Vice President Joe Biden imitated a semi-automatic rifle during an interview, arguing that there was a “quantum difference” between a “cowboy” six shooter and guns like an AR-15 and a Glock.
“If you have multiple rounds or magazines that hold 19 shots, and you essentially go boom, boom, boom, they are not automatic but boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,” he said, imitating the firing action of an AR-15 during an interview with Charlie Rose.
Biden argued that a revolver couldn’t kill as many people, referring to a .38 revolver or a six shooter in an old Western movie.
“[E]verybody thinks of the western, the old six-shooter,” he said. “You know, you’ve got to take it out. You’ve got to work it.”
He dismissed the argument that a killer with a knife or a baseball bat could not kill as many people.
“You give me a nine millimeter Glock and you have a .38 revolver, I’ll kill more people quickly, and here — you shoot as many but I’ll kill more.”
Biden argued against high caliber weapons as well, pointing out that an gun injury from a .22 caliber weapon could be healed, but a higher caliber weapon killed quicker.
“The reason why the assault weapons and high caliber weapons are so bad, I mean, low caliber weapons are so bad is because they deliver fatal blows when they strike someone,” he said.
Biden referred to the Sig Sauer MCX used by the terrorist in the Orlando night shooting as “the equivalent of an AR-15” and argued that more people would be alive if he didn’t have that weapon.
“If someone didn’t have the equivalent of an AR-15, it wasn’t, it was a different weapon but similar, a lot more people would be alive. Many of these people wouldn’t been shot,” he said.