Beware of good ol’ Joe and his guns
By Wes Pruden
PrudenPolitics.com
Joe
Biden, a gun nut. Who knew?
The
veep never fails to entertain, even when he’s trying
not to, and this time his boss is probably not
amused. Joe famously pushed President Obama to
endorse same-sex marriage by sniffing the orange
blossoms first, but if his advice for Americans to
buy a shotgun to protect the homeplace was an
attempt to convert the president to a Second
Amendment aficionado, he’ll no doubt fail.
Joe’s
endorsement of domestic mayhem in the cause of
survival predictably infuriated those who are so
terrified of guns that on certain playgrounds even
little boys who make an imaginary gun with tiny
thumb and forefinger risk having their hands seized,
or at least a sentence to a trip to the principal’s
office, followed by suspension.
Firing from the hip is always dangerous. When
someone named “Kate” asked the veep, on a Facebook
forum sponsored by Parents magazine, whether the
president’s attempt to disarm America would make
“law-abiding citizens become more of a target to
criminals,” good old Joe’s working-class instincts
from his origins overcame diplomacy, tact and
discretion.
“Is
this Parents magazine?” he asked in disbelief. “I
have Parents magazine in my home, I’ve never heard
anybody in Parents magazine ask these kinds of
questions, but I’m delighted to answer them. Kate,
if you want to protect yourself, get a
double-barreled shotgun.
“I
promise you: Whoever’s coming in is not going to
[make it]. You don’t need an AR-15 [assault rifle],
it’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use, and in fact
you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a
shotgun. Buy a shotgun.”
Unlike some politicians faking an appreciation of
guns and the Second Amendment, good old Joe makes a
persuasive case that in his heart he’s a good ol’
boy. He owns two shotguns and a handgun, a Beretta.
The
advice he gave to “Kate” and to his wife, Jill,
about when and how to use a shotgun, was actually
not so good. If Mrs. Biden hears a bad guy in the
woods outside their home, he told her, “fire two
blasts outside the house.” Firing inside the house
is not a good idea unless you mean really serious
business.
The
veep and his missus aren’t likely to hear anything
suspicious in the back yard, either at the official
residence on Massachusetts Avenue or at their own
house in Delaware. The Secret Service patrols around
the properties are ample and adequate. The peril in
firing a Beretta off the porch in Washington is that
she might hit a passing car, bicyclist or even the
pope’s ambassador at the Vatican embassy across the
street.
However, the veep’s instructions about how to use a
shotgun, to “fire two blasts outside the house,” go
athwart common gun sense. Shotguns are not ideal for
firing warning shots because once both barrels are
fired there’s nothing left for a second round short
of fumbling for two more shells. A shotgun is meant
to kill, and one advantage of the weapon is that it
isn’t necessary to take careful aim.
If
the veep really wants his wife to use a shotgun to
protect herself he should give her a sawed-off
shotgun. They’re illegal in the District of
Columbia, and indeed in most jurisdictions, just
because they’re so lethal. (If a television host
waving an illegal ammunition clip on camera can get
a pass from the District cops, surely a vice
president can, too.) The shortened barrel reduces
the gun’s range, but scatters the shot in a wide
arc. The blasts from a sawed-off model can usually
dispense with an entire roomful of bad guys.
Though forbidden to civilians, sawed-off shotguns
are often used by the mob (particularly movie
mobsters), police swat teams and the military.
Sawed-off shotguns were a weapon of choice for
Confederate cavalrymen in the Civil War, prized
supplements to saber and carbine in close combat.
Sicilian farmers used them for varmint hunting in
the Nineteenth Century, and when their progeny came
to America, they brought sawed-off shotguns with
them. Hell’s Kitchen and the streets of Chicago soon
echoed with deadly noise.
Bonnie and Clyde loved their shotguns. Clyde
shortened the barrel of his Browning A-5 by 6 inches
to make it easy to conceal and get to – he called
the gun his “Whippit” because he could easily “whip
it out” – and the sight of Clyde whipping it out
terrified hundreds of bank customers in the ‘30’s.
Bonnie and Clyde
Clyde
and his shotgun wouldn’t have frightened good ol’
Joe. The veep would have cracked a gaffe and Clyde
would have fallen down laughing until the sheriff
arrived.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington
Times.