Biden’s New Gun Control Proposal Triggers Alarm Among Republican Lawmakers

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the recent mass shootings from the White House on June 2, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Several Republican lawmakers expressed alarm about President Joe Biden’s Thursday speech encouraging a new “assault weapons” ban and a ban on “high-capacity” magazines, with some saying that a slate of recent Democrat proposals would infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

During the speech, Biden made reference to recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas; Buffalo, New York; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. The president then said that “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines,” meaning those that hold more than 10 rounds, should be banned. He did not specify what he meant by “assault weapons,” a term that conservatives and GOP lawmakers have found contentious and misleading.

“If we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21,” he then said. Meanwhile, the United States needs to “strengthen background checks; enact safe storage and red flag laws; repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability; address the mental health crisis, deepening the trauma of gun violence,” he said.

“I want to be very clear–this is not about taking away anyone’s guns. It is not about vilifying gun owners,” Biden remarked, expressing his view that the Second Amendment is “not absolute.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a Fox News interview after Biden’s speech that the president’s proposal to remove so-called “liability shields” for gun manufacturers is merely a bid to “[quickly] put gun manufacturers out of business” by allowing what he called “frivolous lawsuits.”

Democrats are trying to coerce “some of the weak-kneed Republicans” in the Senate to “bite” on some of their bills, the lawmaker argued. “Democrats aren’t serious about ending school shootings, but they are serious about taking your guns,” he wrote on Twitter.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on Twitter, “Biden wants to ban ‘assault weapons’ and ‘high capacity magazines’ yet Democrats refuse to prosecute violent crimes in Democrat cities all over the country, and refuse to protect your children at school with armed security. Same Democrats are protected by armed guards daily.”

And Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) used his own firearms as an example of how a ban on magazines that contain more than 10 rounds targets common handguns during a House committee hearing.

“I was trying to highlight to the American people that this isn’t just a magazine ban on rifles,” he told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Thursday. He added that “every single semi-automatic weapon that takes more than a 10-round magazine would be banned” under legislation that passed the House Judiciary Committee earlier in the day.

“Three of which I just happen to have, and I showed to make it very clear that a 10-round magazine doesn’t fit in it,” Steube continued. “So by having the magazine ban, you are effectively banning all of these handguns that millions, hundreds of millions of Americans use every single day to defend themselves, [their] families, to protect their homesteads.”

Although the House Judiciary Committee advanced their legislation, H.R. 7910, it is expected to fail in the Republican-controlled Senate.

“It has been a week since we learned again that gun violence can reach any of our children and grandchildren at any time, and that no number of armed guards can guarantee their safety,” Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Thursday, referring to the mass shooting in Texas. “Who knows how long [until] the next one? My friends, what the hell are you waiting for?”