Biden to sign new executive order on guns

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

As noted repeatedly here, President Joe Biden is no fan of your right to keep and bear arms. He’s made that abundantly clear over the years and he’s done everything he can to make sure we don’t forget it since taking office.

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In fact, he’s expected to make an announcement later today regarding his plan to sign a new executive order on guns.

President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday aiming to increase the number of background checks to buy guns, promote better and more secure firearms storage and ensure U.S. law enforcement agencies are getting the most out of a bipartisan gun control law enacted last summer.

The Democratic president plans to unveil his latest efforts at curbing gun violence in a speech from Monterey Park, California, said a senior White House official, who discussed the order ahead of its signing on the condition of anonymity. In January, a gunman stormed a dance hall in the community near Los Angeles and shot 20 people, killing 11, following a Lunar New Year celebration.

Biden will mandate that his Cabinet work on a plan to better structure the government to support communities suffering from gun violence, said the senior White House official who previewed the order. The plan will call on Attorney General Merrick Garland to shore up the rules for federally licensed gun dealers so they know they are required to do background checks as part of the licens

Biden is also mandating better reporting of ballistics data from federal law enforcement for a clearinghouse that allows federal, state and local law enforcement to match shell casings to guns. But local and state law enforcement agencies are not required to report ballistics data, and many do not, making the clearinghouse less effective.

And the president is going to ask the Federal Trade Commission to issue a public report analyzing how gun manufacturers market to minors and use military images to market to the general public.

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Not mentioned here, but discussed at Forbes, is the fact that the order will include language that “will clarify existing federal laws that require background checks by anyone in the business of selling firearms, with the aim of implementing almost universal background checks ‘without additional legislation,’ the White House said.”

I honestly don’t see how that is remotely possible. The only thing that can happen, in theory, is a redefining of how many guns one can sell during the course of a year and not be considered a dealer.

Also mentioned at Forbes, but ignored by the AP, is an effort to make public FFL holders who “violate” the law, but who haven’t lost their licenses, supposedly citing transparency. The problem here is that the only people who benefit from this are anti-gun groups.

If a store still has a license, most people are going to assume any violations were minor and likely more clerical than anything else. Anti-gunners, however, lock onto these supposed violations and treat them as if these dealers are selling machine guns out of the back of the store to Cub Scouts.

That’s not happening.

What is, though, is that the Biden administration is desperately trying to look like they’re doing something, anything, to advance the gun control agenda and this is what they’ve settled on. It won’t actually help reduce violent crime–shocking, I know–and it won’t prevent mass shootings. It’ll just make things difficult for law-abiding citizens and well-intentioned gun stores.

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On that, at least, Biden maintains his consistency.

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