President Joe Biden defended his crackdown on so-called ghost guns, contending its opponents are “extreme.”
Biden unveiled a federal government regulation targeting unserialized, self-assembled guns on Monday, a year after directing the Justice Department to address the proliferation of the weapons given Congress’s inability to pass legislation.
INFLATION MESSES WITH WHITE HOUSE MESSAGE ON JOBS AND UNEMPLOYMENT
“The NRA called this rule I’m about to announce ‘extreme,'” Biden said. “But let me ask you: Is it extreme to protect police officers, extreme to protect our children, extreme to keep guns out of the hands of people who couldn’t even pass a background check?”
Biden went on to repeat a joke about how he told a critic he was “a terrible shot” if he wanted a “weapon of war” to hunt a deer.
Biden used the White House Rose Garden ceremony to tout the American Rescue Plan’s $350 billion in direct aid for cities and states, which localities can tap into to counter gun violence and bolster police departments. The president implored local leaders to “spend it” before an expected rise in crime this summer and the 2022 midterm elections.
“The answer is not to defund the police,” he reiterated. “It’s to fund the police and give them the tools and training and support they need to be better partners and protectors of our communities in need.”
Biden also introduced his second nominee to direct the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Steve Dettelbach, a former Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. Biden botched Dettelbach’s name and the ATF acronym in his speech.
“I have seen the ATF work with other law enforcement to make so many of our communities safer,” he said. “As we emerge from this pandemic, we’ve got to recognize that many Americans still face fear and isolation not because of a virus, but because of an epidemic of firearms violence.”
Biden was preceded by Mia Tretta, who lost her best friend Dominic Blackwell, then 14, in California’s 2019 Saugus High School shooting. Tretta described the president as “the strongest gun sense commander in chief ever to hold office.”
“When you’re the president, remember me, OK?” Biden told her.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The new rule expands the definitions of “firearm” and “frame or receiver” so ghost gun kits and components are required to be serialized and licensed, in addition to their manufacturers and vendors. That means background checks will have to be conducted before sales are processed. Licensed dealers and gunsmiths will have to serialize any unmarked weapons in their possession and retain key records as well.
