Biden: "I haven't given up" on assault weapons ban
Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a conference on gun violence at Western Connecticut State University on February 21, 2013 in Danbury, Conn. / Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Vice President Joe Biden says he and the Obama administration "havent given up" on an assault weapons ban.
The White House has been urging Congress to pass the ban. But Senate Democrats dropped it Tuesday from the gun control package the Senate will debate next month. They were concerned that opposition to the ban could sink the whole bill.
- Assault weapons ban dropped, gun control supporters move on
- Dems shelving assault weapons ban for now
Biden has been leading the administration's gun control efforts. He tells NPR News he's still pushing for the ban and that the will of the people will eventually prevail.
"I'm still pushing that it pass -- we are still pushing that it pass," Biden told NPR. "The same thing was told to me when the first assault weapons ban in '94 was attached to the Biden crime bill, that it couldn't possibly pass. It was declared dead several times.
"I believe that the vast majority of the American people agree with us, the vast majority of gun owners agree with us, that military-style assault weapons are -- these are weapons of war; they don't belong in the street.
"And [in] the recent decision declaring the right of someone to own a weapon in their home for self-protection, Justice [Antonin] Scalia acknowledged that you can constitutionally ban certain types of weapons. And so I haven't given up on this."
The ban will still get a separate vote this year as an amendment, but it stands little chance of passing.
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"Think about Newtown?" Good advice Joe, why don't you heed it? Biden, you and most anti-gun people are so caught up in your own narrow agendas you are the ones who are not thinking. It is your own deceit that is in your way to the truth.
Mental health help won't reach disturbed folks when loving mothers protect their sons and daughters from humiliation after their best efforts at normal motherhood seem fruitless.
And where was Lanza's father? $289,000 in alimony didn't cut it.
A Proposal on How to Save our Next Generation of Children from Senseless Deaths by Gun Violence
It's a radical but simple proposal, given the alternative of continuing to suffer thousands of lives lost each year, senselessly.
My question is this: how many millions of lives would be saved when the weapons and ammunition which are currently out in circulation become obsolete, and useless?
I propose a complete redesign of the ammunition and loading mechanisms for all handguns and all rifles available to the public to purchase, to be phased in a quickly as possible.
Bullets would have a cartridge with a square seat (the part that delivers the charge to the bullet projectile, which of course must remain round), and guns would have a corresponding redesign of the weapon's chamber so that it could only accommodate the newly redesigned bullet.
Just as at one time our forefathers used muskets and pistols with lead balls, which then evolved into the current design (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musket ), it is well past time that we phase out production of conventional ammunition and weapons to the next generation of handguns and rifles that can only fire bullets with the square cartridges.
This year we begin phasing in a law to take full effect by the end of 2016 banning the manufacturing of ALL weapons with conventional bores as well as the ammunition they fire, and only make available for sale redesigned square-chambered handguns with a maximum of 4-6 rounds, and similar rifles with no more than 3 to 4 rounds—both suitable for target practice and hunting only.
We will need to require all arms makers to phase out the sale of conventional bullets and weapons; and will need to subsidize their doing so, given the retooling costs.
When the ban is in full effect, any ammunition manufacturer who refuses to do so would be shut down and their assets seized, as would be done to any criminal organization.
Obviously, it would be in their best interests to evolve or risk closure; the larger question would be, who would be criminal enough to continue manufacturing the previous generation of guns given the violence.
In 1993 I lost 4 members of my family—my 35 year-old brother, his wife and 2 very young children—to an execution by a neighborhood gang over a minor drug deal gone bad.
The trauma and pain that was visited upon me, my wife and daughter, and remaining survivors of our family (as well as the entire community that loved my brother and his family) was unfathomable and, of course, indelible.
By the grace of God and the support of friends and loved ones, time has allowed me to heal enough to be willing to speak up about it to do what I can to stop the killing and senseless deaths.
After all (and tragically so), it isn't exactly a unique story in America, particularly in the barrios where I grew up in East Los Angeles.
But I cannot stand by and don't want anyone further to suffer at the hands of gangbangers or other malevolent individuals, or the unstable and delusional who already have weapons and assault rifles and must be disarmed or rendered harmless.
This method disarms them without firing a shot by making their weapons obsolete.
Is it possible to dream that this could happen? With enough resolve, we can guarantee it. In the names of the children of Sandy Hook, we must.
Within 10 years the common footsoldiers of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the paramilitary militia throughout the world who have conventional weapons and ammunition would be put out of business, as the ammunition sources became exhausted, and access to the new design is unavailable to them through the cooperation of our allies and sanctions against manufacturers who don't comply.
What becomes of the current round cartridge weapons that responsible collectors, hunters, sportsmen and other properly screened individuals own?
Much like the musket and flintlock that preceded them, they are enjoyed as the finely engineered piece of history, while we all rest assure that our children are safe from maniacs.
Would there still be suicides and homicides?
Of course, but far, far fewer. Tens of thousands fewer, God and Congress be willing.
Let me close with a message that has always been a guiding light to me about our children, and our responsibility to the generations that follow us.
I saw it on the wall during a visit to Manzanar, a Japanese Interment camp in eastern California, many years ago. On that wall at Manzanar, the following statement was scribbled on the wall:
"Our Children are living messages we send to a time we will not see."
Let's start TODAY to save the next generation of children, around the world.
There can never be another Newtown. Ever. Never again.
So remember this message through a simple song.
"It's hip to be square."
Due to the intentional mis-interpretation of the 2nd Amendment over the years, several 'limitations' have been necessarily put in place. You cannot own functional anti aircraft missiles, nuclear weapons, etc. Without common sense bans on certain weapons every right wing nutbag in the south would be stockpiling anthrax and plutonium just the way they are hoarding these 'people guns'.
If you are intent on using these types of weapons, join the National Guard (a 'well regulated' militia). You will then have a legitimate right to handle them.
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country...." (James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434 [June 8, 1789])
These bleeding heart liberals, trying to preach their own perverted morality, have got to stop. This is a free country and we are free men. We didn't get our freedom at the mandate of the government, but in spite of it.
Get over it. Your dictatorship is no longer winning control!