On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden appeared on a Facebook townhall, where he was asked a question about gun ownership by a female viewer from Parent Magazine. Biden’s suggestion: nobody needs an AR-15, especially women. Instead, he stated, “If you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrel shotgun.” In fact, Biden went further, describing his strategy for home defense:
I said, ‘Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here … walk out and put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house.’ … You don’t need an AR-15 — it’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use, and in fact you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun! Buy a shotgun!
There are a few problems with this. First, it is illegal to discharge a firearm in public in Delaware, as it is in virtually every state. Shooting a gun into the air would arguably not constitute self-defense and poses a threat to the public, especially since a slug would come down at some point.
Second, if you have a typical double-barreled shotgun, the gun only holds two shells. If you fire twice into the air, you have just disarmed yourself.
Third, shotguns are used in more murders every year in the United States than the rifles the left wants to ban.
Fourth, for Biden to suggest that women are incapable of handling AR-15s, even as the Obama administration pushes women into frontline military combat, is ridiculous to say the least.
Leave it to Joe Biden to repeatedly undermine his own gun control case – and to get basic self-defense with a shotgun wrong.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
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