DEL SEGUNDO: To ensure that a bipartisan gun control law passed last summer is being fully utilized by law enforcement agencies across the United States, President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday.
An anonymous senior White House official said the Democratic president would announce his latest efforts to reduce gun violence in a speech from Monterey Park, California. After a Lunar New Year’s celebration in January, a gunman stormed a dance hall in the neighborhood of Los Angeles and shot 20 people, killing 11.
Even during the Obama administration, when Biden was vice president, Democrats did not push such a vocal anti-gun platform, and his rhetoric surrounding guns has only grown stronger. He routinely calls for banning so-called assault weapons in his speeches. However, Biden’s regular talk of gun control did not result in massive losses in the midterms, and he is expected to continue pushing for strong changes as he inches toward a 2024 run, his aides say.
At the State of the Union address, Vice President Biden praised Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old who wrestled the semi-automatic pistol away from the gunman in Monterey Park, for his bravery.
It’s true that he helped save countless lives. In his address to Congress, Biden urged lawmakers to take similar action. Put an end to the use of assault weapons now.
However, he is constrained in his ability to go further than the most comprehensive gun violence law in decades, which was passed by Congress last summer with broad bipartisan support. The previous year had seen the murders of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and 10 customers at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
“Too many lives have been taken by gun violence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. But he thinks that we should take additional steps. You’ll hear him urge Congress to do something, saying things like “we can’t stop now” and “we need to keep going.”
According to the senior White House official who previewed the order, Vice President Biden will mandate that his Cabinet work on a plan to better structure the government to support communities suffering from gun violence. In order to ensure that federally licensed gun dealers carry out background checks, the plan will ask Attorney General Merrick Garland to strengthen the rules governing such dealers.
For a clearinghouse that helps federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies match shell casings to guns, Biden has mandated improved reporting of ballistics data from federal law enforcement. However, many local and state law enforcement agencies do not report ballistics data to the clearinghouse, despite its usefulness.
As for marketing to minors and the use of military imagery in advertising, the president will have the Federal Trade Commission issue a public report analyzing these practices.
Gun control advocates see the Safer Communities Act that was passed last year as a step in the right direction but not nearly enough. The Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University maintain a database of mass killings in the United States since 2006, and it shows that eleven more shootings occurred after the law was signed. Not included are shootings in which four or fewer people were killed, and gun violence is on the rise across the country.
President of Everytown for Gun Safety John Feinblatt praised President Biden’s executive order, calling it a “home run” for public safety. We are proud to support President Biden in his efforts to close the gun-seller loophole, which will greatly increase the effectiveness of background checks, prevent firearms from falling into the wrong hands, and ultimately save lives.
Red-flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, are intended to temporarily remove firearms from people with potentially violent behavior and prevent them from harming themselves or others. Biden will direct his Cabinet to make sure law enforcement agencies understand the benefits of the new law.
More than $200 million was disbursed by the Justice Department last month to assist states and the District of Columbia with the implementation of red-flag laws and other crisis-intervention programs.
