In the Democratic presidential debate of July 23, 2007, Joe Biden took some heat from Second Amendment advocates for his condescending attitude toward a gun owner. Less widely noticed was Biden’s eagerness to claim credit for writing the assault weapons ban: But as I pointed out elsewhere at the time, Biden didn’t write the assault weapons ban — neither the one that was signed into law by President Clinton, nor the first one introduced in Congress. Multiple searches of the Congressional legislative database Thomas suggest that Howard Berman was the first Member of Congress to introduce the assault weapons ban — on January 27, 1989. Biden introduced his assault weapons ban in November 1989, after dozens of other Members of Congress had introduced their own copycat bills.
