Despite the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 saw more gun deaths in the US than any year in over two decades, showing even a pandemic couldn’t stop the violence. The Washington Post reports 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades. So far, 2021 is worse.
Gun violence is the uniquely American epidemic within the global coronavirus pandemic. No place else on Earth experiences gun violence like the United States.
The Sedition Party, which encouraged domestic terrorist groups to act as “Trump militias” and engage in a violent armed insurrection to overthrow the U.S. government on January 6, injuring over 140 Capitol police officers resulting in the death of one, now want to return to the GQP’s decades-long racist dog whistle of “tough on crime” and “law and order” for the 2022 midterm elections. Let’s start with the insurrectionists and domestic terrorists groups first.
This comes at the same time that Republican controlled states ignore the rise in gun violence and make it easier to own guns, because “freedom!” Texans can carry handguns without a license or training starting Sept. 1, after Gov. Greg Abbott signs permitless carry bill into law: Texans can carry handguns without a license or training starting Sept. 1, after Gov. Greg Abbott [last] Wednesday signed the permitless carry bill into law.
Gov. Abbott signed the bill just days after 14 people were injured (and one died) in a mass shooting in downtown Austin, Texas, and two other mass shootings in Dallas and Houston, Texas in the month of June. See the Gun Violence Archive. Another mass shooting occurred in Dallas after the bill signing, on June 20.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden took action that he can take while waiting on a deadlocked Congress to step up and take action.
The Associated Press reports, Biden targets law-breaking gun dealers in anti-crime plan:
President Joe Biden announced new efforts Wednesday to stem a rising national tide of violent crime, declaring the federal government is “taking on the bad actors doing bad things to our communities.” But questions persist about how effective the efforts can be in what could be a turbulent summer.
Note: For perspective, FBI crime statistics show the violent crime rate had been dramatically falling for years. The uptick during the coronavirus pandemic is nowhere near the extreme levels of violence that existed in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Crime rates have risen after plummeting during the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic, creating economic hardship and anxiety. Biden’s plan focuses on providing money to cities that need more police, offering community support and most of all cracking down on gun violence and those supplying illegal firearms.
“These merchants of death are breaking the law for profit,” Biden said. “If you willfully sell a gun to someone who’s prohibited, my message to you is this: We’ll find you and we’ll seek your license to sell guns. We’ll make sure you can’t sell death and mayhem on our streets.”
But there are also tricky politics at play, and Biden’s plan shows how few options the Democratic president has on the issue.
The steps he outlined are aimed at going hard after gun dealers who break federal law and establishing strike forces in several cities to help stop weapons trafficking. He also said he would seek more money for the agency that tracks the nation’s guns.
The Gun Violence Issue Lab (Brady Campaign & Brady Center) reports The Truth About Gun Dealers In America: Stopping The Small Number of “Bad Apples” That supply Virtually Every Crime Gun InThe U.S.:
How is it so easy for dangerous people to get guns? Where do all of these guns come from? It turns out that virtually all crime guns come from a relatively small number of gun dealers that we call “bad apple” gun dealers. Just 5 percent of gun dealers in the U.S. sell 90 percent of crime guns, and they often do it with business practices that they know are irresponsible or even illegal. “Bad apple” dealers not only supply almost the entire U.S. criminal market with its guns, they give a bad name to the 86 percent of dealers who sell no crime guns in a given year.
The Giffords Law Center adds, Trafficking & Straw Purchasing:
Due to inconsistent regulation that varies widely from state to state, guns move far too easily from states with weak gun laws into states with strong gun laws. Gun trafficking is the process by which guns enter the black market and end up being used in crimes, while straw purchasing is a tactic where a person buys a gun on behalf of someone else, who is usually ineligible to purchase it. There is currently no federal anti-trafficking law, allowing criminals to exploit weaknesses in the system and flood communities with illegal guns.
Why is federal enforcement of background checks by gun dealers so important? Background checks blocked a record high 300,000 gun sales:
The number of people stopped from buying guns through the U.S. background check system hit an all-time high of more than 300,000 last year amid a surge of firearm sales, according to new records obtained by the group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The FBI numbers provided to The Associated Press show the background checks blocked nearly twice as many gun sales in 2020 as in the year before. About 42% of those denials were because the would-be buyers had felony convictions on their records.
The increase in blocked gun sales largely tracks with the record-setting surge in sales that took hold along with the coronavirus pandemic and has continued into this year[.]
It comes as Congress has failed to pass major legislation on guns despite the Democratic majority and President Joe Biden’s push. A bill that would strengthen background checks is stalled in the Senate. The House in March passed the legislation requiring the checks on all sales and transfers, as well as an expanded 10-day review for gun purchases. Most states require background checks only for sales at federally licensed dealers. But the legislation faces an uphill battle getting any Republican support in the Senate.
The AP continues:
But the rest of Biden’s new strategy boils down mostly to suggestions for beleaguered localities. He’s encouraging cities to invest some of their COVID-19 relief funds into policing and pushing alternative crime reduction steps such as increased community support and summer jobs for teenagers — often both targets and perpetrators of violence.
But it’s voluntary.
The president has been clear that he is opposed to the “defund the police” movement, which has been effectively used against other Democrats to cast them as anti-law enforcement.
“This is not a time to turn our backs on law enforcement,” said Biden, who noted that “crime historically rises during the summer, and as we emerge from this pandemic the traditional summer spike may be even more pronounced than it usually would be.”
But he’s also is trying to boost progressives’ efforts to reform policing, following a year of demonstrations and public anguish sparked by the killing by police of George Floyd and other Black people across the country. While combating crime and overhauling the police don’t have to be at odds, the two efforts are increasingly billed that way.
UPDATE: Politico reports, “Lawmakers negotiating a deal on police reform have punted an end-of-June deadline and plan to keep talking over the Senate’s recess, according to a source familiar with the situation.” Lawmakers punt deadline for policing talks: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the lead Senate Republican negotiator, said Thursday he hoped “in the next few hours we’ll come to a conclusion where we are comfortable, or not.”
Biden will try to do both at once. But Republicans quickly tried to portray his measures as government overreach and linked them to efforts to rein in policing.
Biden announced a “zero tolerance” policy that would give no leeway to gun dealers who fail to comply with federal law — their licenses to sell would be revoked on a first offense.
The president has already announced a half-dozen executive actions on gun control, including going after “ghost guns,” homemade firearms that lack serial numbers for tracking and often are purchased without background checks.
A number of anti-crime and gun safety groups, including the Brady Campaign and Everytown for Gun Safety, applauded the administration’s efforts.
“The president is helping start a much-needed conversation about reducing violent crime. A greater investment in community interventions will help take a bite out of violent crime,” said Paul DelPonte, head of the National Crime Prevention Council. “Strategies that increase public engagement in public safety are proven crime stoppers. Putting more police officers who are trained and certified in crime prevention on the streets of our communities makes sense.”
Legislation to expand background checks has so far stalled in the Senate after the House passed it in March, even though Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed then that the Senate would hold a vote on the bill.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy has been negotiating for weeks with individual Republicans to see if there is legislation that could win enough votes for passage. One option is to narrow the scope of the House bill and expand background checks only to commercial sales like gun shows. Most Republicans oppose regulating private sales between individuals, as the House bill would do, but some have said they would support tougher regulation of gun shows.
Biden will seek increased transparency on gun data and better coordination among states, and he will push Congress for more money for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the agency responsible for enforcing federal gun laws and regulating gun dealers. The Justice Department is also launching strike forces in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., to help take down illegal gun traffickers.
Police officials have said they are struggling with increasing crime and continued tensions between police and communities; some say their calls for support aren’t answered as they take the blame for the spike. Biden noted that $350 billion of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package can be used by cities to hire law enforcement officers, pay overtime, prosecute gun traffickers and invest in technology to make law enforcement more efficient.
While crime is rising — homicides and shootings are up from the same period last year in Chicago; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Portland, Oregon; Baltimore; Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Houston — violent crime overall remains lower than it was a decade ago or even five years ago. Most violent crimes plummeted during the first six months of the coronavirus pandemic, as people stayed indoors and away from others, then started creeping up last summer.
It all comes against the backdrop of the national debate on policing and racism — and as a police reform bill is being crafted in Congress.
And Senate Republicans blocking any reasonable solutions with Mitch McConnell’s policy of total obstruction.
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