The Washington Post gave President Joe Biden “Four Pinocchios” for falsely claiming that the Second Amendment always barred gun owners from owning certain types of firearms, such as cannons.
During a speech on gun violence last week, Biden said, “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 Washington Post fact-checker argued Biden’s claim is demonstrably false.
“Everything in that statement is wrong,” David Kopel, research director and Second Amendment project director at the Independence Institute, told the publication, adding that after the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, “there were no federal laws about the type of gun you could own, and no states limited the kind of gun you could own.”
This was not the first time Biden has made this false claim. In an interview with Wired magazine last year, the Democrat defended his proposed gun control policies, saying, “You weren’t allowed to own a cannon during the Revolutionary War as an individual.”
“Some readers might think this is a relatively inconsequential flub. But we disagree,” fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote.
“Every U.S. president has a responsibility to get American history correct, especially when he’s using a supposed history lesson in service of a political objective,” Kessler continued. “The president’s push for more gun restrictions is an important part of his political platform, so he undercuts his cause when he cites faux facts.”
Biden’s false claim was made even worse by the fact that he has been checked on this before, Kessler noted.
“We have no idea where he conjured up this notion about a ban on cannon ownership in the early days of the Republic, but he needs to stop making this claim,” he wrote.
