Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took his campaign for gun control to the Internet on Thursday in an online video chat where he was pressed on whether the proposals he and President Obama have advanced/a> would actually do much to stop gun violence.
In a “fireside hangout†using a Google video chat service, Mr. Biden acknowledged that many shootings would not be stopped by the package of legislation and executive actions unveiled at the White House last week. But he said they were worth it even if they saved just one of the 20 children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month.
“Because it doesn’t solve the whole problem you shouldn’t do it - I don’t buy the logic of that,†Mr. Biden said.
The “hangout†was part of a developing effort by the White House to build public support for its guns package. Mr. Biden, who developed the plans embraced by Mr. Obama, will also host a roundtable in Richmond, Va., on Friday and officials have said Mr. Obama will travel at some point to promote the package.
Among the plans endorsed by the White House are a reinstated and strengthened ban on new assault weapons and ! new high-capacity magazines; expanded criminal background checks for nearly any gun purchase outside of the family; and a crackdown on straw purchasers. While waiting for Congress to consider those measures, Mr. Obama went ahead and acted on his own to improve the background check databank with more information.
Critics led by the National Rifle Association have said the White House package tramples over the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners while not effectively tackling the problem. Rather than limiting new gun and ammunition purchases, critics said the Obama administration should do a better job of enforcing existing gun laws and should encourage more armed guards in the nation’s schools to stop rampages like the one in Newtown.
For the online chat on Thursday, Hari Sreenivasan, a digital correspondent for PBS NewsHour, hosted several new media figures to discuss the gun issue with Mr. Biden.
Phil DeFranco, a video blogger, asked Mr. Biden why Congress should pass the €œsame failed laws†given that only a small percentage of murders each year are committed with assault weapons. “It’s creating policy based on outliers rather than hitting the real issues,†Mr. DeFranco said.
“We do get to the real issue,†countered Mr. Biden, because police organizations favor restrictions on assault weapons so as not to be outgunned by criminals.
While semi-automatic rifles have been used in many of the most high-profile mass shootings of recent years, like the December massacre at Sandy Hook when a gunman killed 20 children and six adults, such weapons are involved in just a fraction of overall murders. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 8,583 of the 12,664 murders in the United States in 2011 were committed with firearms; of those 6,220 were by handguns, and 323 by rifles of all sorts. By contra! st, 496 m! urders were committed with blunt objects like clubs and hammers.
The vice president noted that he owns two shotguns and said he supports an individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. But he said there were no rational hunting or self-defense reasons to have the sort of firearms that would be affected by the White House proposals, noting that the 2nd Amendment does not protect a right to buy a fighter jet or a tank.
Mr. Biden also defended the plan to restrict magazines to no more than 10 rounds, arguing that if the Newtown shooter had been forced to take more time to reload, it might have saved lives. “If it took longer, maybe one more kid would be alive,†he said.
Follow Peter Baker on Twitter at @peterbakernyt.
