During a speech at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut last week, Democrat President Joe Biden made multiple false claims as he argued for the reinstatement of the notoriously ineffective 1994 Federal Assault Weapons ban.
“It’s time once again that we banned AR-15 rifle-style weapon,” Biden said. He then explained how gun companies are selling their products in order to receive profits. “High-capacity magazines — they’re not only a weapon of war, they’re the single biggest driver of profits for the gun industry. That’s why they’re selling them. Profit, profit, profit. The single biggest.”
“As I said, we did it once before, in ’94, and 10 years after that, the ban was — mass shootings went down significantly — the number of mass shootings,” Biden falsely claimed. “That’s — when the ban expired, mass shootings tripled. But let the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines come back into vogue.”
However, the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons ban referenced by Biden had no effect in reducing gun homicide rates. In fact, a 2014 study found “murder rates were 19.3% higher when the Federal ban was in effect.” Further, school shootings actually increased after the ban was passed.
Biden concluded his speech by vowing to ban “assault weapons” and implementing other restrictions on the Second Amendment.
“We will ban assault weapons in this country,” Biden said. “We will ban multi-round magazines. We will hold gunmakers liable. We will beat the gun industry. We will beat big money that sits behind them and the politicians who refuse to stand up and act.”