By declaring that Americans would and should have no hope against a tyrannical government, the president disavows a central premise of our nation’s Founding.
At this point in the proceedings, President Joe Biden resembles nothing so well as a cheap, faux-interactive children’s toy from the early 1990s. Pre-loaded with a small handful of vacuous stock phrases, and programmed to repeat them at random whenever the conversation meanders onto familiar ground, Biden has become so predictable, monotonous, and dull that one occasionally wonders whether his doctor is ever tempted to search his lower back for a double-A-battery compartment and a row of rudimentary activation buttons. On the left side of the array, he might find the catchphrases: “Malarkey!” “No joke!” “Literally, folks!” etc. On the right, he might uncover some circumstance-specific clichés, which, though appearing to the uninitiated to be bespoke, are in fact involuntary staples selected from an ever-dwindling list.
Nowhere is this tendency more evident than when the president is discussing firearms. In comes the topic, and out come the chestnuts. Button A yields the false claim that, at the time of the Founding, “You couldn’t buy a cannon.” Button B yields the line, “Deer aren’t wearing Kevlar vests out there.” Button C yields the contention that, “If you want to take on the federal government, you need some F-15s, not an AR-15.” The audience may change, the location may vary, the impetus may shift from time to time, but the bromides will remain as constant as the sun.
Musing yesterday on the utility of privately owned firearms, Biden ran once again through the hits. “If you need to worry about taking on the federal government,” he smirked, “you need some F-15s. You don’t need an AR-15.”
By Charles C. W. Cooke
