White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to answer a question on Wednesday over whether President Joe Biden’s proposed ban on some semi-automatic long guns will lead to the confiscation of millions of Americans’ guns.
The question comes after a transgender shooter murdered six people, including three children, at a Christian school in Nashville this week.
“Does the president support not just banning the sale and the manufacture of semi-automatic weapons, but further than that, confiscation?” a reporter asked Jean-Pierre.
“Let me just be very clear, what we’re talking about, AR-15s, this assault weapons ban, they are weapons of war,” Jean-Pierre asserted.
The AR-15 is the civilian version of the M-4 rifle that the U.S. military uses and is starting to phase out because it is not powerful enough to fight wars.
“As you know, we all know how government works,” she continued. “There’s only so much that he can do. And so now it’s time for Congress to do the work. And he’s happy to sign, once that happens, he’s happy to sign that legislation that says, ‘OK, we’re going to remove assault weapons – we’re going have an assault weapons ban.”
Karine Jean-Pierre is asked if Biden supports gun confiscation — but she won't say. pic.twitter.com/Xh0epIXk4l
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 29, 2023
The same reporter asked Jean-Pierre about Republican lawmakers who noted that there are literally tens of millions of these weapons in homes across in the U.S., making them impossible to ban.
“That’s unacceptable,” Jean-Pierre snapped. “That’s our response. It’s unacceptable that Republicans are saying that there’s nothing that we can do.”
Jean-Pierre claimed that the reason that no assault weapons ban is in place is not because of Democratic politicians and that “Republicans in Congress need to look in the mirror.”
Democrats had control of the White House, Senate, and House during Biden’s first two years in office as well as under former President Barack Obama and yet they never passed an assault weapons ban.