Biden calls 9mm ‘high-caliber weapons,’ suggests banning them
Published for Mugs Malone
President Biden on Monday took aim at 9mm handguns, appearing to suggest that the “high-caliber weapons” ought to be banned.
The president made the remarks outside the White House after returning from a visit to the site of a mass shooting in Texas where 21 people, including 19 elementary school children, were killed last week.
Recounting a visit to a New York trauma hospital, Biden said doctors showed him X-rays of gunshot wounds.
“They said a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body,” Biden said.
“So, the idea of these high-caliber weapons is, uh, there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection, hunting,” Biden added. “Remember, the constitution was never absolute.”
“You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed,” Biden said. “You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weaponry.”
The president, however, ruled out the possibility of issuing an executive order on guns, saying: “I can’t dictate this stuff.”
“I can do the things I’ve done and any executive action I can take, I’ll continue to take. But I can’t outlaw a weapon. I can’t change a background check. I can’t do that,” he said.
Biden’s comments were in line with his tough stance on guns during the 2020 presidential campaign. Speaking during a fundraising event in Seattle in November 2019, Biden said he supported the Second Amendment but called absolutist arguments about gun-rights “bizarre.”
“Why should we allow people to have military-style weapons including pistols with 9-mm bullets and can hold 10 or more rounds,” he said.
The Second Amendment is once again in the crosshairs after a lone gunman, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, some 85 miles west of San Antonio.
The assault was the deadliest shooting at a U.S. grade-school since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, nearly a decade ago.
Nemo me impune lacessit