Joe Biden. Is he stupid or does he think you are?

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance greed and love of power. ~ PJ O’Rourke

VPOTUS Joe Biden and the guy responsible for Fast & Furious

As the gun control debate rages on, those who take the immoral stance of infringing the rights of the law abiding continue to reach for increasingly farcical analogies, specious and spurious arguments in favor of their indefensible position. To wit, Vice President Joe Biden who on Tuesday said the following:

…nobody needs an AR-15, especially women. If you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrel shotgun.

I said, Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here…walk out and put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house. …. You don’t need an AR-15 – 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.

The mind fairly boggles at this. Biden is either one of the most colossally ignorant people in public office today (a pretty high bar) or this is an intentional effort to mislead people who he views as ignorant and stupid. Those really ARE the only options.

That question aside for now let’s look at the individual statements made here at face value:

…nobody needs an AR-15, especially women. If you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrel shotgun.

“nobody needs”? I’m sorry Joe, I don’t recall learning of a “Bill of Needs” at any point in my life. It is not the purview of the Government to determine what the populace “needs”. In fact, the opposite is true. Beyond that, there are cases when a semi-automatic rifle is precisely what is appropriate. Always? Certainly not. But, there is a reason why police carry one into a building when they expect to encounter an armed individual. If you are in a building…your home…with an unwelcome assailant, why would you want anything less than the most capable tool for defense available to you? An analogy that might resonate with Biden’s boss is that one could certainly get a golf ball from the tee to the hole using just a putter, eschewing the other clubs in the bag, but there are better tools available. Why would you handicap yourself by not using the best club…a tool…available for the task?

Biden then doubles down on the stupidity by adding “especially women”. The fact that the Obama/Biden administrations Department of Defense just lifted restrictions on women in combat…where they will be asked to carry a firearm similar in every respect except rate of fire to a civilian AR-15 aside……. Why exactly are a woman’s self defense needs different than a man? Would a woman not benefit from the features; size adjustability & configurable ergonomics, low recoil, easy sighting, high magazine capacity and quick follow-up shots? Does an AR require some training and practice to use safely and effectively? Sure, but so does a shotgun. Biden isn’t suggesting that a woman, untrained in the use of a shotgun, is safer than one trained in the use of an AR is he? Or is he?

The latter point does in fact have some merit. A shotgun is viewed by many as an excellent home defense weapon. There are positives and negatives to their use for that purpose but the simple fact is that an AR offers a counter to every shortcoming of a shotgun, especially if used by (oh Joe.....) "a woman". A typical AR weighs around 7lbs which is about the same as the typical double-barrel shotgun. However, the shotgun lacks the configurable ergonomics and sizing of the AR which makes it more difficult to size appropriately to the user, especially if there is more than one user in the home. A shotgun is typically much longer than an AR which makes it more difficult to bring it quickly to target. The recoil of a shotgun is far more substantial than that of an AR which makes follow up shots more difficult when using a shotgun. The aiming is by front bead which makes a shotgun far LESS accurate thus, all or part of the shot pattern or slug may not hit the intended target passing to whatever lies behind. Finally, a double-barrel shotgun holds two rounds and few shotguns hold more than five. Most “bad guys” are not stopped by single shots. If one misses, you’ve got one left….and what if by chance.... there is more than one assailant?

Moving on to the second portion of Biden’s statement:

I said, Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here…walk out and put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house. …. You don’t need an AR-15 – 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.

So Biden's advice to his lovely wife is:

To twice discharge a firearm?

A firearm which holds only two rounds? 

Into the air?

Outside the home? 

The abject stupidity of this is astonishing. This flys in the face of every form of training on responsible gun ownership, self defense and legal precedent regarding self defense shootings known to man. Beyond that, by doing so, Biden’s dear wife would have rendered herself defenseless as her double barrel shotgun is now..... EMPTY.  The final question that comes to mind is, where do the projectiles land?

So the question I’m left with is this:

Is Joe Biden really this monumentally, tragically, paste-eatingly stupid?

Or is it that he thinks you are?