Washington Post Gives Biden Four Pinocchios for ‘False’ Cannon Claims

The Washington Post fact checked President Joe Biden’s claim that the purchase of cannons was prohibited by the Second Amendment and labeled the claim “false.”

The Post quoted Biden saying, “And I might add: The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn’t buy a cannon.”

The Post spoke with Independent Institute’s Dave Kopel, who said, “Everything in that statement is wrong.”

He noted that in 1791, the year the Second Amendment was ratified, “there were no federal laws about the type of gun you could own, and no states limited the kind of gun you could own.”

The Post also talked with University of Pennsylvania’s Kermit Roosevelt, who remarked, “I think what he’s saying here is that the Second Amendment was never understood to guarantee everyone the right to own all types of weapons, which I believe is true.”

However, Roosevelt noted that Biden’s statement “as phrased…sounds like the Second Amendment itself limited ownership, which is not true.”

The Post points out that Biden made a similar claim in May 2020, when he said, “You weren’t allowed to own a cannon during the Revolutionary War as an individual.” PolitiFact found the May 2020 claim to be false.

The Post gives Biden four Pinocchios on his most recent cannon claims, noting that they are “false.”

On June 26, 2021, Breitbart News noted that there was not a great gap between the type of weaponry owned by the British Army and the colonists during the American revolution. Therefore, when the British Army swept into the South during the American Revolution they faced farmers, landowners, and other colonists who were armed with weapons very similar to their own. There was little, if any, difference between the British muskets and other firearms and the muskets and other firearms used by the colonists.

The often un-uniformed colonists were able to devastate the uniformed, military-trained British regulars and eventually force them to surrender on October 19, 1781.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.