WASHINGTON – As Congress is unlikely to act quickly on gun legislation, the White House is moving forward with plans for a series of executive orders that President Biden hopes to launch in the coming weeks as a way to keep the pressure on the issue.
The day after Biden asked the Senate to approve the ban on assault weapons and stepped up background checks in response to a pair of mass shootings last week that left 18 dead, White House officials said on Wednesday that, while moving legislation on gun safety remained a goal, it would take time, given the Republicans’ vehement opposition.
Jen Psaki, press secretary for the White House, said the legislation was necessary to make permanent changes. But she also suggested that the executive actions under consideration could be a realistic starting point.
“There is a lot of advantage that you can obviously have as president and vice president,” she said.
For now, government officials have been reaching out to Democrats in the Senate to consult them on three executive actions. We could classify firearms as so-called ghost weapons – kits that allow a weapon to be assembled from parts. Another would fund community violence intervention programs and the third would strengthen the background check system, according to Congressional advisers familiar with the talks.
Aware that any executive actions on firearms will face legal challenges, the White House Council Office has also been examining these actions to ensure that they can withstand judicial review, officials said.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the next actions. But Biden is under pressure from arms security groups to act as quickly as possible.
“If there was one thing we learned last year, it was inaction costing lives,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization for the prevention of armed violence. “It’s not about next week, it’s not about next month, it has to be about today. It has to be immediate. “
During his campaign, Mr. Biden, a prominent supporter of the 10-year assault weapon ban in 1994, promised to enact universal background verification legislation, to ban all online sales of firearms and to ban the manufacture and sale of firearms. assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
But Biden acknowledged that he did not know what legislation would be possible, even after the recent shootings in Atlanta and Boulder. “I haven’t done any counting yet,” he said on Tuesday, when asked if he had the political capital to move forward with any weapons security measures.
With the National Rifle Association, once the most powerful lobbying organization in the country, bankrupt and spending more money on legal fees than fighting the White House or Congress, Biden could have more room for maneuver.
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Since the transition, Biden government officials have met regularly with Feinblatt and other gun control advocates to discuss what actions are possible that do not need Congressional cooperation.
The ideas they discussed include the Federal Trade Commission evaluating gun ads for security claims that are false or misleading, the Department of Education promoting interventions that prevent students from having access to firearms and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention being required to provide reliable data tracking for gunshot wounds.
They also discussed whether to declare armed violence a public health emergency – a move that would free up more funds that could be used to support community-based armed violence programs and current law enforcement.
“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has funding to inspect the average arms dealer every five years,” said Kris Brown, president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence, a nonprofit group. “We have more arms dealers than Starbucks and McDonald’s.”
Designating armed violence as a public health crisis, Brown said, would make more money available that would allow for more regular inspections. That was a proposal, she said, which was shared with Biden’s transition teams.
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“We also discussed what can be done through agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services to encourage the health community to focus on preventive measures that can stop armed violence before it starts,” said Brown.
For the time being, one of the government’s biggest impulses has been to classify “ghost weapons” as firearms. This classification would require that they be serialized and subject to background checks.
The government also discussed with Democratic senators its still fledgling plans to fund community-based violence intervention programs. How much funding is still up for debate.
During the campaign, Biden promised 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 doing proven work,” said Brown. “But they are drastically underfunded. We want an investment of US $ 5 billion in these types of violence intervention programs across the country. “
White House officials described a “robust inter-agency process” but said that the planned executive actions have not yet been completed.
While there are no plans for any impending legislative pressure on arms from a White House that is dealing with crises on multiple fronts, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris continued to describe legislative action as an imperative.
“I am not willing to give up what we must do to appeal to the hearts and minds of US Senate members,” Harris said on Wednesday in an interview with “CBS This Morning.”
“It is time for Congress to act and stop making false choices,” she said. “This is not about getting rid of the Second Amendment. It is simply a matter of saying that we need reasonable gun security laws. There is no reason to have assault weapons on the streets of a civil society. They are weapons of war. They are designed to kill many people quickly. “