What you need to know about the new federal gun violence prevention office

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

President Biden today announced the creation of the first ever federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention. It aims to curb the epidemic of firearm violence in America.

So far this year, there have been more than 500 mass shootings in this country, and some 25,000 people have died because of guns. That's roughly 118 deaths per day, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The president said that toll was far too high.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:

I determined to send a clear message about how important this issue is to me and to the country.

After every mass shooting, we hear a simple message — the same message heard all over the country, and I've been to every mass shooting: Do something.

Well, my administration has been working relentlessly to do something.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

Our White House correspondent, Laura Barrón-López, joins us now to break down what we can expect from this new office.

Hi, Laura.

LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ:

Hi.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

The number of dead from guns in America is just horrendous. What is this new office hoping, intending to do?

LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ:

This new office is going to be a central hub, essentially, for enforcement, coordination, public outreach.

As you well know, William, last year the president signed into law a bill, a bipartisan bill, that cracked down on background checks, essentially trying to enhance background checks. And so they're going to be coordinating aggressively with states to make sure that that's enforced.

There's also billions of dollars that were allocated in that bill to tackle gun violence prevention, mental health, school safety. And so a lot of the people I have spoken to, including the White House, say that this office is going to make sure that all of that is enforced and implemented, that those communities realize that there's that money there for them to use.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

And Vice President Kamala Harris is going to oversee this?

LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ:

That's correct.

So, Harris is going to oversee this. There's going to be a specific director that is also named. And they brought in two people who had worked for a long time as gun safety advocates on the legal side, as community organizers also into this office.

But Harris, the vice president, brings a lot of visibility to it that necessarily would not have been there if they had just appointed other civil servants or brought in lower-level people. And so she's — this is a part of her larger effort to really reach young voters and to show that the administration is focused on this issue.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

I mean, as you well know, gun violence prevention experts have been arguing that there needs to be a federal office like this for years.

So, why is the White House doing this now?

LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ:

The gun safety advocates that I was talking to today said that, as recently as March, the White House was not going to appoint any director of — or create this new office at all, but that they feel as though, because the election is around the corner and because of the very public campaign that they waged to get the White House to do this, that, essentially, the president, the vice president came around, because they have been talking to a lot of voters.

Now, one thing, I did speak to Po Murray of the Newtown Alliance and — executive director there — and she said that she really wants to make sure that this new office talks much more frequently to survivors of gun violence, to young people who have experienced it in some way, as well as also making sure that law enforcement is doing what they need to do to crack down on guns.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

So the White House and Democrats also think this is an electoral strategy?

LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ:

They do.

The White House very much sees guns as one of the big defining issues heading into the 2024 election cycle. And I spoke to Senator Chris Murphy today of Connecticut. As you know, that's where the Sandy Hook mass shooting took place.

And he told me that: "My party got it wrong for 20 years. After 1994, Democrats stopped talking about guns and gun laws, and that was a huge mistake. You can't win in the suburbs or the cities if you have no answers to the gun violence mass shooting epidemic."

And other sources that I spoke to told me that internal Democratic Party polling shows that guns is the second top issue for young voters right behind student debt.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

You mentioned some of this before. Where does this effort fit in with President Biden's other efforts on guns?

LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ:

There was the big crackdown on those guns, which are those kits that are sold online that don't have serial numbers or background checks.

But that regulation that is currently in place changed that. Biden pushed for that, as well as, right now, just around the corner, the Justice Department regulation is likely soon to be finalized. And what that does is expand who actually is defined as a firearms dealer. And so, in effect, once that is actually finalized, it would also expand background checks.

Now, the one thing that Democrats and a number of gun advocates still want to see from the administration is, they think there could be executive actions on changing who has oversight of the export of firearms from the Commerce Department, which is where it currently is, over to the State Department. They want to see that happen.

They also think that the Defense Department could issue a rule essentially or issue a memo essentially saying that they will only — that they only want to buy firearms from manufacturers that sell to the military and not to civilians.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

Laura Barrón-López, thank you so much.

LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ:

Thank you.