By: José Niño
Although electors won’t be casting their votes until December 14, the Joe Biden camp has been busy carrying out its transition into the presidency by filling in staff positions. As they say, “Personnel is policy,” and the people presidents surround themselves with usually determine what kind of policies presidencies will pursue.
As far as the Second Amendment goes, Biden’s staff selections indicate that he is, not surprisingly, moving in an anti-gun direction. Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the presumptive White House Deputy Chief of Staff in the Biden administration, should alarm any gun owner. AWR Hawkins of Breitbart News reminded readers that she was the campaign manager for Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s failed presidential campaign in 2020 and advocated for “mandatory” buybacks for certain firearms.
For those who forgot, O’Rourke gained notoriety in September of last year during the Democrat debate, when he proclaimed, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
Less than a month after O’Rourke made his intentions to confiscate firearms clear, Fox News reported that O’Malley Dillon made an appearance in a video calling for “mandatory” buybacks. She stated:
We are actually the only campaign with a plan…that supports mandatory buybacks of weapons of war. An assault weapon ban is very, very important, and we need to have it. But that only takes weapons of war off the streets in the future. It does nothing for weapons of war that are currently out there.
Joe Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris have also expressed support for mandatory buybacks. Around the time of the September debates last year, Harris was calling for a mandatory buyback of AR-15 rifles. According to a Bloomberg report, Harris was still trying to figure out how this buyback would be implemented, but she insisted that a mandatory buyback would be “good idea.”
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on November 6, 2019, Biden confirmed his support for going after guns. Cooper asked Biden, “So, to gun owners out there who say, well, a Biden administration means they’re going to come for my guns?”
Biden responded, “Bingo. You’re right if you have an assault weapon. The fact of the matter is, they should be illegal, period.”
Biden was quite explicit about his gun-grabbing agenda during the August 2019 Democrat debate. He declared: “Folks, look, and I would buy back [assault] weapons. We already started talking about that. We tried to get it done. I think it can be done. And it should be demanded that we do it. And that’s a good expenditure of money.”
Biden is a seasoned creature of the gun control swamp. He was a crucial sponsor of notable anti-gun legislation that passed during the 90s such as the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act, the Brady Act, and the 1994 Assault Weapons ban. The former Vice President and Delaware Senator’s record speaks for itself.
Thankfully, Democrats laid an egg during down ballot races this election. In turn, it will be much more difficult for anti-Second Amendment legislation to move smoothly in Congress. It would be naïve, however, to let our guard down. A Biden administration would still pose a major threat through its use of the administrative state and unelected bureaucracy, such as the ATF, to undermine our right to self-defense.
In light of these threats, Second Amendment activists would be wise to start petitioning their Congressmen and Senators to start investigating the ATF and expose all the corruption, abuse, and waste taking place at this agency in the next two years. From there, an effective campaign narrative for the midterms can be built for all pro-gun voters to see as they head to ballot box.
José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. Sign up for his mailing list here. Contact him via Facebook, Twitter, or email him at [email protected]. Get his e-book, The 10 Myths of Gun Control, here.