being carried … mistakes will be made, fights will break out … .” said Underwood as she classified America’s lawful gun owners as little more than criminals in waiting.
Such is how absurd this fictional view of our Second Amendment and of lawful gun owners is.
The Real Story
And so we begin the nonfiction story of today’s armed citizens.
First, picture a citizen who carries. Or a group of them. Who do you see? They could be anyone, right? This freedom is universal. And, as we’ve been reporting, gun ownership is increasingly diverse in America.
So okay, where are they? Again, they could be just about anywhere. As former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, the attorney for the plaintiffs in Bruen, explained during the hearing, the data clearly shows that getting the government out of the way of this American freedom does not make this country more dangerous. Clement said, “By my count, 7 out of 10 of America’s largest cities are in shall-issue jurisdictions.” He then pointed out that these cities are not more dangerous than ones under may-issue regimes.
Clearly, the facts show that the vast majority of gun owners are not the problem the Biden fiction says they are.
Clement is clearly correct. Crime data stubbornly shows that Americans who legally carry concealed basically don’t commit crimes; for example, John Lott, a noted criminologist and founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, found that, as a group, concealed-carry permit holders are some of the most law-abiding people in the United States. So much so, that the rate at which they commit crimes is somewhere between one-sixth and one-tenth of what police officers commit. To see this data from a different angle, realize that between 2007 and 2015, the murder rate dropped 16% as the percentage of adults with concealed-carry permits rose 190%. Indeed, until the mayhem of 2020 erupted as politicians on the Left refused to use resources to pro- tect people and property, violent-crime rates had basically been dropping for decades while the number of people who carry concealed rose dramatically.
For a broader picture of this data, consider the “2021 National Firearms Survey,” by William English at Georgetown University, which determined that “approximately a third of gun owners (31.1%) have used a firearm to defend themselves or their property, often on more than one occasion.” Also, this study estimated that “guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents per year.” It found that handguns are the most-common firearm used for self-defense (65.9% of defensive incidents) and that in “most defensive incidents (81.9%) no shot was fired.”
To America’s 100-million-plus lawful and very normal gun owners, none of that is a surprise. Owning and carrying a firearm is a great responsibility, which is just how America’s lawful gun owners take it—freedom without responsibility, after all, is no freedom at all.
Indeed, the fact that the safest areas in America also tend to be where legal gun ownership is highest, is really all that is needed to take apart the Biden fiction. But instead of seeing this, and trying to learn from it, politicians like Biden point to law-abiding gun owners and claim their freedom is somehow responsible for the actions of violent criminals. When they are challenged on this point, they shout all the louder, as the last thing progressives want their voters to notice is that their policies—prisoner releases, lax bail rules, a reluctance to prosecute armed criminals and efforts to defund the police—are actually behind the rising crime rates the Biden fiction of America blames on lawful gun owners.
Clearly, the facts show that the vast majority of gun owners are not the problem the Biden fiction says they are; actually, this freedom makes America safer and its citizens more independent.
Separating Fact from Fiction
This is why Biden is two-faced when it comes to the debate over firearms. He pretends to be for a safer nation, but he pushes a fiction that lawful gun owners are to blame for the actions of criminals. Biden’s fiction is in many ways harmful to citizens, but he acts as if his fable is moral and good.
Biden’s fiction is also divisive, as blaming lawful citizens for crime is divisive by definition. Meanwhile, Biden’s story redirects government resources in unproductive directions as it misinforms the public. This isn’t helping bring Americans together. And it isn’t helping to reduce crime, as it doesn’t target the people committing the crimes.
With all of this said aloud, one thing is clear: Biden’s dystopian view of America doesn’t have to come true via his gun-control policies. But stopping it means keeping pressure on elected officials to leave our freedom alone, and it means voting for this critical freedom in this year’s midterm congressional elections.
This appeared in the February 2022 issue of America's 1st Freedom.
