President Joe Biden signs executive orders on the economy in the State Dining Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 22, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The Las Vegas Sun has published an editorial declaring that it’s a moral imperative for President Biden to take swift action on what they phrase as “gun safety.” Now. Why? Simple…because Americans own so many guns!
From the Las Vegas Sun:
According to one widely quoted analysis, the United States military possesses about 4.5 million firearms.
Last year, U.S. civilians purchased nearly that many guns — in a two-month span.
It happened in June and July during the Black Lives Matter protests, when gun sales totaled 4.38 million.
So, how should this look? Well, apparently we’re entrusting “gun safety” to Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown…because what could possibly go wrong?
But according to the leading advocacy organization Everytown for Gun Safety, there are also executive actions he can and should take right away. Among them:
Improving the background-check safety net. Although it would require congressional action to implement universal background checks, Biden can make improvements on his own. For instance, he could order the FBI to alert state and local law enforcement when background checks from their jurisdiction are denied, and directing federal officials to expand the background check system to cover component parts and kits that are used to create untraceable “ghost” guns.
Directing the Department of Justice to increase the monitoring of far-right extremist organizations and aggressively prosecute any crimes involving those groups with an eye toward disarming them.
Developing suicide awareness campaigns aimed at students and veterans, and fostering policies that allow officials to temporarily seize weapons from individuals in crisis.
These executive orders — and I’d wager Biden won’t stop there — will be rife with vague language and loopholes you could drive LVMPD BearCat through. Nevada-based Polymer80 can tell you what happens with component parts and kits, even when said parts are legally made and sold. SlideFire can tell you how a single legal firearms accessory can be demonized as responsible for every scrap of insanity out there.
As for suicide awareness that’s a topic that’s actually hard to push in the gun world. In some avenues people are ready to listen and in others they prefer to turn a blind eye (the blind eye remains the most common reaction). But should the government get involved (because they improve everything they touch)? Should due-process-free red flag laws run proliferate? Absolutely not. You can fight me on that one.
The Sun’s editorial ended with these deep thoughts:
Coming off a year of record sales — which is saying something, given that the U.S. went into 2020 already the most heavily armed nation on the planet — the number of guns is going nowhere but up. And as the stockpile grows, it’s critical to bolster our safety net accordingly.
“The most heavily armed nation on the planet.” I like the sound of that.
What executive orders do you expect Biden to issue as early as this coming week?