White House weighs gun control decrees

WASHINGTON – With Congress unlikely to act quickly on gun legislation, the White House is pursuing plans for a series of executive orders that President Biden plans to roll out in the coming weeks to keep up the pressure on the question.

A day after Mr Biden called on the Senate to pass an assault weapons ban and step up background checks in response to a pair of mass shootings over the past week that left 18 people dead, officials White House officials said on Wednesday that while promoting gun safety legislation remained a goal, it would take time, given vehement opposition from Republicans.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said legislation was needed to make permanent changes. But she also suggested that the envisaged executive actions could be a realistic starting point.

“There’s a lot of weight that you can use, obviously, as president and vice-president,” she says.

So far, administration officials have reached out to Democrats in the Senate to consult them on three executive actions. So-called ghost pistols – kits that allow a firearm to be assembled from parts would be classified as firearms. Another would fund community violence intervention programs, and the third would strengthen the background check system, according to congressional aides familiar with the conversations.

Realizing that any executive action on firearms will face legal challenges, the White House attorneys office has also checked those actions to ensure they can withstand judicial scrutiny, officials said.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment on upcoming actions. But Mr Biden is under pressure from gun security groups to act as quickly as possible.

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past year, it’s that inaction has cost lives,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a prevention organization. gun violence. “It’s not for next week, it’s not for next month, it has to be for today. It must be immediate.

During his campaign, Mr Biden, a prominent supporter of the 10-year-old assault weapons ban in 1994, pledged to enact universal background check legislation, to ban all online sales of firearms and prohibit the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. .

But Mr Biden admitted he was unsure what legislation might be possible, even after the recent shootings in Atlanta and Boulder. “I haven’t counted yet,” he said Tuesday, when asked if he had the political capital to move forward with gun safety measures.

With the National Rifle Association, once the most powerful lobbying organization in the country, stranded in bankruptcy and spending more money on legal fees than to fight the White House or Congress, Mr Biden could have more money. flexibility.

Since the transition, officials in the Biden administration have met regularly with Mr. Feinblatt and other gun control supporters to discuss possible actions that do not require congressional cooperation.

Ideas they discussed include the Federal Trade Commission evaluating gun ads for safety claims that are false or misleading, the education department promoting interventions that prevent students from gaining access to guns. Fire and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are required to provide reliable data tracking. gunshot wounds.

They also discussed whether to declare gun violence a public health emergency – a move that would free up more funds that could be used to support community gun violence programs and law enforcement. .

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has funds to inspect the average gun dealer every five years,” said Kris Brown, president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence, a non-profit group. “We have more gun dealers than Starbucks and McDonald’s.”

Designating gun violence as a public health crisis, Ms. Brown said, would free up more money that would allow for more regular inspections. It’s a proposal, she said, that has been shared with Biden’s transition teams.

“We also discussed what can be done by agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services to get the health care community to focus on preventative measures that can stop gun violence before it hits. begins, ”Ms. Brown said.

So far, one of the administration’s biggest efforts has been to classify “ghost weapons” as firearms. Such a classification would require that they be serialized and subjected to a background check.

The administration also discussed with Democratic senators its still nascent plans to fund community-based violence intervention programs. How much funding remains to be discussed.

During the campaign, Biden pledged to create an eight-year, $ 900 million initiative to fund evidence-based interventions in 40 cities across the country.

“There are programs across the country that are doing a proven job,” Ms. Brown said. “But they are considerably underfunded. We want $ 5 billion invested in these kinds of violence intervention programs across the country.

White House officials described a “robust interagency process” but said planned executive actions were not yet complete.

While there are no plans for an impending gun legislative push from a White House that faces crises on multiple fronts, Mr Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris continued to describe legislative action as an imperative.

“I am not prepared to give up on what we must do to appeal to the hearts and minds and sanity of members of the United States Senate,” Ms. Harris said Wednesday in an interview with “CBS This Morning” .

“It is time for Congress to act and stop the wrong choices,” she said. “It’s not about getting rid of the Second Amendment. It is simply to say that we need reasonable gun safety laws. There is no reason for us to have assault weapons on the streets of a civil society. They are weapons of war. They are designed to kill a lot of people quickly. “