Biden says AR-15 owners who say they need weapons to ‘take on the government’ would be extremely outgunned

Gun activists who claim they need the type of weapons used in a pair of deadly mass shootings earlier this month to defend themselves from hypothetical government tyranny would be hopelessly outgunned, President Joe Biden has said.

Mr Biden, who spoke to reporters upon returning to the White House for Memorial Day, said he has been “pretty motivated” to enact new gun safety laws long before he travelled to Ulvalde, Texas to meet with the families of victims and survivors of the mass shooting that claimed 21 lives at Robb Elementary School last week.

He said he has made a point of eschewing negotiations with Republicans until he visited the tragedy-struck town, and said the pain he encountered there was “palpable,” and he told reporters it was “hard to say” if the GOP would accept any of the proposals that have been floated in the last week.

But the president stressed that he could not “dictate” gun policy through executive action save for the actions he has taken so far in his term.

“I can’t dictate this stuff. I can do the things I’ve done and any executive action I can take, I’ll continue to take. But I can’t outlaw a weapon. I can’t change a background check. I can’t do that,” he said. He added that he does not know whether negotiations between Texas Senator John Cornyn and Chris Murphy of Connecticut will produce any legislation that can meet the senate’s 60-vote threshold to overcome a likely GOP buster.

Mr Biden did not offer any specifics as to what he would prefer Congress to do, but he implied the assault weapons ban he helped shepherd through Congress as part of the 1994 crime bill signed into law by then-president Bill Clinton made a difference while it was in effect.

“I know that it makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” he said. “It did significantly cut down mass murders”/

Mr Biden added his view that there are limits even to the broad right to keep and bear arms enjoyed by Americans under the US Constitution.

“Remember … the Second Amendment was never absolute,” he said. “You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed and you couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weapons [today]”.

Continuing, the president said those who say they need AR-15 rifles to “take on the government” are “wrong” because the weapons they would need aren’t legal to own.

“To do that you need an F-15, you need an Abrams tank,” he said.

While gun rights activists take an absolutist view of the Second Amendment’s protections, the president’s view is in line with the opinion expressed by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in District of Columbia v Heller, the 2007 case in which the court first guaranteed an individual’s right to keep a firearm in the home for personal protection.

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited,” Scalia wrote. “History demonstrates ... the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose”.

A short time after he spoke to reporters, Mr Biden warned that the “foundations” of America’s “great experiment” are “never guaranteed” because each generation must act to “defeat democracy’s mortal foes” while speaking at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to mark Memorial Day.

He said democracy is “how we undertake the constant work of perfecting our union”.

“We have not perfected it, but we've never stopped trying ... opening the doors wider, providing opportunity and prosperity and justice for people everywhere,” he said.