White House Launches 'Being Biden' Series

Official White House Photo by David Lienemann

Ever wonder what goes through Vice President Joe Biden's head? The White House has just launched an audio series called "Being Biden," where the vice president will share his story of a photograph in which he appears.

The first picture featured in the series is of Biden's serving rolls at a wild game dinner in Delaware earlier this month. The vice president is shaking hands with a man wearing a hunting-style shirt featuring deer in the woods as Biden carries a tong in his other hand.

"Hey folks, I want to tell you about this picture you're looking at," Biden said about the picture. "These are a couple of guys in their hunting shirts that I'm serving a meal to, along with the folks you see in the back gourd and the occasion is once a year the Whitehall Neck Sportsman Club holds a dinner.

"I've been attending it for over 30 years. It's called a wild game dinner and they go out and they hunt for wild game that they then cook up and serve at the Leipsic fire hall, as you see in the background and all the money goes to charity and then there's an auction and they auction off guns and bows and all that money as well goes to originally went to [defray] the costs and expenses of a buddy of theirs who was injured in a hunting accident years ago and now it goes to help people in need."

Biden then detailed how important the right to bear arms responsibly is to himself and hunters.

"They believe there is a Second Amendment right to own a weapon. So do I, but they also believe that it's for self protection and legitimate uses like hunting and these guys have the ethic, an ethic that I find most sportsmen have, one that demands responsibility in terms of their case how you deal with, treat, and store your weapons, and there's an ethic that they have that says we're going to help those in our community who are in need," Biden said. "I know these guys, and I know an awful lot of them. I've been doing it for over 30 years. They're my friends, but the point is they are absolutely, totally responsible."

The vice president noted that today marks three months since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut and urged Congress to pass gun legislation to help prevent such a tragedy in the future.

"This is the third-month anniversary of those twenty beautiful little babies who were massacred up in Connecticut in Sandy Hook and those six brave teachers and administrators that tried to protect them. And the country cries for responsible action, to do everything we can to see to it that these kinds of events don't happen again," he said.

"I'm pleased to say the Judiciary Committee, that's the committee in the United States Senate has passed out the major elements of what we've proposed. They've passed out a gun-trafficking piece of legislation, a universal background check piece, a school safety piece, and I think they're going to do more," Biden said.

"I think it's time the United States Congress act responsibly now and seriously debate the pieces of legislation we've talked about so that we can get to a position where we actually make our communities safer for our children, make our schools safer, and make society safer."