Foes of proposed assault weapons ban would need F-15 to ‘fight against the country,’ Biden cracks

President Biden pushed back against opponents of his proposed assault weapons ban on Tuesday saying “right-wing” Americans would need “an F-15” to “fight against the country,” in remarks meant to convey there are limits to Second Amendment rights.

Mr. Biden made the remarks during an address in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania where he laid out his crime-prevention plan, calling for $13 billion in spending over the next five years for local police departments to hire 100,00 new officers.

During his address, the president took aim at the logic employed by opponents of banning assault weapons, saying Second Amendment rights are not unlimited.

“You can’t go out and buy an automatic weapon,” Mr. Biden said. “You can’t go out and buy a cannon.”

“And for those brave rightwing Americans who say, ‘it’s all about keeping America … independent and safe’,” he said, “If you want to fight against the country, you need an F-15, you need something a little more than a gun.”

The statement adds to Mr. Biden’s growing use of campaign rhetoric meant to cast his political opponents as anti-democratic extremists ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.

In a speech at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser last week, Mr. Biden blasted Republican lawmakers and former President Donald Trump as “the ultra-MAGA party” and called their political philosophy “semi-fascism,” a reference to the authoritarian and ultra-nationalistic political movement led by Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler beginning in the 1920s and 1930s.

Critics have warned that the rhetoric adds to the growing divisiveness that underpins the country’s political discourse.

When pressed on Mr. Biden’s comment about fascism, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president’s characterization of his political foes was not hyperbole.

“When you look at the definition of fascism and you think about what [Republicans] are doing in attacking our democracy, what they’re doing in taking away our freedoms, wanting to take away our rights, that is what that is,” she told reporters last week. “It is very clear.”