White House Hosts State Lawmakers, Launching ‘Safer States Agenda’
Approximately 100 state lawmakers were invited to the White House Wednesday for the official introduction of the Biden-Harris administration’s Safer States Initiative, which reportedly outlines “key actions states should take” to “reduce gun violence.”
The White House unveiled an eight-page “Safer States Agenda,” which includes the following recommendations:
- Establish a State Office of Gun Violence Prevention
- Invest in Evidence-informed Solutions to Prevent and Respond to Gun Violence
- Strengthen Support for Survivors and Victims of Gun Violence
- Reinforce Responsible Gun Ownership
- Strengthen Gun Background Checks
- Hold the Gun Industry Accountable
Essentially, it is Joe Biden’s gun control scheme repackaged from his 2020 presidential campaign.
There is very little in the plan about holding violent criminals responsible for crimes they commit, with or without firearms. Part of the Biden-Harris proposal is aimed at funding law enforcement efforts to “hold shooters and gun traffickers accountable.”
“States should fund community policing consistent with the standards laid out in President Biden’s Executive Order on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices,” the plan says. “States should also support efforts to improve clearance rates for homicides and shootings, such as dedicated investigatory units and training on working with victims and witnesses to engender trust and cooperation between law enforcement and these populations.”
The plan Biden-Harris plan says the administration “can assist states to build and strengthen Crime Gun Intelligence Centers that improve crime gun ballistic information collection, crime gun tracing, and other intelligence gathering to help generate leads, connect guns with multiple crime scenes, and identify gun trafficking channels.” The administration has announced $334 million in grant funding for law enforcement agencies “and expanded the Local Law Enforcement Crime Gun Intelligence Center Integration Initiative to help state and local governments use data and technology to reduce gun crime and illegal gun use,” the Safer States Agenda says.
However, the Biden-Harris plan wants to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a federal law signed by former President George W. Bush that protects gun manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers from junk lawsuits designed to bankrupt the industry.
According to ABC News, gun control “figures heavily into Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, which hopes to reach younger voters who are deeply concerned about gun violence.”
The network is also reporting that the Justice Department (DOJ) “came up with model legislation that state lawmakers can take back to their legislatures on safe storage of weapons and on reporting lost and stolen firearms.”
There have been “at least 42 mass killings” in the U.S. this year, according to a database kept by USA Today and the Associated Press. This contrasts greatly with the oft-quoted 636 mass shootings posted by the Gun Violence Archive, a number which appears to be used by the establishment media to reinforce the notion of a so-called “gun violence epidemic.” The Gun Violence Archive does list 39 “mass killings” on its website.
- Provide states with safe storage model legislation;
- Provide states with model for reporting lost or stolen firearms “in an effort to assist law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting crimes.”
Politico lamented, “While President Joe Biden has signed a slew of executive orders to date, the administration’s latest effort encourages state-level policy changes — a response, in part, to inaction from Congress and increasingly protective rulings on gun possession and ownership from the courts. Many gun safety experts see more appetite for policy changes at the state level in the near term.”
All of this comes just a few weeks before state legislatures convene in early- to mid-January, where a new string of gun control efforts, primarily launched by Democrats, is anticipated. Many of those efforts will likely utilize information in the “Safer States Agenda.”