‘Offensive’ For Speaker Johnson To Blame Gun Violence On ‘The Human Heart’

Topline

The Biden Administration fired back at House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) comments blaming the “hearts” of shooters, not the weapons themselves, for gun violence on Friday—marking the first public clash between President Joe Biden and Johnson, two days after he was elected speaker.

Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) blamed gun violence on “the human heart. It’s not … [+] guns, it’s not the weapons,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in a wide-ranging interview a day after he was elected speaker of the House. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

The Biden Administration “absolutely” disputes “the offensive accusation that gun crime is uniquely high in the United States because of Americans’ hearts,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement to Politico.

Bates was responding to Johnson’s comments in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday, when he said “the problem [with gun violence]

is the human heart,” adding “it’s not guns, it’s not the weapons” and reiterating Republicans’ defense of the Second Amendment.

Bates also rebuked Johnson’s suggestion in 2016, while he was campaigning for Congress, that mass shootings were attributed to a “cultural shift,” including the expansion of abortion access.

Gun violence, Bates said, does not happen “because women have the right to make their own health care decisions, as the Speaker once claimed.”

Crucial Quote

“At the end of the day, the problem is the human heart. It’s not guns, it’s not the weapons,” Johnson told Hannity. “We have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves. That’s the Second Amendment and that’s why our party stands so strongly for that.”

Surprising Fact

Biden and Johnson met for the first time Thursday since Johnson was elected speaker ahead of a classified national security briefing Biden invited him to attend at the White House. Biden officials told NBC News the president does not know Johnson well, echoing sentiment voiced by other top leaders in Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). “This is a time for all of us to act responsibly, and to put the good of the American people and the everyday priorities of American families above any partisanship,” Biden said in a statement after Johnson was elected by the House on Wednesday, following a three-week search for a speaker Republicans could agree on and failed bids of three other speaker nominees.

Tangent

The White House renewed its repeated calls for Congress to pass an assault weapons ban in the wake of the Wednesday shootings in Lewiston, Maine, that authorities say left 18 people dead and another 13 injured. Johnson, speaking to reporters Thursday about the shootings, said “it is a dark time in America,” adding “prayer is appropriate in a time like this that the evil can end and this senseless violence can stop.”

Big Number

565. That’s the total number of mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive’s tracker of shootings with at least three injuries or deaths, outpacing last year’s count. The U.S. saw a record number of shootings, 688, in 2021, according to the data.

Key Background

Johnson criticized Biden several times during the wide-ranging Fox News interview, including saying he sees a cognitive decline in the 80-year-old president when prompted by Hannity. “It’s not a personal insult to him. It’s just reality,” Johnson said. He also called Biden’s White House tenure a “failed presidency” and predicted that if “all the evidence” in the GOP-led House’s impeachment probe of Biden “leads to where we believe it will, that’s very likely impeachable offenses.” Addressing his own controversial rhetoric about same-sex marriage—including calling homosexuality a “dangerous lifestyle and “inherently unnatural” in a 2004 op-ed in The Times of Shreveport, Louisiana—Johnson defended the comments and said he made them while working as a lawyer for a conservative legal advocacy group, Alliance Defending Freedom, and that he doesn’t “even remember some” of his anti-gay-marriage statements. Johnson, who regularly espouses his Christian faith, told Hannity his worldview is based on the teachings in the Bible, adding that he “genuinely love[s] all people regardless of their lifestyle choices.”