Biden’s Plan for Stricter Gun Control
Let’s start with the facts. There are more guns than people in this country — 393 million guns for about 330 million people. And yet there is very little control over gun ownership and usage despite this enormous number.
Although the FBI does oversee the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which searches for previous criminal records of anyone buying a gun, people who sell firearms are not mandated to use this system. In addition, if a background check on someone purchasing a gun is not completed within just three business days, that person can go right ahead and purchase their gun.
Or people can bypass the whole system by purchasing “ghost guns” that can be assembled from parts purchased over the internet. All of these shortages in regulation culminate in over 36,000 American deaths — 1,500 of which are children — and about 100,000 injuries each year all due to gun violence.
Strong leadership from the Executive Branch is necessary if we want to fix this problem. Instead, we have Donald Trump. Our president has done absolutely nothing to eradicate this disastrous situation, and, if anything, has only worsened the problem.
First off, Trump repealed a rule that mandates that the Social Security Administration send records about gun buyers with a mental illness to the federal background check system. He also worked with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to change the definition of a fugitive so that the term only applies to a criminal who crosses state borders to avoid trial. This enabled many more people on the run from the law to pass background checks.
The president even accepted a $30 million donation toward his campaign from the National Rifle Association (NRA), a lobbyist organization focused on increasing civilian gun ownership.
Following the horrific 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Trump made an empty promise to increase background checks. He then turned around and struck down two 2019 progressive bills from House Democrats that would enforce background checks in more places than just gun stores, exposing his blatant hypocrisy.
Earlier this year, he tweeted on social media that the Second Amendment rights of Virginians were under attack after the Democratic state legislature proposed foundational gun laws. Republicans have staunchly opposed these laws which would, among other things, require background checks for all guns. Given the abundant evidence, Donald Trump is clearly more concerned about pandering to public sentiment without offending his donors from the NRA than saving the lives of the people he took an oath to protect.
As a nation, we have the ability to drastically reduce deaths from gun violence, but this power for change will go on unused if Donald Trump gets reelected: four more years of Trump means four more years of thousands of preventable deaths.
Joe Biden’s goal as president is to use technology and the power of the Executive Branch to clean up this mess. He will immediately undo what Trump did to relax gun laws. He will then go further with legislation, increasing the required waiting period for background check completion from three days to ten days, declaring selling guns to someone unable to pass a background check a federal offense, mandating that local governments be notified if somebody fails a background check, banning the sale of assault weapons in the US and the importation of
them from elsewhere while also creating a program to buy back assault weapons already in circulation.
The former Vice President will also require that anyone buying gun parts from the internet go through a background check, thus putting an end to the “ghost gun” epidemic. Biden will then fund a $900 million program focused on so-called “intervention strategies,” which have been proven to curb gun violence in communities who suffer from it, particularly in communities of color.
One of these intervention strategies includes initiatives for community leaders to connect people prone to gun violence with social services. These intervention strategies are just a few of the many ways that Joe will use federal dollars to curb gun violence. Finally, Joe Biden will repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) which protects gun manufacturers from lawsuits that hold them liable for gun violence.
In sum, it all boils down to a simple question: will we choose a president who prioritizes the safety of American citizens, or a reality television star who could care less?
