The Facebook Town Hall interview with Vice President Joe Biden conducted earlier this week by Parents.com executive editor Michael Kress has made headlines on a wide range of outlets, with analysts and reporters commenting in particular on a comment Biden made urging a mother to “buy a shotgun” instead of a weapon with a high-capacity magazine.
Wednesday night, the moment was featured as the “Moment of Zen” on the Comedy Central program “The Daily Show” (video below). Here are links to some other news reactions to the Town Hall:
Gawker.com: Joe Biden’s Advice for Defending Your Home: ‘Buy a Shotgun, Buy a Shotgun’
The political blog Politico.com is saying Vice President Joe Biden became “testy” when certain questions submitted by Parents Magazine readers were asked during a Tuesday Facebook Town Hall interview on gun safety. The 30-minute conversation took place at the White House, where Parents.com executive editor Michael Kress asked questions regarding Second Amendment rights, ownership of assault weapons, gun crime, and reducing gun violence. Politico blogger Donovan Slack said Biden seemed “caught off guard” by one question:
One questioner equated gun control to drug control — if criminalizing drugs didn’t get them off the streets, why will criminalizing guns? — and a second asked if limiting assault weapons and high-capacity magazines would limit people’s ability to protect themselves.
“Is this Parents Magazine? I have Parents Magazine. I’ve never heard anybody in Parents Magazine ask these kinds of questions,” Biden said.
On the question about drug control, he tried to tamp down the notion that the administration wants to criminalize guns (“There is no ban on guns, no one’s banning a gun.”) and he took issue with the comparison to illegal drugs.
“Are you suggesting we have no, we just legalize all drugs? Is that what you’re suggesting? That would go real well in Parents Magazine,” Biden said. “Let’s talk about being able to — no matter what your age — go out and be able to purchase cocaine. What do you think about that idea?”
“Look, these comparisons are not appropriate, quite frankly, but secondly the idea [that] you should have no law unless the law you have prevents all violations of that law, that is not the way society works.”
Vice President Joe Biden sat down with Parents.com Executive Editor Michael Kress this afternoon to answer questions from Facebook users on gun safety.
In the half-hour long chat, Biden addressed questions regarding Second Amendment rights, ownership of assault weapons, gun crime, and reducing gun violence.
Biden mentioned it was not his goal to eradicate guns or gun ownership rights — he himself owns two shotguns, he said — but to ensure that universal background checks are enforced.
He believes that gun owners should take care of them responsibly, as well as teach their children the consequences of gun violence.
Watch the full discussion with Vice President Biden:
Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, signed a law this month making the state the first to prohibit doctors–including pediatricians–from asking patients or patients’ parents whether they own a gun. Doctors who do ask such questions are subject to discipline by the state’s medical board. Several other states are considering similar proposals, according to an article published in The Boston Globe.
Pediatricians often counsel patients on safety issues, chiefly around swimming pools, household chemicals, bicycle safety…and guns. The Globe cited statistics that support this practice:
The idea that firearms are out of bounds for doctors, who are committed to preventing illness and injury, is preposterous, opponents said. Between 2003 and 2007, the most recent years for which data are available, 152,519 people were killed by firearms, including more than 15,000 children and teenagers, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database that collects information from death certificates.
Gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association, supported the bill on the grounds that it protects a family’s right to privacy. “You have a right to seek medical care without being interrogated about the private property that you own,” Marion Hammer, executive director of Unified Sportsmen of Florida and a former National Rifle Association president, told the Florida Times-Union newspaper in January.
What do you think about this new Florida law, and about the rights of doctors to advise patients on gun safety?
The political blog Politico.com is saying Vice President Joe Biden became “testy” when certain questions submitted by Parents Magazine readers were asked during a Tuesday 
Vice President Joe Biden sat down with Parents.com Executive Editor Michael Kress this afternoon to answer questions from Facebook users on 
