Biden is doing this to drive a wedge into Republicans. The gun nuts and the ones that don't care about guns will have differing opinions because now gun violence affects them directly. It's really smart.
Biden looks presidential. Trump has three choices:
Come out against AR-15s, for obvious reasons. This makes gun nuts less likely to vote for him.
Come out in favor of AR-15s. He looks insane to Republicans who don't care about guns.
Trump ignores the issue or waffles and looks unpresidential.
Number 3 is most likely. Of course the correct answer is number 4: propose a competing policy that is nuanced. But that's impossible for trump.
Bernie had this right. Despite being pretty progressive, he wasn't for outlawing semiautomatic firearms because they were black and looked scary. He believed that the right to arms was justified. This "AR Ban" is a great way to lose a lot of independents, and even some hard D voters like myself. There are a lot of dems who carry, and a lot of them who own the very firearms he wants to ban.
Just as dumb as when Beto said it before his election...
It'll never pass, and he thinks saying it will get votes, but all it does is motivate idiots to vote trump, even tho he actually did an executive action to try and close a loophole.
It might not have stood, but it worked for a couple of years.
Banning guns is a losing policy for democrats. It only ever hurts them. I really wish they'd stop lighting political capital on fire with statements like this
It seems like such a lazy non-solution. Essentially telling shooters "Hey, from now on, you can only use ALL THE OTHER GUNS" as if that solves something.
this is not going to get anyone excited about voting for him, but it will galvanize the opposition and push swing voters into staying home on election day at the very least
That fucking horrible assassination attempt would have happened with or without the AR, this is just another knee-jerk emotional reaction, and it could NOT come at a worse time (pre-election). We're fucked.
The RIAA: "Internet file sharing of mp3s is eating into our profits. Government, we want you to ban the Rio Volt SP250 mp3 player."
The Government: "Yes, banning only that specific make and model of mp3 player and none of the rest of Rio's product catalog, or any mp3 players manufactured by any other brand, will completely and permanently address this scourge of copyright infringement. Consider it done."
That's you! That's how DUMB you sound!
--GLaDOS.
Here's what happens when you ban a firearm by name: manufacturers change some extremely minor detail, change the model number, and keep selling it. The Tec-9 open bolt machine pistol was used in a few school shootings in the 90's, most prominently the Columbine massacre. California banned the gun by name in state law. The manufacturer responded by moving the sling ring from one side of the gun to the other and calling it the Tec-DC9, with "DC" standing for "Designed for California."
It's not an engineering problem. Banning individual makes and models is how you solve (or at least end) an engineering problem. This is a culture problem.
"Charles Whitman killed seventeen individuals and wounded at least thirty-one others over the course of thirteen hours before he was killed on the observation deck of the UT Tower on August 1, 1966.[72]"
...Does Pres. Biden really think that the assassination attempt would have gone less well if Crooks had been using a Ruger American bolt action rifle chambered in 6.5CM? Does he really think that?
Let's be super-clear here, and AR-15 uses an intermediate cartridge. Most bolt action hunting rifles are going to use full-power cartridges, cartridges that have a longer range, may have a flatter trajectory, have less wind drift, and have a helluva lot more power when they hit their target. A center mass hit with an AR-15 at 150y is going to be bad; a center mass hit with a .308 or 6.5CM at 150y is going to be the end of someone's world. Bear in mind that many hunters do not consider a .225/5.56x45mm bullet to be ethical for deer hunting because it's lower power, while there's very broad agreement that 6.5CM and .308 are just dandy.
Also, calling for banning guns in an election year where you're already behind? When gun bans tend to galvanize Republicans and get them out to the polls? Incredibly dumb. Unbelievably dumb.
Time to force registration of guns. Time to force psych evals for gun owners. I own two guns. One is a SKS I bought in 1990. Although considered a assault rifle it is nothing more than a semi automatic hunting rifle. I would gladly submit to what I propose in order to ensure that some broken soul doesn't have access to a weapon. Anyone who is against accountability in this matter is probably a danger.
What an idiot. Does he not realize talking about banning guns is the number one way to motivate right wingers? The US is NOT going to ban guns especially with the current Supreme Court. This is an example of his old team running old plays that haven't been successful since the 90s. He needs to go before he causes any more damage to his party.
At this point all Trump has to do is pretend this didn't phase him, then not say anything too stupid and I'm sure Biden will do his best to just hand it over.
Bro why? I'd vote for a fucking shoe over him at this point, unfortunately it's between sundowners and down syndrome. These guys want to destroy everything this country was founded on and developed over the years and banning a gun is where you go?!
At this point it's intentional sabotage. No one fucking wants this. It won't change anything. Just leave it the fuck alone and start doing something for the lower and middle classes to secure your goddamn votes. Or just let the conservatives use your stupidity as a stepping stone to steal your voters by fulfilling their fear mongering.
The optics on this are abysmal. I get that he's trying to be consistent with party ideology any time there is a shooting where someone dies, but we've got an election in 4 months and talking about banning guns of any kind gets conservatives motivated to turn out.
Not sure this will make a difference for the election. At this point, I suspect that support for gun control/rights is petty well understood and priced into support for the candidates. No one expects Biden to veto gun control legislation and no one expects Trump to sign it. Granted, Trump can be a bit of a wild card sometimes (see: bump stocks reclassification).
That said, this is likely a very hollow promise. Such legislation is almost certainly a dead bill in Congress. And even if it somehow passed, it's likely not going to make it past the current Supreme Court.
Anyone remember that one Hamas dude who became a very good sniper using an old M1 lol.
Resistance movements still use even older rifles like the Mosin Nagant. Banning the AR-15 isn't going to accomplish anything of value.
I think a way funnier and better option would be to require marksmanship exams that you have to pass in order to have a license for rifles and shotguns. A hilariously large amount of people would fail to qualify.
And make it expensive so it immediately disuades anyone trying to get a capable firearm quickly.