Vice President Joe Biden says that if the economy hadn't collapsed in 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would have won the presidential election instead of President Barack Obama.

"The truth of the matter is, Barack knows it, I know, had the economy not collapsed around your ears, John, in the middle of literally - as things were moving - I think you probably would have won," Biden said at the Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute for International Leadership Friday in Arizona, according to the Associated Press.

"But it would have been incredibly, incredibly, incredibly close. You inherited a really difficult time," he added.

The vice president participated in the opening dinner for the McCain Institute's annual Sedona Forum where he fielded questions from McCain on topics ranging from terrorist attacks to gun control. Biden, who helped formulate much of the administration's positions on gun legislation, said that he believes some form of gun control will pass Congress by the end of the year.

"For the first time ever, you have people who are for gun safety, for increasing background checks," Biden said. "Two out of three of them say it will be a major determining factor in how I vote. That's the political dynamic that has changed. So I think we're going to get this anyway. I think this will pass before the year is out, within this Congress."