Biden discusses 'Gun Violence' in Cyber Chat (VIDEO)

Vice President Biden participated in a townhall-style chat to talk about reducing gun violence today. The discussion was hosted by Google and moderated by Hari Sreenivasan of PBS NewsHour. 

On the argument for ARs for self-defense

A shotgun will keep you a lot safer, a double-barrel shotgun than an assault weapon in somebody’s hands of one who doesn’t know how to use it, or even someone who does know how to use it. It’s harder to use an assault weapon to hit something than it is a shotgun. Ok. If you want to keep people away during an earthquake, buy some shotgun shells.

How an Assault Weapons Ban will keep cops safer

I’m very proud [violent crime] went down. It went down in large part because we put 100,000 cops on the street, but that didn’t mean the cops were safer as a consequence to these guns. The cops were less safe the more assault weapons were on the street. They don’t account for even, not only  a bulk, they account for a small percentage of the gun crimes in America.

More people get shot with a Glock that has magazines that you can put 2, 10, 8, 12, 15, 30 shells in it than from any assault weapon you see. I’m much less concerned quite frankly about what you call an assault weapon than I am about magazines and the number of rounds that can be held in a magazine.

But the point is that the fact that violent crime is down and there’s been proliferation of assault weapons quote unquote as was defined up until now on the street does not suggest that taking assault weapons off the street would not in fact make it safer particularly for the folks who are mostly outgunned: cops.

What are your thoughts?