On Tuesday, President Joe Biden visited Buffalo, New York, to address the mass shooting that left 10 people dead over the weekend. Biden said “assault weapons” must be kept off American streets to help prevent “domestic terrorism.”
“What happened here is simple and straightforward: terrorism. Terrorism. Domestic terrorism,” Biden said, later arguing that “domestic terrorism” incidents can be combated by keeping “assault weapons off our streets.”
“We’ve done it before. I did it when we passed the crime bill last time and violence went down. Shootings went down,” Biden again claimed, apparently referring to the 1994 “assault weapons” ban.
In 2004, the Department of Justice National Institute of Justice issued a report stating that the ban did not actually reduce crime.
“We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence,” the report stated.
Prior to his speech in Buffalo, Biden told reporters that he was “going to try” and convince Congress to enact additional gun control measures. He then argued that the United States has “a problem with domestic terror,” according to the “intelligence community.”
“People don’t want to hear me saying it. They say, ‘Well, he’s the President. He’s a Democrat. He’s…’ But that’s what the intelligence community has been saying; that’s what the military has been saying for a long time,” Biden claimed.
The president’s comments come as lawmakers vow to refocus on the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which would establish domestic terrorism offices under the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the FBI, according to Axios.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) told the outlet, “I think it takes on an urgency given current events.”
On Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also said that the legislation was “in play.”
Last week, whistleblowers revealed that Biden’s FBI used “threat tags” under the agency’s Counterterrorism Division to conduct dozens of investigations into parents protesting at school board meetings over mask and vaccine mandates.
“This whistleblower information is startling,” a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland from Reps. Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson stated. “You have subjected these moms and dads to the opening of an FBI investigation about them, the establishment of an FBI case file that includes their political views, and the application of a ‘threat tag’ to their names as a direct result of their exercise of their fundamental constitutional right to speak and advocate for their children.”
“This information is evidence of how the Biden administration is using federal law enforcement, including counterterrorism resources, to investigate concerned parents for protected First Amendment activity.”
On the other hand, the Biden administration refused to condemn pro-abortion demonstrations outside of Supreme Court justices’ after a leaked draft opinion revealed plans to overturn Roe v. Wade. The protests even led the DOJ to direct the U.S. Marshals Service to “help ensure” the justices’ safety.
Last year, the White House announced the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, which claimed that experts and evidence have shown today’s domestic terrorists include those who espouse “racial or ethnic bigotry and hatred” as well as “anti-government or anti-authority sentiment.” Anti-law enforcement ideologies such as those espoused by Antifa and Black Lives Matter were not mentioned.
