Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama, famously said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not before.”
President Joe Biden could be using a past tragedy in much the same way, to do something that couldn’t be done before.
On Sunday, which marked the third anniversary of the Parkland school shooting, President Biden called on Congress to pass stricter gun laws, including a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Biden, who on the campaign trail had suggested he would support the rights of the “sportsman” while questioning the need for certain firearms when pressed on the issue.
“I support the Second Amendment,” then-candidate Biden said last March while visiting members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who were building Fiat Chrysler’s assembly plant in Detroit. “I have a shotgun, I have a 20-gauge, a 12-gauge. You’re not allowed to own [just] any weapons. I’m not taking your gun away at all.”
Now less than a year later, the tune is a bit different.
“This Administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call,” the POTUS said in a statement marking the anniversary of the Parkland shooting, which took place on February 14, 2018. A teenage gunman opened fire at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and killed 17.
Biden’s statement comes as the organization March for Our Lives, a student-led demonstration in support of gun control legislation, has pushed the new administration to appoint a gun czar who would serve in a cabinet-adjacent position.
“We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer,” the statement from the White House added. “Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.”
Even as the then-candidate vowed “not” to take away guns, he promised on the campaign trail to take guns off the streets. Biden said he would take action on guns within the first 100 days, and he had reportedly met with gun control groups Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Actions last week.
The message of addressing gun violence was included in Sunday’s statement. “In this season of so much loss, last year’s historic increase in homicides across America, including the gun violence disproportionately devastating Black and Brown individuals in our cities, has added to the number of empty seats at our kitchen tables.”
With such a tone, it is hard not to suggest that Biden is taking a cue from Rahm’s playbook.
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.
pop seal
February 16, 2021 at 12:58 pm
In my 76 years of experience, there has never been a single liberal solution that didn’t make the problem addressed worse or even impossible to solve.
For example: Biden would have us think the violence being addressed is to be blamed on responsible citizens. All he’ll do is create more violence against the very people not at fault for said violence. Liberal thinking is nothing but ignorance applied to life.
OldSaltUSNR
February 17, 2021 at 9:20 am
If the unelected, lawless Democrats now in the White House insist on defining me as a “criminal”, an “outlaw” regardless of Constitutional protections promised to citizens of the USA, then it’s an outlaw I’ll be.
I will be a ruthless outlaw, too. I will target the lawless ones who insist on it, this unlawful war upon me, a lawful, United States citizen, and US military veteran.
NoBiden
February 17, 2021 at 9:24 am
Bidens anti constitutional EOs, probably signed perhaps by someone else, is a clear indication of the direction of geezer’s leftist chinese centrist plan to take down America.
No Walled off minds please
February 22, 2021 at 1:41 am
30,000 to 35,000 gun related suicides and murders occur yearly in the US, about 3,000,000+ in the last century.
Yet instead of hearing compassion, of empathy, the comments are only about bad mouthing Biden, or so called LEft policies.
These 3 million people died in a combination of Democrat and Republican governments people.
The above is an example of the partisanship that many say is killing the US. Blindly closed minded one sidedness. On both sides.
And notice yet no one addressed the mention of the anniversary of the Portland massacre.
Complete lack of caring.