Tucker Carlson railed against Joe Biden’s new executive actions on gun control by telling viewers who own firearms that the president is trying to turn them into criminals in a targeted attack on Republican voters.
The Fox News host opened his show on Thursday with an impassioned rant hours after Biden announced the orders, which will crack down on so-called ‘ghost guns’, tighten requirements for pistol braces and issue reports on gun trafficking.
In a speech alongside Attorney Merrick Garland, Biden called America’s gun violence a ‘national embarrassment’ and called for new laws tightening background checks, banning assault weapons, and holding gun-makers liable for their products in court.
Carlson asserted that ‘almost nothing’ in Biden’s speech was true and accused him of intentionally trying to mislead the American public.
‘Gun control is not about guns. Gun control is about who controls America,’ he said.
‘The Biden administration is using the full force of government to disarm peaceful voters who voted for Donald Trump. It is that simple.’
Tucker Carlson railed against Joe Biden’s new executive actions on gun control on Thursday by telling viewers who own firearms that the president is trying to turn them into criminals in a targeted attack on Republican voters
In a speech on Thursday (pictured) Biden called America’s gun violence a ‘national embarrassment’ and called for new laws tightening background checks, banning assault weapons, and holding gun-makers liable for their products in court
Carlson began his monologue: ‘We often accuse politicians of dishonesty on the show. Let us boil it down. Nothing the Democratic Party advocates for is more dishonest than gun control. Everything is false.
‘Gun control is entirely fraudulent. The Democratic Party claims that guns cause violence. That is a core claim and it is a lie.
‘The places in this country that have the most guns and the loosest controls on those guns also have the least gun violence. That is the bottom line. You can look it up.
‘Anyone who tries to restrict to legally-owned firearms is not trying to make America safer. The point is to disarm you, to strip you of your autonomy on your right to self-defense.’
Carlson specifically took issue with Biden’s new ban on gun stabilizers – an attachment that effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle.
‘Up to 40 million law-abiding Americans own this device and under Joe Biden’s order, everyone of those people have to alert federal authorities and pay hundreds of dollars in fines for the crime of owning a harmless piece of plastic that was legal yesterday,’ Carlson said.
‘And if they don’t comply, Joe Biden’s federal authorities can then drag them off in handcuffs, use the property, and charge them with a felony.
‘With a single stroke of a pen, Joe Biden just turned tens of millions of overwhelmingly Republican voters into criminals. Is the starting to make sense now?’
Alexander Carey (right), accompanied by his mother Rosalie, shops for a new handgun at Freddie Bear Sports in Tinley Park, Illinois, on Thursday
Alexander Carey fills out the paperwork to purchase a gun at Freddie Bear Sports
Carlson then turned his rage toward David Chipman, the man Biden announced as the new head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
But before attacking Chipman, Carlson mocked Biden for twice saying ‘AFT’ instead of ‘ATF’ in his speech.
‘Today am proud to nominate David Chipman to serve as the director of the AFT,’ Biden had said. ‘David knows AFT well.’
Carlson reacted to the clip with a hearty laugh and said: ‘Hilarious. If you are Joe Biden, AFT is the teachers’ union.’
Carlson called Biden’s ATF director nominee David Chipman (pictured) a ‘conspiracy nut’
He went on to call Chipman – a veteran ATF agent who now advocates for ‘commonsense gun safety laws’ – a ‘conspiracy nut’ before condemning his suggestion that people who fail gun background checks should be arrested on the spot.
‘Arrest people before they commit crimes? That is a brand-new concept in American law that the Chinese are highly familiar with,’ Carlson said.
He also pointed out that Biden’s son Hunter allegedly lied on a background check when buying a .38 revolver in 2018.
Politico obtained a copy of the Firearms Transaction Record Hunter used to make the purchase, on which he answered ‘no’ to the question: ‘Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?’
Hunter was discharged from the Navy in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine.
Carlson said: ‘So the question is, will [Chipman] arrest the president’s son? And if he doesn’t arrest the president’s son, the question is how exactly are you obligated to follow these rules? How can you participate in a system like that?’
Colion Noir (right) appeared on the show and argued that Biden’s gun control agenda is being ‘pushed by special interest groups behind the scenes’
Carlson then invited gun activist Colion Noir onto the show, asking him: ‘How can you say that you are opposed to gun crime and make it as a matter of policy and the decision to release gun criminals?’
Noir replied: ‘Well, as you pointed out, they are not opposed to gun crimes. I honestly personally believe they leveraged violence in these places to push their agenda of gaining such control.
‘They use the violence in these places to pack their numbers to make it seem like we have a gun issue in this country when we really don’t. You really break the numbers down, we do not have a gun problem in this country.
Noir then asserted that Biden’s gun control agenda is being ‘pushed by special interest groups behind the scenes’.
‘There is an out and out gun control lobby that no one ever wants to talk about,’ he said. ‘They talk about all the pro-gun lobbies but they never talk about the anti-gun lobbies, the big money that’s behind all of this, that’s pushing this, that’s getting a lot of these politicians into power to push their agenda.
‘They hide behind the scenes and they don’t really want to talk about it and then they sell you this idea that: “We’re here to keep you safe.”
But you’re not here to keep us safe. Somebody kicks down my door in the middle of night, you’re not going to be there to do anything about it. I’m going to have to do something about it, along with the rest of Americans in this country. We are the first responders. That facilitates the idea and the notion of independence, self-reliance.
‘But you can’t have that when you want to expand the powers of the government. No, no, no, no. We have to make you dependent on us. The most valuable thing you have – you have to depend on us to protect it.’
And Carlson wasn’t the only one outraged over Biden’s gun control orders.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pronounced the new moves, which follow the mass shooting at spas in Atlanta and other tragedies, ‘unconstitutional’ and vowed to pursue ‘every option’ to undo them.
McCarthy tweeted: ‘President Biden has ordered the [Justice Department] to issue new rules that will surely result in unconstitutional overreach. Republicans will strongly oppose and pursue every option—be it legislative or judicial—to protect the right to keep and bear arms from infringement by this Administration.’
The House has already passed two bills to tighten background checks.
And amid the legal saber rattling, Donald Trump Jr blasted Biden for seeking to ‘disarm’ Americans given that his son Hunter was able to ‘lie’ to get a firearm.
‘Biden wants to disarm law-abiding American citizens with unconstitutional gun control measures, but his son Hunter is allowed to break the law and lie on federal background check forms to get a gun with no consequences???’ said Trump Jr, a hunting enthusiast.
‘Republicans will strongly oppose and pursue every option—be it legislative or judicial—to protect the right to keep and bear arms from infringement by this Administration,’ said House minority leader Kevin McCarthy
Donald Trump Jr. went after the new gun control measures, and said Hunter Biden was ‘allowed to break the law and lie on federal background check forms’ to get a firearm
Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) also called the moves unconstitutional
Donald Trump Jr. brought up a bizarre incident involving a firearm owned by Hunter Biden, and said he lied to get the permit
Other powerful Republicans also dangled legal action over President Biden’s actions.
‘Today, President Biden announced his attempts to trample over our constitutional Second Amendment rights by executive fiat,’ Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said in a statement.
Also joining the fray was South Dakota Gov. Krisi Noem, a Donald Trump loyalist.
‘Taking away guns with Red Flag laws is an infringement,’ she wrote. ‘Placing new limits on firearms sales is an infringement.’
And West Virginia’s Republican attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, also threatened to sue the administration.
‘Defending the Second Amendment remains one of the most important priorities for the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office,’ he said. ‘I will not allow the far left to run roughshod over our citizens’ gun rights. If President Biden follows through on his proposals, we will be in court very quickly.’
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas argued the answer wasn’t more legislation but a crackdown on those who used guns in crimes.
‘The right to keep and bear arms is fundamental for preserving our liberty. The answer is not to restrict the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, the answer is to go after violent criminals and come down on them like a ton of bricks,’ he tweeted.
And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia tweeted a photo of herself with an AK-47, writing: ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT be infringed!’
The legal threats a reminder of the limits of executive actions as an instrument for long term change. President Trump took a series of sweeping executive actions on immigration and other matters after taking office, only to see many of them tied up in courts or reversed.
Anticipating the legal battle ahead, Biden said at the White House: ‘Nothing I’m about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment. These are phony arguments, suggesting that these are second amendment rights at stake.’
Biden’s reliance on executive actions stems in part from the difficulty over decades of getting gun control legislation through Congress, where Republican opposition is strong, some Democrats including those from rural districts are more skeptical than their liberal colleagues, and where the Senate filibuster prevents a majority from acting.
The assault weapons ban, enacted in 1994, expired in 2004. President Barack Obama failed to get significant gun control legislation after Sandy Hook and other massacres.
