Executive order to expand firearms background checks signed amid ongoing challenge to pass tougher US gun laws.
President Joe Biden has signed an executive order to expand the use of background checks for firearm purchases as the United States grapples with ongoing and devastating mass shootings.
Biden underlined his commitment to further regulate guns in an announcement Tuesday before he is expected to visit the California community of Monterey Park, where a gunman stormed a dance hall and killed 11 people in January.
“Every few days in the United States, we mourn another mass shooting,” Biden said in the order.
“We cannot accept these facts as the enduring reality of life in America,” the order said. “Instead, we should all insist that we have had enough.”
The executive order aims to expand background checks and raise public awareness of so-called “red flag laws,” which are designed to keep guns out of the hands of people who engage in troubling behavior reported to police by family or friends. reported.
It also calls on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the methods gun manufacturers use to market firearms to minors and civilians, including the use of military imagery in their campaigns.
Biden’s order builds on previous legislation the president signed into law in June that included similar measures and a provision prohibiting domestic violence convicts from purchasing firearms if they are still involved with the victim.
The announcement on Tuesday called last year’s law, which followed an elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two staff members, “the most significant gun violence reduction legislation in nearly 30 years.”
However, some observers have pointed out that the legislation has not substantially reduced access to firearms in the US.
It also did not include restrictions on assault-style rifles that have been used in numerous mass shootings, which Biden has said he would like to ban.
“As he continues to call on Congress to act, President Biden will do everything he can to reduce gun violence and save lives,” the White House said in a statement describing Tuesday’s executive order.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll last year found that 84 percent of respondents supported background checks for all firearm sales and 70 percent supported red flag laws.
Some gun rights advocates oppose background checks, saying they violate the constitutional right to own guns while failing to prevent criminals from getting their hands on them. They also claim that many red flag laws flout due process rights.
Republican lawmakers are largely hostile to efforts to enact more comprehensive gun control legislation, and the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down gun laws in Democrat-controlled states like New York.
The White House appeared to recognize those challenges on Tuesday, to report that the measures in Biden’s executive order would bring the US “as close as possible to universal background checks without additional legislation.”
