Image Credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images 
Joe Biden on Thursday again repeated false claims the Second Amendment historically prohibited people from buying large-caliber weapons like cannons, a falsehood that was already debunked by the left-leaning Washington Post.
During a news conference in New York City unveiling new Democrat gun control efforts, Biden bizarrely began the event by reassuring that his admin’s strategies to combat so-called gun crime do not violate the Second Amendment.
“And again for any of the press listening – this doesn’t violate anybody’s Second Amendment right,” Biden claimed while raising his voice for no apparent reason.
Biden on the Second Amendment: "When the amendment was passed … you couldn't buy a cannon … and so there's no reason why you should be able to buy certain assault weapons." pic.twitter.com/eCDmaZyE9L
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 3, 2022
“There’s no violation of the Second Amendment right,” he repeated, adding, “There is no amendment that is absolute.”
Biden went on to repeat a lie he’s previously made claiming the Amendment did not apply to the purchase of cannons.
“When the amendment was passed it didn’t say anybody can own a gun and any kind of weapon,” Biden claimed. “You couldn’t buy a cannon when this amendment was passed, so there’s no reason you should be able to buy certain assault weapons… but that’s another issue.” (The strategies revealed Thursday had nothing to do with “assault weapons.”)
Unfortunately for Biden, this false argument against the right to bear arms has already been tried, and failed the sniff test by Democrat-friendly fact-checkers at the Washington Post.
In 2021, WaPo fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote that the Constitution actually granted the government the ability to bestow waivers to private individuals that indeed would have made cannon purchases legal.
“You do not have to look far in the Constitution to see that private individuals could own cannons. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 gives Congress the power to declare war. But there is another element of that clause that might seem strange to modern ears — Congress also had the power to ‘grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.’
What’s that? These were special waivers that allowed private individuals to act as pirates on behalf of the United States against countries engaged in war with it. The ‘letter of marque’ allowed a warship to cross into another country’s territory to take a ship, while a ‘letter of reprisal’ gave authorization to bring the ship back to the home port of the capturer.
Individuals who were given these waivers and owned warships obviously also obtained cannons for use in battle. We have no idea where [Biden] conjured up this notion about a ban on cannon ownership in the early days of the Republic, but he needs to stop making this claim.”
So, if you’re looking for a Constitutional history lesson, it’s evidently best if you look for someone a little more qualified than America’s senile commander-in-chief, who’s bizarrely sworn to support and defend that sacred text.
Watch Biden’s full press conference on “Combating Gun Violence” below:
H/T: based-politics.com