Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
CNN fact-checked two weeks of President Joe Biden’s statements on guns and found at least six false claims on June 21, 2023.
According to CNN, the first of the six false claims was Biden’s assertion that his son, Beau, was the first to enforce a red flag law as an attorney general. (Beau served as attorney general of Delaware prior to his death.)
CNN noted, “Biden’s claim is false. Delaware did not have a red flag law when Beau Biden was state attorney general from 2007 to 2015.”
The next two false claims both centered on AR-pistol stabilizer braces, which Biden claimed transform pistols into guns. Biden also claimed such braces make pistols shoot “higher caliber” bullets.
CNN noted, “Biden’s claims that a stabilizing brace turns a pistol into a gun and increases the caliber of a gun or bullet are false.”
It further observed that “a pistol is, obviously, already a gun,” and changing a rear stock does not change the caliber of a gun.
The fourth false claim was Biden’s assertion that gun manufacturers are “the only industry in America you can’t sue.”
CNN noted:
Biden’s claim is false, as CNN and other fact-checkers have previously noted. Gun manufacturers are not entirely exempt from being sued, nor are they the only industry with some liability protections. Notably, there are significant liability protections for vaccine manufacturers and, at present, for people and entities involved in making, distributing or administering Covid-19 countermeasures such as vaccines, tests and treatments.
Biden’s fifth false claim was that the NRA cannot be sued. He made this claim on Tuesday during a California fundraiser.
CNN noted, “Biden’s claim is false. While gun manufacturers have liability protections, no law was ever passed to forbid lawsuits against the NRA. The NRA has faced a variety of lawsuits in recent years.”
Biden’s sixth false claim, also made at the California fundraiser, was that the Second Amendment “doesn’t say that you can own any weapon you want. It says there are certain weapons that you just can’t own…You can’t own a machine gun.”
“Biden’s claim is false. The Second Amendment does not explicitly say people cannot own certain weapons – and the courts have not interpreted it to forbid machine guns,” CNN noted. “In fact, with some exceptions, people in more than two-thirds of states are allowed to own and buy fully automatic machine guns as long as those guns were legally registered and possessed prior to May 19, 1986, the day President Ronald Reagan signed a major gun law.”