As RedState reported (see here and here) last night, Joe Biden’s CNN “town hall” was the disaster you’d expect to have been. The usual brain-melting moments made an appearance, including this 40 straight seconds of me having no idea what this guy is trying to say.

Crushing it pic.twitter.com/DI21CUSp7k

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 22, 2021

Regardless, one clip really stuck out to me. It came from the question and answer portion of the event where an obviously left-leaning individual asks what Biden is going to do from a federal standpoint to stop gun violence.

Biden’s answer includes a big admission as well as a strawman that really gives the game away.

There it is. Biden outright says he wants to ban handguns.

He also says crime is down, which is an utterly insane lie.

pic.twitter.com/H5eJeKJGpO

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 22, 2021

Now, does he “outright say” he wants to ban handguns? Some would argue that he doesn’t because he doesn’t say “I want to ban handguns.” But practically, that’s exactly what he’s stumping for. If you watch the clip, Biden goes on a rant about no one needing an “assault weapon” that can hold 20 rounds or more. When he mentions the kinds of weapons he’s talking about, he actually says handguns. Now, not all handguns can take 20 round magazines, but a lot of them, including some of the most popular ones, can (probably a Glock if I’m speculating on ownership numbers).

But even his claim that he wants to ban “assault weapons” in general is nonsensical. Long rifles in total make up a tiny fraction of gun violence deaths. We are talking about less than 0.1%. Of those, an even smaller number are committed with modern sporting rifles like the AR15. In other words, the obsession with “assault weapons” as a solution to gun crime is pure idiocy. It’s like trying to cure heart disease by cutting off your thumb.

Given that, what are Biden’s other “solutions?” Well, aside from taking guns that aren’t a problem from people who use them legally, the president also wants to send the ATF after gun dealers who supposedly don’t do background checks. That’s fine, except there’s likely not a gun shop in the nation that’s skirting ATF regulations because they know they’d not only lose their business but end up in jail. This cartoonish, movie-created idea that gun dealers operate illegal operations out of the trunks of cars is not reality. The problem with illegal gun sales comes via straw purchases and true black market sales (gang member to gang member, for example).

I’d propose that Biden’s strawman is purposeful, though. By making the issue mythical gun dealers out there selling illegal guns, it allows the president to ignore the fact that Democrat-run cities across the country are refusing to harshly prosecute and jail those arrested with illegal weapons or who commit gun crimes. That goes broader to refusing to prosecute criminals in general, some of which will then go on to commit gun crimes. Because it’s seen as a “criminal justice reform” issue, Biden doesn’t want to touch that third-rail within his party. Instead, he wants to deflect about Joe Bob in Idaho with an AR15 in his closet, which will accomplish absolutely nothing.

In the end, Biden’s answer to this woman was basically “I’m going to do nothing that could actually solve the problem you cite.” But talking about AR15s and 30 round magazines makes liberals feel really good and righteous, which is probably the point here. They don’t truly care about getting results, which could be had with increased enforcement of existing law. Rather, it’s about virtue signaling. I guess that’s no surprise.