President Joe Biden will announce the creation of the first-ever federal office of gun violence prevention on Friday, fulfilling a key demand of gun safety activists as legislation remains stalled in Congress, according to two people with direct knowledge of the White House’s plans.
Stefanie Feldman, a longtime Biden aide who previously worked on the Domestic Policy Council, will play a leading role, the people said.
Greg Jackson, executive director of the Community Justice Action Fund, and Rob Wilcox, the senior director for federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety, are expected to hold key roles in the office alongside Feldman, who has worked on gun policy for more than a decade and still oversees the policy portfolio at the White House. The creation of the office was first reported by The Washington Post.
Prevention of gun violence isn’t exactly the remit of either of those agencies. The ATF focuses on the tracking of and illegal sales of guns while the FBI focuses on crimes committed with them (and other crimes, of course). Neither of those are about prevention of gun violence.
A separate agency that can focus more on the social issues that are behind gun violence could act in many ways that neither of the other two agencies could while not having to worry about drawing focus or manpower, from how those two agencies operate.
They could provide free firearm training courses and encourage young people to take them. Which would help with accidents.
A separate agency that can focus more on the social issues that are behind gun violence
I doubt they are going to give this agency the necessary tools to lower poverty and the wealth gap, lower the rate of single parents, increase healthcare affordability, increase housing production, and destroy the culture of degrading those who try to better themselves. These are the issues that cause people to be unhappy enough with life they chose to murder. Happy individuals with productive lives don’t generally decide murder is the correct course of action.
It hardly seems sensible for a government agency designed to prevent gun violence to then go and train people to use them.
All gun use is inherently violent.
This comment is on par with those that seek to reduce abortions by banning them. In both cases, you have absolute positions “no guns”, “no abortions” that ignore the fact that people have decided they need these things and are going to get them. Similarly, those positions ignore real, practical steps, that help address the underlying issues.
The smarter thing for reducing abortions would be free contraceptives.
The smarter thing for reducing gun violence (when it’s accidental) is absolutely what the other person here said, train people how to use them properly and safely.
If your goal is to lower deaths from cars, would it “hardly seem sensible for a government agency to train people to use them”? Training lowers accident rates.
All gun use is inherently violent.
Laughs in Olympic Match Shooting & Pentathalon.
