By Charles C. W. Cooke
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Joe Biden had a little outburst today, after a
construction worker asked him about the Second Amendment:
“You are actively trying to end our
Second Amendment right and take away our guns,” the man told Biden as the
candidate greeted workers building a Fiat-Chrysler assembly plant.
“You’re full of sh**,” Biden
responded. A Biden aide tried to end the discussion, but the candidate silenced
her in order to continue speaking with the worker. “I support the Second
Amendment … from the very beginning. I have a shotgun. I have a 20-gauge, a
12-gauge. My sons hunt,” he said.
The two men then argued about
whether Biden had said he would try to take away Americans’ guns.
“This is not okay, alright?” the
worker said, to which Biden responded, “Don’t tell me that, pal, or I’m going
to go out and slap you in the face.”
“You’re working for me, man!” the
worker responded.
“I’m not working for you,” Biden
shot back. “Don’t be such a horse’s ass.”
If I were a Democrat, this would alarm me. Biden’s
behavior here is extraordinary, especially given that he is currently
previewing the “return to normalcy” theme that he intends to run on in
November. One might think that telling a voter that he is “full of s***” and
that you will “slap them” matters less than it usually would given that Donald
Trump is in the White House. But, arguably, the opposite is true. Elections are
about contrasts. If he is as belligerent and ill-disciplined as the incumbent,
what is Biden’s case for replacing him?
In this instance, the answer seems to be that, unlike
Trump, Biden will usher in stricter gun control. But that, too, should alarm
Democrats. If Biden now has a reputation as a champion of gun confiscation —
and if construction workers in Michigan are asking him about it, it suggests he
does — he is going to have a hard time winning back the voters that Trump
peeled away from the Obama coalition. Barack Obama didn’t say much about guns
at all until his second term had begun, and, once he did, he presided over the
loss of the Senate, the loss of the White House, and a record-breaking period
of civilian firearms sales. Judging by their rhetoric, Democrats seem to
believe that the center of gravity has changed on this question since then. But
the evidence for this is scant. The State of Virginia is run solely by
Democrats — Democrats who were bankrolled by Michael Bloomberg and who promised
to pass restrictive gun control as their first priority. They failed, and
sparked a massive backlash in the process. Do we think the playing field looks
different in Michigan?
Democrats should also be worried because, whatever the
chorus of blue-check journalists who thrilled to the exchange might think,
Biden was flatly wrong on the details here. Biden took offense at the idea that
he was in favor of confiscation — “Don’t tell me that, pal,” he said. But what
other conclusion are voters to draw from Biden’s having said that he would put
Beto “hell yes, we’re coming for your AR-15” O’Rourke in
charge of his gun policy? O’Rourke is now primarily famous for having taken
the most extreme gun position any presidential candidate has taken in three
decades, and Biden has willingly tied himself to him. Can he really be
surprised that voters have put two and two together?
The rest of his answer was no better. What, I wonder, are
Michiganders supposed to make of Biden’s commitment to the Second Amendment
when, as decades of his rhetoric suggests, he believes that it protects the
private ownership of shotguns for hunting? What are they to make of his
seriousness on the issue when he talks about the evils of the “AR-14”; when he
does not know which guns are presently banned under federal law and which are
not; when he does not know the difference between a “machine gun” and a
semi-automatic carbine; when he believes “you don’t need 100 rounds!” means . .
. well, anything comprehensible at all; and when he approvingly cites the
appalling (and overturned) decision in Schenck v. United States as if it
makes the case for banning the most commonly owned rifle in America?
This was a bad exchange — not because it is likely to
change much on its own, but because it illustrates some underlying truths about
the electorate and about this candidate that do not portend well.
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