Speaking in entrance of gun violence survivors, activists, and lawmakers, President Joe Biden on Friday introduced a brand new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, an effort he promised would “centralize, accelerate, and intensify” the federal authorities’s efforts to fight gun violence.
“After every mass shooting, we hear a very simple message … do something,” Biden stated within the White House Rose Garden. “My administration has been working tirelessly to do something,” Biden added, pointing to govt actions his administration had taken on ghost weapons and gun trafficking, in addition to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, landmark laws that turned legislation in 2022.
The new workplace, in response to Biden, is yet another try and reply that decision, serving to, for instance, to “coordinate support for survivors, families, and communities affected by gun violence,” an effort that he stated can be just like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the federal government’s on-the-ground emergency response crew. The workplace may even search to determine extra govt actions the president can take. Biden famous that he would proceed to induce Congress to take legislative motion on banning assault weapons and implementing common background checks. Until then, he stated the White House and activists will transfer ahead with or with out them.
There have been greater than 500 mass shootings in 2023, in response to the Gun Violence Archive, and greater than 30,000 firearm-related deaths. Gun violence deaths amongst teenagers and kids additionally rose an alarming 50 % between 2019 and 2021 to change into the main reason behind loss of life for kids within the United States.
Stefanie Feldman, an aide to President Biden who’s been engaged on gun security coverage with him for over a decade, would be the director of the brand new workplace. In an interview with Vox, she stated that the workplace is supposed to implement the legal guidelines and insurance policies handed throughout Biden’s tenure, together with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and the president’s govt actions on gun violence. “The president wants to make sure we get it done right.” She additionally reiterated the message that the president and vp would urge however not wait on Congress to cross new legal guidelines.
Currently, a number of authorities companies are concerned in efforts to scale back gun violence, together with the Department of Justice, which supplies grants to communities working to stop gun violence; the Department of Health and Human Services, which funds analysis learning gun violence as a well being epidemic; the FBI, which runs prison background checks; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which enforces nationwide gun legal guidelines and regulates firearms gross sales. The White House, its gun reform allies in Congress, and advocates have been coordinating with each other for years. This workplace places all of these efforts beneath one roof, with a devoted management crew inside the chief department.
Leading the trouble shall be Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor who has labored on gun questions of safety throughout her time within the White House. At the ceremony, Harris drew on her previous experiences as a prosecutor in making a case for the workplace. “I’ve seen with my own eyes what a bullet does to the human body,” she stated. “We cannot normalize any of this.”
Two outstanding activists within the gun violence prevention motion, Greg Jackson, govt director of the Community Access Justice Fund, and Rob Wilcox, former senior director of federal and authorities affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety, will function deputy administrators. Both have a private connection to their work: Wilcox misplaced a member of the family to gun violence, and Jackson was shot and severely injured in Washington, DC, in 2013.
Gun violence reformers have been pushing the Biden administration to create a particular workplace since at the least the start of his tenure. The creation of a process drive contained in the White House was one of many main suggestions from the Center for American Progress and Giffords, the gun violence reform group headed by former Congress member and gun violence survivor Gabrielle Giffords. She revealed that she additionally wrote a letter to the then-president-elect about making a process drive. Giffords acknowledged that the scourge of gun violence wouldn’t be resolved in a single day, “but every step forward will save lives — and today’s announcement is a giant step forward,” she wrote.
The president’s transfer was praised by leaders throughout a variety of disciplines. “It really speaks to the gravity of the issue,” Chethan Sathya, a pediatric trauma surgeon who leads Northwell Health’s gun violence prevention heart, informed Vox. “This is one of our chief public health crises, a main killer of kids in this country. We need folks singularly focused on this issue.”
Lucy McBath, a Democratic Georgia Congress member whose son, Jordan Davis, was murdered in 2012, additionally appeared on the White House press briefing Friday. “Nobody wants to experience what I have, but my story is becoming far too common in the United States,” McBath stated. Biden, she stated, “is taking decisive action by declaring loudly and clearly: We do not have to live this way.”
The White House’s invitation to activists to assist coordinate its effort reveals that it acknowledges that the motion has grown significantly within the final 10 years, changing into extra highly effective and efficient. “The biggest fundamental change is that survivors took over,” Jackson, who’s becoming a member of the workplace as deputy director, informed Vox earlier this yr. “Survivors went from being voices that contribute to some broader campaign to being the leaders of everything. When survivors started to take over … we saw a huge shift away from simple hardware regulation [of firearms] to an array of solutions that are chipping away at the problem, and a more comprehensive approach.”
The creation of the workplace additionally displays that gun-safety proponents signify an actual constituency in American politics: According to a Pew Research Center report from earlier this yr, six in 10 Americans say gun violence is a significant issue, 61 % say it’s too simple to legally acquire a gun, and 58 % help stricter gun legal guidelines. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D), the primary Gen-Z member of Congress, has made ending gun violence considered one of his prime legislative priorities. He launched Biden on the occasion and famous that “this issue, especially for young people, especially for marginalized communities, is a matter of survival.”
For the tens of millions of Americans who need to see an finish to the horrific toll that gun violence takes yearly, there’s an understandable sense of despair that units in after information of gun violence — and a wholesome quantity of skepticism when politicians provide options that appear to fall quick. In opening the workplace, although, the White House appears to be acknowledging that it will probably’t afford to attend for Republicans to get on board. Directing his remaining feedback on the survivors and activists, Biden explicitly aligned himself and his administration with their trigger. “You’re right. We’re by your side, and we’re never going to give up dealing with this problem,” he stated. “We can do this, we just have to keep going. We just have to keep the faith.”
