With less than four months to go before the end of his term, President Joe Biden announced several actions to help reduce gun violence during an emotional speech at the White House Thursday.
In addition to issuing an executive order that establishes a federal task force on emerging firearms threats and directs his cabinet to reduce the trauma of active shooter drills in schools, Biden announced millions in new funding for crisis intervention.
“I never thought I’d have to sign something like this, but we do,” Biden said as he signed the order, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris, shooting survivor and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords and other officials.
The new task force will address 3D-printed firearms that can’t be detected by magnetometers and lack a serial number, as well as machine gun conversion devices that turn semiautomatic weapons into fully automatic machine guns that can fire 20 bullets in two seconds.
He said the weapons, while already illegal under federal law, can be made on a 3D printer for just 40 cents in less than 30 minutes and sold for as little as $20. Police said this week they believe that a machine gun conversion device was used in a mass shooting over the weekend in Birmingham, Ala., that killed four people and injured another 18.
Biden said the task force needs to report to him within 90 days with a risk assessment on its strategy to address the emerging firearm threats.
The executive order also calls on Biden’s Cabinet to report to him in 110 days on ways to improve active shooter drills in schools that are age appropriate, minimize harm and inform parents before and after they are happening.
“The lack of guidance today on how to prepare students while minimizing the trauma of active shooter drills is unacceptable,” he said. “We can do better.”
Almost 25% of U.S. teachers said their school went into a gun-related lockdown in 2023, according to the Pew Research Center. About 20% of Americans have a family member who was killed because of gun violence.
Almost 43,000 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S. in 2023, the majority of them from suicides and homicides.
The Biden-Harris administration in 2022 passed the first major federal gun safety bill in almost 30 years. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act established enhanced background checks for firearms buyers under the age of 21 and federal criminal offenses for firearms purchased on behalf of another individual, among other safeguards.
Since taking office, the Biden-Harris administration has stopped almost 30,000 gun sales to convicted domestic abusers and invested $1 billion to hire mental health counselors in public schools across the country, according to the White House.
On Thursday, President Biden said he was awarding $135 million to 48 states for crisis intervention and another $85 million to 30 community violence intervention programs.
Saying, it was “almost unbelievable” and “sick” that guns are the No. 1 killer of children in the United States, Biden called for an end to immunity for the gun industry, which is the only industry in the country exempt by law from being investigated.
“End it, end it, end it,” the President said, adding that he plans to continue fighting to end gun industry immunity even after he is out of office. “Never was the second amendment meant to be absolute.”