WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday is planning to announce the creation of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention within the White House, in an effort to advance one of his top priorities amid continued opposition by the influential gun lobby.
“We need to do so much more to address this public health epidemic of gun violence,” White House staff secretary Stefanie Feldman said Thursday.
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She added that Biden has heard from grieving families as well as young people who are demanding action to stop mass shootings all over the country.
“The president hears them, he agrees with them, and he is acting,” Feldman said.
The office will be overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris and run by Feldman, who will serve as the office’s director. Coming to the White House as deputy directors of the office are Rob Wilcox, from the Everytown for Gun Safety group, and Greg Jackson, from Community Justice Action Fund.
The office is designed to coordinate efforts across executive branch agencies to implement provisions of Biden’s 2022 gun violence legislation and has been pushed for by gun control advocates for years.
Guns have become the leading cause of death for American children, with nearly 1,300 dying from firearms so far this year. The mortality rate for childhood gun deaths in the U.S. is 70 times that in Canada, the country with the next highest rate.
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More broadly, the United States is on pace to see the largest number of people killed in mass shootings since 2006, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. As of this week, there have been at least 35 mass killings in the U.S. so far in 2023. These have killed at least 171 people, not including shooters who died.
Since taking office, Biden has urged Congress to renew a ban on assault-style weapons that lapsed under former President George W. Bush, but he was unable to push one through even when Democrats had control of both chambers during his first two years.
He was, however, able to persuade Congress to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022. Despite its modest provisions that largely centered around expanding pre-purchase background checks, it nevertheless became the most sweeping piece of firearm legislation to become law in decades.
