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More advice from Joe Biden: 'Just fire the shotgun through the door'

February 27, 2013 | 6:26 pm | Modified: February 27, 2013 at 6:40 pm
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In an interview with Field & Stream magazine on Monday, Vice President Joe Biden once again touted shotguns as the best weapon for self-defense, offering advice similar to the questionable instructions he gave during a Facebook town hall last week.

During that interview, Biden explained his suggestion to his wife Jill for handling an intruder.

“If there’s ever a problem,” Biden said he told his wife, “just walk out on the balcony here— walk out, put that double barrel shot gun and fire two blasts outside the house.”

The problem with Biden’s advice is that it would empty the shotgun and possibly get the shooter in trouble with the law.

Undaunted, Biden gave similar advice in his interview with the hunting and fishing magazine.

Field & Stream asked the Vice President whether so-called assault rifles and high-capacity clips, which the administration wants banned, should be allowed for self-defense and target practice.

Well, the way in which we measure it is—I think most scholars would say—is that as long as you have a weapon sufficient to be able to provide your self-defense,” Biden said. “I did one of these town-hall meetings on the Internet and one guy said, “Well, what happens when the end days come? What happens when there’s the earthquake? I live in California, and I have to protect myself.”

I said, “Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” Most people can handle a shotgun a hell of a lot better than they can a semiautomatic weapon in terms of both their aim and in terms of their ability to deter people coming. We can argue whether that’s true or not, but it is no argument that, for example, a shotgun could do the same job of protecting you. Now, granted, you can come back and say, “Well, a machine gun could do a better job of protecting me.” No one’s arguing we should make machine guns legal.

 

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