PolitiFact: Joe Biden’s Gun Claims ‘Mostly False’

PolitiFact weighed the background check gun control claims President Joe Biden made Thursday and labeled them “mostly false.”

During the gun control push, Biden said, “Most people don’t know: If you walk into a store and you buy a gun, you have a background check. But you go to a gun show, you can buy whatever you want and no background check.”

PolitiFact weighed Biden’s claim, noting Biden “exaggerated” and asserted his claim is “mostly false”:

NEW: In today's gun policy address, President Biden exaggerated about background checks at gun shows. Mostly False. https://t.co/fXAHU9pfCr pic.twitter.com/4ezABzIm9f

— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) April 8, 2021

Democrats have long used gun shows to justify the passage of more gun control. They often frame their appeals under the guise of fixing the so-called “gun show loophole,” intimating that criminals are using gun shows as a way to circumvent background checks and acquire guns.

However, on August 30, 2015, Breitbart News reported a University of Chicago Crime Lab study on criminals in the Cook County, Illinois, jail system. The  study focused on “inmates who were facing gun charges or whose criminal background involved gun crimes.”

The Chicago-Tribune spoke with Crime Lab co-director Harold Pollack about the study and Pollack noted that “some of the pathways [regarding guns] people are concerned about don’t seem so dominant.” He noted very few inmates indicated using gun shows or the internet. Rather, they procured their guns in undetectable ways on the street.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.