Harsanyi: We don't need Biden's
permission to own semi-autos


AP Photo/Evan Vucci

By Tom Knighton. Nov 29, 2022

President Joe Biden doesn't like semi-automatic firearms. He probably doesn't understand what semi-automatic firearms actually are, mind you, but he doesn't like them. He's made that clear enough over the years, but recently, he said we shouldn't be "allowed" to own them.

Over at The Federalist, David Harsanyi is taking issue with that and other statements made by the president.

"The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick," Joe Biden argued on Thanksgiving. "It has no socially redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers."

Need it really be pointed out that it is perfectly within our rights to purchase products devoid of all socially redemptive value? Certainly, it is not the state's business to determine what we "need." That said, semi-automatic weapons happen to have an obvious redeeming value and there is a strong rationale for owning them. Semi-auto weapons are easy to use, and their effectiveness and reliability bolster the ability of people to protect themselves, their families, their property, and their community from criminality and, should it descend into tyranny, the government. Gun bans are autocratic and unconstitutional, and, thankfully, also largely unfeasible. [...] .....

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