A display case at Impact Guns in Salt Lake City features empty spaces where guns that have been sold were once displayed on Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Credit: Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY – Firearms sales across the county have soared since Joe Biden won the presidential election. Some gun rights advocates in Utah are explaining why they believe the Biden administration poses a threat to their right to own certain firearms, and why they don’t believe there will be any real discussion on the matter.
Whenever a new president takes office, it’s common for that new president’s critics to believe they’ll be stripped of some of their rights. In this case, many of his detractors believe President Biden will have a terrible impact on the Second Amendment.
University of Utah Political Science Professor Tim Chambless says, “One political party loses control of the executive branch, the White House, and a new party comes into power. This causes concern in the minds of many.”
Forbes is reporting gun sales surged approaching Election Day, and ABC News says sales kept spiking afterward. Groups like the NRA say President Biden wants to destroy the Second Amendment, in their words. However, Chambless says even if the president wanted to do away with the Second Amendment, he wouldn’t be able to.
“There have been, historically, over 11,000 attempted or proposed constitutional amendments but the last [successful] one was in 1992, the 27th, Amendment,” Chambless says.
However, gun rights advocates in Utah say the president and the Democrats don’t have to do away with the Second Amendment to severely limit it. For example, Joe Biden said this on CNN in 2019.
Anderson Cooper: “To gun owners out there who say, ‘A Biden administration means they’re going to come for my guns…”
Joe Biden: “Bingo, you’re right if you have an assault weapon. The fact of the matter is they should be illegal, period.”
Utah Shooting Sports Council President Clark Aposhian compares Democrats proposals for a mandatory buyback of AR-15s to confiscating weapons. He also says the political left wants to criminalize the private transfer of guns, and they support bills that would open the door to lawsuits that would cripple gun makers.
“Joe Biden has made no apologies for saying he wants to get rid of the Protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act,” Aposhian says. “It does nothing more than prevent frivolous lawsuits which are specifically designed to put gun makers out of business.”
In the end, Aposhian gun control advocates say they want to come together to make common-sense laws, but in his eyes, there’s no real discussion.
“The way they want us to work with them is to agree on all their bans and all their restrictions and all their registrations. They aren’t moving toward our side, at all. They’re asking us to move completely over to their side,” he says.