Specifically, he will need executive powers to:
Require background checks for all gun sales.
Today, an estimated 1 in 5 firearms are sold or transferred without a background check.
President-elect Biden will enact universal background check legislation, requiring a comprehensive background check for all gun sales with very limited exceptions, such as gifts between close family members.
This will close the so-called “gun show and online sales loophole” that the Obama-Biden Administration narrowed, but which cannot be fully closed by executive action alone.
Close other loopholes in the federal background check system.
In addition to closing the “boyfriend loophole” highlighted below, President-elect Biden will reinstate the Obama-Biden policy to keep guns out of the hands of certain people unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons, which
Trump reversed.
In 2016, the Obama-Biden Administration finalized a rule to make sure the Social Security Administration (SSA) sends to the background check system records that it holds of individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms because they have been adjudicated by the SSA as unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons.
But one of the first actions Donald Trump took as president was to reverse this rule. President Biden will enact legislation to codify this policy.
Close the “hate crime loophole.”
President-elect Biden will prohibit an individual who has been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, or received an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias in its commission from purchasing or possessing a firearm.
Close the “Charleston loophole.”
The Charleston loophole allows people to complete a firearms purchase if their background check is not completed within three business days.
President-elect Biden supports the proposal in the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019, which extends the timeline from three to 10 business days.
President-elect Biden will also direct the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to put on his desk within his first 100 days as president a report detailing the cases in which background checks are not completed within 10 business days and steps the federal government can take to reduce or eliminate this occurrence.
Close the “fugitive from justice” loophole created by the Trump Administration.
Because of actions by the Trump Administration, records of almost 500,000 fugitives from justice who are prohibited from purchasing firearms were deleted from the background check system.
The Biden-Harris Administration will restore these records, and enact legislation to make clear that certain people facing arrest warrants are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms.
End the online sale of firearms and ammunition.
President-elect Biden will prohibit all online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts.
Create an effective program to ensure individuals who become prohibited from possessing firearms relinquish their weapons.
Federal law defines categories of individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms, and the federal background check system is an effective tool for ensuring prohibited persons cannot purchase firearms. But we lack any serious tool to ensure that when someone becomes newly prohibited – for example, because they commit a violent crime – they relinquish possession of their firearms.
There are some promising models for how this could be enforced.
For example, California has a mandatory process for ensuring relinquishment by any individual newly subject to a domestic violence restraining order.
As president, President-elect Biden will direct the FBI and ATF to outline a model relinquishment process, enact any necessary legislation to ensure relinquishment when individuals newly fall under one of the federal prohibitions, and then provide technical and financial assistance to state and local governments to establish effective relinquishment processes on their own.
Incentivize state “extreme risk” laws.
Extreme risk laws, also called “red flag” laws, enable law enforcement officials to remove an individual’s access to firearms when that individual is in crisis and poses a danger to themselves or others.
President-elect Biden will incentivize the adoption of these laws by giving states funds to implement them.
President-elect Biden will direct the U.S. Department of Justice to issue best practices and offer technical assistance to states interested in enacting an extreme risk law.
Give states incentives to set up gun licensing programs.
President-elect Biden will give states and local governments grants to require individuals to obtain a license prior to purchasing a gun.
Adequately fund the background check system.
President Obama and Vice President Biden expanded incentives for states to submit records of prohibited persons into the background checks system.
As president, President-elect Biden will continue to prioritize that funding and ensure that the FBI is adequately funded to accurately and efficiently handle the NICS system.
ADDRESSING THE DEADLY COMBINATION OF GUNS AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
The statistics tell a devastating and overwhelming story.
The likelihood that a woman in a domestic violence situation will be killed increases by a factor of five if a gun is nearby.
Half of mass shootings involve an individual shooting a family member or former intimate partner.
This deadly connection tragically impacts children as well: 86% of children killed in shootings with four or more victims were involved in domestic or family violence.
President-elect Biden recognizes that the gun violence and domestic violence epidemics are linked and cannot be solved in isolation. Addressing the interconnections of these challenges will be a core focus of Biden’s anti-violence work as president.
The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019, which Leader McConnell refused to bring to the floor for a vote, includes a number of reforms to keep firearms out of the hands of abusers.
President-elect Biden will enact legislation to close the so-called “boyfriend loophole” and “stalking loophole” by prohibiting all individuals convicted of assault, battery, or stalking from purchasing or possessing firearms, regardless of their connection to the victim.
This proposal is modeled after existing laws in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Nevada, New York, and Pennsylvania.
President-elect Biden also supports enacting the proposal to prohibit anyone under a temporary restraining order from purchasing or possessing a firearm before their hearing.
In addition, President Biden will:
Establish a new Task Force on Online Harassment and Abuse to focus on the connection between mass shootings, online harassment, extremism, and violence against women.
As President, Joe Biden will convene a national Task Force with federal agencies, state leaders, advocates, law enforcement, and technology experts to study rampant online sexual harassment, stalking, and threats, including revenge porn and deepfakes — and the connection between this harassment, mass shootings, extremism and violence against women.
The Task Force will be charged with developing cutting-edge strategies and recommendations for how federal and state governments, social media companies, schools, and other public and private entities can tackle this unique challenge.
The Task Force will consider platform accountability, transparent reporting requirements for incidents of harassment and response, and best practices.
Expand the use of evidence-based lethality assessments by law enforcement in cases of domestic violence.
Lethality assessments, sometimes called “risk” or “danger” assessments, are a proven strategy to help law enforcement officers identify domestic violence survivors who are at high risk of being killed by their abusers.
These survivors are then connected with social service programs that can offer services and safety planning.
An evaluation of the Lethality Assessment Program (LEP) created by the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence showed promising results. Increased federal funding will incentivize jurisdictions to take advantage of implementing these programs more widely.
President-elect Biden will empower law enforcement to effectively enforce gun laws.
President-elect Biden will prioritize prosecution of straw purchasers.
“Straw purchasers” buy a firearm on behalf of an individual who cannot pass a background check.
President-elect Biden will Biden will end those loopholes by enacting a law to make all straw purchases a serious federal crime and ensure the U.S. Justice Department has sufficient resources to prioritize their prosecution.
Notify law enforcement when a potential firearms purchaser fails a background check.
Too often, when prohibited persons attempting to buy a firearm fail a background check, state and local law enforcement is never informed of the attempt.
As president, Joe Biden will direct the FBI to set up a process to ensure timely notification of denials to state and local law enforcement, and he’ll support legislation to codify this process.
This empowers law enforcement to follow up and ensure prohibited persons do not attempt to acquire firearms through other means.
Stop “ghost guns.”
One way people who cannot legally obtain a gun may gain access to a weapon is by assembling a one on their own, either by buying a kit of disassembled gun parts or 3D printing a working firearm. Biden will stop the proliferation of these so-called “ghost guns” by passing legislation requiring that purchasers of gun kits or 3D printing code pass a federal background check.
Additionally, President-elect Biden will ensure that the authority for firearms exports stays with the State Department.
This will ensure the State Department continues to block the code used to 3D print firearms from being made available on the Internet.
Reform, fund, and empower the U.S. Justice Department to enforce gun laws.
President-elect Biden will Biden will direct his Attorney General to deliver to him within his first 100 days a set of recommendations for restructuring the ATF and related Justice Department agencies to most effectively enforce gun laws.
President-elect Biden will then work to secure sufficient funds for the Justice Department to effectively enforce our existing gun laws, increase the frequency of inspections of firearms dealers, and repeal riders that get in the way of that work.
Direct the ATF to issue an annual report on firearms trafficking.
This report will provide officials with critical information to better identify strategies for curbing firearms trafficking.
TACKLE GUN VIOLENCE WITH TARGETED, EVIDENCE-BASED COMMUNITY INTERVENTIONS
Daily acts of gun violence in our urban communities may not make national headlines, but are just as devastating to survivors and victims’ families as gun violence that does make the front page. And, these daily acts of gun violence disproportionately impact communities of color.
But there is reason to be optimistic.
There are proven strategies for reducing gun violence in urban communities without turning to incarceration.
For example, Group Violence Intervention organizes community leaders to work with individuals most likely to commit acts of gun violence, express the community’s demand that the gun violence stop, and connect individuals who may be likely perpetrators with social and economic support services that may deter violent behavior.
These types of interventions have reduced homicides by as much as 60%.
Hospital-Based Violence Intervention engages young people who have been injured by gun violence while they are still in the hospital, connecting them to social and economic services that may decrease the likelihood they engage in or are victims of gun violence in the future.
President-elect Biden will create a $900 million, eight-year initiative to fund these and other types of evidence-based interventions in 40 cities across the country – the 20 cities with the highest number of homicides, and 20 cities with the highest number of homicides per capita. This proposal is estimated to save more than 12,000 lives over the eight-year program.
Dedicate the brightest scientific minds to solving the gun violence public health epidemic.
In 2013, President Obama issued a memorandum clarifying that a longstanding appropriations rider that prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal scientific agencies from using federal dollars to “advocate or promote gun control” does not prohibit those agencies from researching the causes and prevention of gun violence.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) subsequently embarked on funding some of this research, though Republican leadership in Congress refused to appropriate any funds to the CDC for this work.
President-elect Biden will call for Congress to appropriate $50 million to accelerate this research at the CDC and NIH.
Prohibit the use of federal funds to arm or train educators to discharge firearms.
We should be passing rational gun laws, not requiring educators who already have too much on their plates to also protect the safety of their students.
President-elect Biden supports barring states from using federal dollars to arm or train educators to discharge firearms.
Address the epidemic of suicides by firearms.
President-elect Biden believes any plan to address the gun violence epidemic must address suicides by firearms, which account for 6 in 10 gun-related deaths but are often left out of the conversation.
Many of the policies noted above – including safe storage requirements and extreme risk protection orders – will have a serious impact on efforts to reduce gun violence.
But there’s so much more we need to do to support people experiencing suicidal ideation.
In the months ahead, President Biden will put forward a comprehensive plan.
https://buildbackbetter.gov
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