In a White House speech Monday, Biden announced the Justice Department is finalizing new federal regulations to crack down on “ghost guns,” which are firearms that can be assembled from parts without a serial number. A new rule changes the definition of a firearm under federal law to include serial numbers on gun parts, The Associated Press reported.
Biden went on to say he had ordered the Justice Department a year ago this week to write a regulation to “rein in” ghost guns so this week he was announcing that rule was now in place. He also announced a new nominee to lead the ATF.
Responding to Biden’s speech this week, Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation says the NSSF is still reeling from the President’s Rose Garden speech a year ago. In that speech, Biden complained the firearms industry is shielded from lawsuits by a federal law, Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, and the President bizarrely said he fantasizes about God permitting them to be sued, NBC News reported this time last year.
“If I get one thing on my list,” Biden said, “[if] the Lord came down and said, 'Joe, you get one of these' — give me that one," Biden said of the ability for the federal government to sue gun makers, which would likely bankrupt them in court and put them out of business.
Biden also claimed last year - and again this week - the firearms industry is the only one in the U.S. that is shielded from lawsuits because of the law, but Oliva says that claim is untrue and deserves to be refuted.
According to the NBC News story, the federal law shields the industry, including manufacturers and gun stores, from lawsuits if people use their products to commit illegal acts. That 2021 story also quotes Oliva. He told NBC News that gun-hating Democrats want to “drive us out of business,” referring to the firearms industry, so the NSSF takes President Biden’s open wish of suing them “very seriously.”
The story then goes on to give a good example of that concern. The spokesman for an anti-gun group, Giffords Law Center, complained to NBC News the federal law protects the firearms industry from the “intended use of their product." That accusation sounds as if the anti-gun group is tying Remington, Smith & Wesson, Taurus, Sig Sauer, and Glock to committing illegal acts such as murder and robbery.
“The [firearms] industry knows that if the victims got their fair day in court,” the anti-gun zealot predicted, “the industry would lose.”
This week, in his anti-gun speech, the White House transcript shows Biden did not ask for God's help to destroy the firearms industry but he did repeat his 2021 claim it is the only "outfit in the country" that is immune from lawsuits for the "death and destruction" they cause.
That is quite a claim to make after the federal government protected COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers from being held liable for their products, but Biden bragged Monday that Remington was sued by victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting.
Regarding the so-called “ghost guns,” Oliva says NSSF defends the right of people to build their own firearms which has been a legal right since the country was founded. If a criminal builds and owns such a gun, he adds, the criminal should be prosecuted.
“And that's what the Biden administration isn't being completely honest with America about,” Oliva insists, “is that these are criminals who are conducting crimes with firearms, and we need to hold those criminals accountable."
According to the transcript, Biden vowed again in his speech to ban so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines, and he repeatedly referred to the ATF as the “AFT.”
Biden also told a rambling story about confronting a hunter on a Delaware creek bank, who accused Biden of wanting to take his guns. According to Biden’s version, he told the man that was not true but then bragged that he mocked the man for needing “20 bullets” in his gun to shoot deer, which is a reference to the pistol and rifle magazines he wants to outlaw.
