Biden's Anti-Gun Running Mate?

Most gun owners who keep up with Second Amendment issues are well aware of just how anti-gun and anti-Second Amendment presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden really is. After all, he proudly proclaims to be in favor of so-called “universal” background checks, red-flag laws, bans on common semi-auto rifles and a widespread ban on normal-capacity magazines that come standard with many popular rifles and pistols.

Determined to make a “diversity” pick for his running mate, Biden has a number of women he is considering for the job, with U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., slowly emerging as frontrunners. As diversity goes, these women might bring Biden a few new supporters, but there’s little diversity in either woman’s attitude toward guns and America’s law-abiding gun owners.

A former California attorney general, as a presidential candidate Harris promised her supporters she’d make sweeping gun reforms through executive action. Toward the end of her campaign, Harris even embraced gun confiscation through what she called “mandatory buybacks”—a nonsensical term since the government can’t “buy back” something it never owned.

Harris’ anti-gun activism goes back decades to her seven-year stint as San Francisco’s district attorney. And while she talks a good game about supporting the Second Amendment for hunting, the list of anti-gun schemes she advocates is a long one indeed.

During her presidential campaign, she declared that as president she’d give congress 100 days to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which shields legal gun makers from being sued into oblivion for criminals misusing their legally made and legally sold firearms, before doing it herself through executive action.

Harris also supports an executive action to impose new restrictions on the lawful transfer of firearms. Under her plan, anyone who sells five or more guns a year would be considered a “dealer” and would have to conduct a background check on all sales, even though there is no system in place for conducting such checks. Harris has also promised to revoke the licenses of gun dealers who sell guns that are later used by criminals to commit violent crimes.

Warren would certainly be no better than Harris for lawful gun owners. Warren is a proven liar who, if she can be believed concerning what she has said about guns, would be a disaster as Biden’s second in command. As a presidential candidate, Warren also pledged to bypass Congress and attack the Second Amendment through executive order, including dictating “universal” background checks and investigating the NRA. She also supports a semi-auto ban, limiting the number of guns a person can buy, raising the age of gun ownership to 21 and holding gun manufacturer liable for criminal use of their legally made and legally sold products.

Warren even supports old, tired measures that have already been proven ineffective where they have been tried—laws like a seven-day waiting period before law-abiding citizens, who have passed the federal background check, can receive their firearm after making a purchase.

With Biden’s current cognitive state, it’s likely that whoever is vice president during a possible Biden presidency would find themselves in the top executive position sooner rather than later. Diverse or not, politicians who promise to address further gun-control restrictions through executive action have no place in the White House or Oval Office.

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Freelance writer and editor Mark Chesnut is the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC. An avid hunter, shooter and political observer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for the past 20 years.