Biden's reelection campaign targets gun control - vows to "finish the job"

Originally written by Mark Oliva for NSSF. Republished with permission.

President Joe Biden’s campaign is waking from its slumber and vowing he will “finish the job” on gun control as a central pillar of his pitch to stay in The White House for another four years.

The Biden-Harris reelection campaign is circulating memos and reaching out to friendly media to make the case that President Biden will use a second term to usher in gun control’s radical unconstitutional agenda. That includes banning America’s most popular-selling centerfire rifle, the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR). That also means defying the will of Congress. White House officials are playing up bipartisan efforts but are making it clear that they are willing to strike out unilaterally if Congress doesn’t knuckle under to their demands.

“The president demonstrated that he can get things done, working across party lines when necessary, on our own where we can’t,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed told The Messenger.

‘Finish the Job’

President Biden has already made clear he’s not listening to American citizens when it comes to guns. An NBC News national poll indicated that the majority of Americans live in a gun-owning household for the first time. The Biden-Harris reelection campaign, though, will lean on the political favors they’ve delivered for special interest gun control – specifically the deep-pocket donors who expect a return for their campaign donations.

President Biden continuously calls for Congress to re-enact the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported had no effect on reducing crime.

“Who the hell needs an assault weapon that can hold, in some cases, up to 100 rounds?” President Biden said just last month. This is the line of attack that he’s coupled with veiled threats of using U.S. military force against its own citizens.

“If you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons,” he said in 2021.

Weaponizing ATF

President Biden has made his attacks on the firearm industry central to his administration, starting with calling firearm manufacturers “the enemy” to most recently halting U.S. firearm exports without explanation. In between, he’s pushed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to punish the firearm industry through a “zero-tolerance” policy that has seen a sharp increase of federal firearms licenses revoked or surrendered for minor clerical errors.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris promised they would use the ATF as a blunt force instrument to hammer the firearm industry – simply because they don’t agree with Second Amendment rights. The ATF has published Final Rules – one to redefine frames and receivers and another to ban pistols with attached braces. Both have faced legal headwinds with various courts deciding that the ATF overreached its authority to write criminal law without Congressional input or approval. It is the responsibility of Congress to write law and for the Executive Branch to execute that law. Both Final Rules created criminal penalties without a vote in Congress.

Most recently, ATF Director Steven Dettelbach spoke to Harvard University where he doubled back on a pledge to U.S. Senators that he would “use the tools Congress gives” and instead advocated for increased gun control. He told the audience he agreed that the administration should pursue an MSR ban and also push for universal background checks. Both would be Constitutionally-specious. The U.S. Supreme Court held in Heller that the U.S. Government cannot ban an entire class of firearms and in order for universal background checks to work, it would necessitate a national firearm registry. That’s still forbidden by federal law.

Scaring Voters

President Biden isn’t just sharpening his attacks on the firearm industry. He’s scaremongering voters too. His reelection campaign circulated a memo titled, “Trump’s America in 2025: More Guns, More Shootings, More Deaths.”

“A Donald Trump presidency will mean more guns in schools and more guns in the hands of criminals, all because he thinks being pro-gun makes him look tough,” Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster said in a statement, according to The Hill. “But his refusal to stand up to the gun lobby to protect our kids makes him weak and a coward.”

The Biden-Harris campaign counts it as a feather in their cap that they caved to gun control special-interest demands to create an Office of Gun Violence Prevention that’s stacked with gun control lobbyists. While they blame others challenging them for unsubstantiated claims that gun owners had carte-blanche access to the Oval Office, the Biden administration literally gave gun control lobbyists an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on The White House grounds.

Biden-Harris campaign staffers are scaring voters that the same protections they enjoy on those protected grounds would create chaos should similar protections be afforded to schools and private citizens. It just doesn’t make sense. Criminals – especially violent criminals – have shown time and again that posting “gun-free zone” signs doesn’t deter crime. Meanwhile, investigations have shown that violent criminals sought soft targets where they knew they wouldn’t be confronted by armed security or private citizens protecting themselves with firearms.

President Biden’s pledge to “finish the job” means the end of Constitutional rights. The presidential election is less than a year away and the primary means of preventing these efforts is through the ballot box.