Biden And Harris To Announce New Actions To Reduce Gun Violence

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Last updated on September 29th, 2024 at 10:17 am

President Biden will be signing an executive order with more steps to reduce gun violence and the administration is also moving to reduce the trauma for students of active shooter drills.

What Does Biden’s Latest Gun Violence Executive Order Do?

There are two different policies in the executive order. One policy deals with guns, and the other relates to active shooter drills.

According to a White House Fact Sheet:

President Biden is signing an Executive Order to accelerate progress on two key priorities:
combating emerging firearms threats and improving school-based active shooter drills.

Combatting Emerging Firearms Threats: In April 2021, one of the Biden-Harris Administration’s first executive actions to reduce gun violence was to address the emerging threat of firearms without serial numbers, often referred to as “ghost guns.” To expand these efforts, ATF established an Emerging Threats Center. This Center focuses ATF’s resources on identifying developments in illicit firearm marketplaces, including the use of new technologies to make and unlawfully distribute undetectable firearms and devices that convert semi-automatic firearms into illegal machineguns. Now, President Biden and Vice President Harris are taking additional action on two emerging firearms threats: machinegun conversion devices and unserialized, 3D-printed firearms.

• Machinegun conversion devices enable semi-automatic firearms, including easily
concealable handguns, to match or exceed the rate of fire of many military machineguns with a single engagement of the trigger—up to 20 bullets in one second. From 2017 through 2021, ATF recovered 5,454 of these devices, a 570 percent increase over the previous five-year period. Machinegun conversion devices are illegal to possess under federal law, but we continue to see these devices show up at crime scenes because they are small, cheap, and easy to install. Machinegun conversion devices are often illegally imported or illegally made on a 3D printer from computer code found online. The 3D-printing of a machinegun conversion device costs as little as 40 cents and takes fewer than 30 minutes.

• Unserialized, 3D-printed firearms can be used for illegal purposes such as gun trafficking,
unlawful possession by people convicted of felonies or subject to domestic violence
restraining orders, or unlawfully engaging in the business of manufacturing or selling
firearms. These firearms can be 3D-printed from computer code downloaded from the
Internet and produced without serial numbers that law enforcement use to trace firearms
recovered in criminal investigations. Some 3D-printed firearms can be made to be
undetectable by magnetometers used to secure airports, courthouses, and event spaces, even
though these undetectable firearms are illegal to make, sell, or possess under federal law. As
3D-printing technology continues to develop rapidly, the safety threat posed by 3D-printed
firearms may suddenly increase.

What Is The White House Doing About Active Shooter Drills?

Stef Feldman the Director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection told PoliticusUSA during a call with reporters about the White House action on active shooter drills:

The majority of schools are currently using drills to prepare for an active shooter situation, but there is very limited research and how to design and deploy these drills to maximize their effectiveness and limit any collateral harms they might cause. Many parents, students and educators have expressed concerns about the trauma caused by some approaches to these drills in the executive order President Biden is directing the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of Homeland Security in condition with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the US Surgeon General, to develop and publish within 110 days information from schools regarding school based active shooter drills.

This will include a summary of existing research and gaps in research. The aim is to help schools improve drills so they can more effectively prepare for an active shooter situation while also preventing or minimizing any trauma that may result from drills that are poorly implemented.

Biden Continues To Act To Save Lives

President Joe Biden isn’t sitting around and running out the clock on his time in office. Biden is continuing to act to save lives.

Biden is also potentially setting the table and getting the ball rolling for Vide President Harris if she wins the election. Harris will be able to build on what her former boss is accomplishing, because the goal isn’t to score political points. The goal is to save lives and keep Americans families from losing loved ones.

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