Vice-president Joe Biden hosted the 21st-century version of the fireside chats made famous by Franklin Roosevelt on Thursday afternoon, taking part in a Google+ discussion of president Barack Obama's initiative for increased gun control. 

Biden said he was holding the chat because "the single best thing we can do is to have a national dialogue about this". The discussion was moderated by PBS NewsHour's Hari Sreenivasan, who said Biden did not receive any of the questions ahead of time. Four frequent bloggers asked questions inspired by their online audiences.

Barack Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force after the Newtown shooting of 14 December, in which 20 children and seven adults were killed by a gunman, Adam Lanza, who then killed himself. The vice-president, a shotgun owner like his son, has since spoken to people on all sides of the gun control debate. 

"It's not about keeping bad guns out of the hands of good people," Biden said. "It's about keeping all guns out of the hands of bad people." 

He said that there was a "respected culture of gun ownership in America", but added that "there should be rational limits on the type of weapons that I can own".  

Hours before Biden's chat session began, Senator Dianne Feinstein launched a bill which will seek an assault-weapons ban. Her proposed legislation was used to begin the conversation. Biden questioned the utilitarian necessity of owning an assault rifle and said a ban could greatly improve public safety and, especially, the safety of police officers. 

"It's not an answer to all the problems, but in my view, it's a rational limitation on what weapons should be owned," Biden said. 

Video blogger Phil DeFranco asked Biden if increased gun purchasing restrictions would have an effect on the weapons black market. "It's hard to imagine how you could accelerate it more than its already been accelerated," Biden said. 

DeFranco also asked about people who think they should be allowed to keep assault weapons in case of natural disasters or apocalyptic-like scenarios. Biden said a shotgun would be more effective than an assault rifle in that situation. "If you want to keep people alive in an earthquake, buy some shotgun shells," Biden said.

Kimberley Blaine, who is a parent and mental-health practitioner, asked Biden about plans to increase school safety and to improve mental-health initiatives. Biden said the administration's Project AWARE was meant to prevent gun crimes before they happened and that he was opposed to the National Rifle Association's proposal to have an armed official in every school. "The last thing we need to do is be arming school teachers and administrators," the vice-president said.

Venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki opened up the conversation to ask a more general question about the inefficiencies of Congress. Biden paused before saying: "I'm going to choose my words here." He then said politicians were divided but the majority of Americans agreed on basic public health and safety principles. 

Kawasaki followed up by asking how congressional inefficiencies could be so distracting as to prevent basic research. Biden said: "Part of the interest group population out there are afraid of the facts." 

The White House used Google+ for numerous "fireside hangouts" during Obama's first term. The "fireside" reference harks back to the weekly radio-broadcast "fireside chats" that Roosevelt held to keep American citizens updated during the Depression and the second world war. 

The discussion was streamed live on the White House Google+ page, YouTube channel and the whitehouse.gov website.