Biden to Create New Office of Gun Violence Prevention

President Biden on Friday will create a new office for gun violence prevention, an escalation of the administration’s efforts to tackle the issue, according to the Washington Post.

Biden and Vice President Harris are scheduled to announce the new office at an event in the White House Rose Garden on Friday afternoon, the people said.

Those who are expected to have key roles in the office include Greg Jackson, a gun violence survivor who is the executive director of the Community Justice Action Fund, and Rob Wilcox, the senior director for federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety,

The new office will report up through Stefanie Feldman, the White House staff secretary and a longtime Biden policy aide who has worked on the firearms issue for years. Feldman oversees the gun policy portfolio at the White House.

“The creation of a single point of leadership on gun violence in the administration, it’s a very big deal for the movement,” Shannon Watts, the founder emerita of Moms Demand Action, a group working to stop gun violence.

“For years, we’ve advocated for a centralized team responsible for coordinating federal and state resources and mobilizing movement partners,” she added. “It would be a significant turning point for the movement.”

So far in 2023, there have been 504 mass shootings in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are killed or injured.

Biden has long advocated for stricter firearms measures. He played a key role in passing the 1994 assault weapons ban, and he became President Barack Obama’s point person on guns after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

As a candidate, Biden promised to take action, citing the assault weapons ban, a 10-year measure that expired in 2004, as evidence of his ability to overcome the National Rifle Association’s opposition.

In June 2022, congress, for the first time in nearly 30 years, passed major gun legislation. The bipartisan law

• Expanded background checks for some gun buyers
• Barred a larger group of domestic violence offenders from purchasing firearms
• Provided millions of dollars for mental health services and school security initiatives.

Since then, the president has repeatedly called for sweeping changes to the country’s gun laws, including banning assault weapons and limiting high-capacity magazines.