Furious Biden Invokes Trump Shooting to Call For Assault Weapons Ban: ‘Sheer Cowardice to Do Nothing’

A furious President Joe Biden pledged to ban assault weapons at a speech in the wake of the shooting of his predecessor Donald Trump.

In an animated address to the annual NAACP convention, Biden decried inaction on gun regulation and the fact that Trump’s shooter, a 20-year-old man from Pennsylvania, was able to obtain an AR-15 to carry out Saturday’s attack, which left one rally-goer dead and two others wounded.

“We must stand against violence perpetrated against presidential candidates in Pennsylvania,” Biden said while listing high-profile gun murders in the United States over the last few years.

“If you’re going to be outspoken on one, don’t be silent on others,” Biden said, to applause. “If we’re going to speak about violence we’re going to speak about guns. More children in America died from gunshot wounds than any other reason. That’s stunning and that is sick!”

“And it’s sheer cowardice if we do nothing about it,” Biden continued. “So if you want to stand against violence in America, then join me in getting these weapons of war off the streets of America. An AR-15 was used in the shooting of Donald Trump.”

Biden went on to call for an assault weapons ban, which he has pushed for throughout his presidency. In 1994, when Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Congress passed a ban on assault weapons. It expired after 10 years and Republicans have blocked efforts to regulate the weapons ever since.

“It’s time to outlaw them,” Biden said. “I did it once and I will do it again.”

Biden went on to say that while the temperature needs to be lowered in the United States, he will not stop “telling the truth” about his opponent.

The president slurred through much of the speech at the NAACP, which comes amid continued pressure on him to drop out of the race over his age.

Watch the clip above.