While CNN’s Daniel Dale, whose bio reads “fact-checking the president,” hasn’t mentioned Joe Biden since March, the rest of us can’t help but notice the daily onslaught of falsehoods emanating from the current White House resident’s mouth.
To be frank, Joe Biden is a liar who lies a lot, and he does so with absolutely no remorse or contrition. Is that because he’s suffering from severe mental decline and simply can’t keep up with the facts? Or is it because he’s just that dishonest?
The answer is likely a mix of both, but when it comes to what gets posted on his Twitter account, the latter is really the only viable option. It’s one thing to blurt out an off-the-cuff falsehood during a speech (though, it’s still not acceptable). It’s another to formulate a definitive statement and publish it on a social media site.
That’s exactly what Biden did on Friday evening when he made yet another false claim about gun deaths in America. Luckily, Community Notes now exists and came flying in off the top rope to set the record straight.
Guns are the #1 killer of kids in America.
More than car accidents and more than cancer. We can't let that become just another statistic.
Let's ban AR-15-style firearms and other assault weapons.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 16, 2023
Biden’s claim reads as follows.
Guns are the #1 killer of kids in America.
More than car accidents and more than cancer. We can’t let that become just another statistic.
Let’s ban AR-15-style firearms and other assault weapons.
Here’s what the Community Note that was attached says, joined by a litany of links to prove the assertion.
According to the CDC, accidents are the leading cause of death for children and adolescents.
The claim that guns are the leading cause of death for children would only be true if children under 1 are excluded and 18 and 19 year olds are counted as children.
Well, if all he did was exclude an entire age group and count people who aren’t children as children, is it really a lie? Perhaps Dale will finally start doing his job and weigh in. Or not.
The funny thing about that community note is that though it’s true, it doesn’t go far enough. The point of Biden’s post was to conflate high numbers of gun deaths with so-called “assault weapons” as a justification to ban them. In reality, AR-15s and similar rifles account for a tiny fraction of deaths caused by firearms in America.
As I wrote back in 2021, if Democrats truly cared about gun deaths, “assault weapons” would be the last thing on their minds.
When you look at the real numbers, it’s no exaggeration to say that AR-15s barely register statistically when it comes to murders in this country. As noted above, out of around 8,000 gun murders a year, only 300 occur with rifles. Of those, only a smaller fraction are committed with an AR-15. This despite the fact that the AR-15 is the most plentiful rifle in the nation.
That’s not to diminish the times when AR-15s and the like are used to commit acts of evil, but it is to say that the continual conflation of gun deaths with “assault weapons” is deeply dishonest. It’s a cheap parlor trick meant to play on emotions rather than serve the American people with fact-based policy. Biden would rather ban scary look guns than focus on why gun deaths occur (the majority are suicides) and which guns are used to commit most of them.
Regardless, Biden can flail all he wants. He’s not banning any type of gun, and he knows it. The president is just rattling because it’s election season. It’s a Democrat tradition at this point.