President Biden on Thursday will announce his first attempts to curb gun violence by announcing a set of modest moves to revamp federal gun policy by adjusting the government’s definition of a firearm and responding more aggressively to urban gun violence.
Mr. Biden will also name David Chipman, a former special agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, on Thursday to lead the agency. Chipman, an expert on gun violence, has in recent years served as policy director for Giffords, the gun control organization founded by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was assassinated in 2011.
If confirmed, Chipman would be the agency’s first permanent director in more than six years. Due to the loaded nature of gun politics, only one ATF director has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate in the past 15 years, leading the agency mostly through a series of acting bosses.
The president will formally announce the choice on Thursday when he reveals other steps he is taking through executive actions to address gun violence. Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose department of justice has been tasked with taking more aggressive steps on gun policy in more than a decade, will join him.
The changes include a revision of the federal policy on ghost guns – handmade or self-assembled firearms that do not contain serial numbers – and the use of stabilizing wires on pistols, a change that turns the weapon into a short-range rifle.
Gun advocates are urging the president to classify ghost guns as traditional firearms, a move that requires everyone who buys them to undergo a federal background check. On Thursday, Mr. Bid the Justice Department 30 days to issue potential changes to federal rules “to help stop the proliferation of weapons,” the White House said.
Due to the handmade nature of the weapons, ghost guns can often not be detected by law enforcement because serial numbers are not required.
The Department of Justice is also given 60 days to issue a proposed rule regarding the stabilization of brackets. Attaching such a brace to a pistol makes the firearm more stable and essentially converts it into a short-range rifle subject to federal law. The White House noted that the alleged shooter in the March shooting in Boulder, Colorado, seems to use a pistol with a prop.
The Department of Justice will also be asked to draft model legislation to introduce laws at the “red flag” level. Lawmakers in both parties have been campaigning for federal and state laws for years that would temporarily ban people experiencing mental anguish or other personal crises from gaining access to firearms if law enforcement or a judge determines that they pose a danger to themselves or others.
To curb the increase in homicides nationwide, the Biden government is also asking five federal agencies to adjust more than two dozen government programs to help nationwide community violence intervention programs. The White House noted that the president’s U.S. Jobs Plan proposes to spend $ 5 billion over eight years to support state and city-based violence intervention programs.
The new plans quickly gained support from national arms control organizations on Wednesday night.
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement that the moves “will address the epidemic of gun violence that has raged throughout the pandemic and will begin to live up to Bifes’ promise to be the strongest president for gun safety. He later added that the decision to target ghost guns and “treat them like deadly weapons would undoubtedly save countless lives – as would the critical funding provided to groups focusing on city gun violence. word. ”
Organizations campaigning for stricter gun laws and Democratic lawmakers have been pushing for years for the federal government to reclassify ghost guns and force buyers to undergo background checks.
“Ghost guns are guns, too. And it’s time to close the gap,” said Democratic Congressman Adriano Espaillat, who is pushing for legislation to regulate ghost guns. tweeted on Wednesday.
The NRA, meanwhile, immediately pushed back the plans. The organization tweeted Wednesday night that the actions were ‘extreme’ and wrote ‘the NRA is ready to fight’.
“These actions could require law-abiding citizens to hand over legal property, and could pressure states to extend the seizure of weapons seizures,” the NRA tweeted.
Due to the lack of a serial number, ghost guns are becoming increasingly popular but difficult to locate, and ghost guns have been used in several shooting-related crimes in recent years.
The Biden government has been reluctant to discuss arms control in public amid the initial focus on the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic downturn. During his first formal news conference last month, the president indicated that he would not address the issue, despite the recent mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado, and that his government would focus primarily on the response of legislation to the pandemic. and its multi-trillion dollars. infrastructure plan.
His decision enabled critics to elucidate how Mr. Biden has fulfilled a striking campaign promise. Mr. Biden appeared in Nevada in February 2020 and promised to pass legislation on his first day in Congress that would repeal the protection of gun manufacturing liability and the closing of loopholes in the federal arms background control system.
Administrators have been saying for weeks that plans are still ongoing – an attitude that has not changed following the recent shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado.
Corey Rangel, Nancy Cordes, Kristin Brown and Fin Gomez contributed to this report.