Associated Press

Joe Biden faced down a pro-gun worker Tuesday in a testy exchange over his plan to reinstate the assault weapons ban.

Biden spoke at Fiat Chrysler's Mack Assembly plant in Detroit on Tuesday and then was confronted by a man in a hard hat who accused him of “actively trying to end our Second Amendment right." Biden used an expletive to tell the worker he was “full of" it and hushed an aide who was trying to end the conversation.

Biden went on to say he supports the Second Amendment but added: “Do you need 100 rounds?”

The worker pointed to a “viral video” in which he alleged Biden said he would take away people’s guns. Biden replied that he “did not say that” and that the video was “lying.”

Biden otherwise received an overwhelmingly positive response from the workers while courting the union vote in a final push as Michigan residents vote in the presidential primary.

Biden has a long history of working to get certain kinds of weapons, namely semi-automatic and so-called assault weapons, out of public hands. On his campaign website, he takes partial credit for an earlier ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines that later expired. Efforts to reinstate that ban have been opposed by Republicans in Congress.

He also, however, has said it’s “within our grasp to end our gun violence epidemic and respect the Second Amendment,” suggesting that he doesn’t want to ban ownership of all guns, just those he and many others believe are too deadly to be in public circulation.

Biden has talked about reinstating the assault weapon ban and prohibiting their sale and manufacture, putting in place buyback programs, restricting the number of firearms a person may purchase each month to one and requiring background checks for all gun sales, among other proposals to curb gun violence.

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