On Thursday evening President Biden signed executive orders to address gun violence across the country. While the Democrat says the moves are significant, many are unaware new actions are being taken.
President Biden signed two executive orders. One creates the Emerging Firearms Threats Task Force and a second task force is charged with finding ways to improve active shooter drills in schools.
“Our new task force will address 3D printed firearms. This task force is also going to tackle machine gun conversion devices that illegally turn semi-automatic weapons including handguns into fully automatic machine guns,” announced President Biden. “The second part of this executive order I’m directing the members of my Cabinet to return to me within 110 days with resources and information for schools to improve active shooter drills, minimizes harm, create age-appropriate content and communicate with parents before and after these drills happen.”
The Biden Administration created the Office of Gun Violence Prevention a year ago. Office Deputy Director Rob Wilcox says the new executive orders follow other actions that are reducing gun violence.
“Last year the FBI data shows that we reduced homicides and murder at the highest rate in history, nearly 12 percent. And what we’re seeing so far this year is potentially as high as a 17 percent reduction. And so what we are doing with this executive action isn’t starting fresh at ground zero,” asserted Wilcox. “We are actually just trying to build on the progress we’ve been making during this administration that has led to these historic reductions in gun violence. And when it comes to mass shootings what the data show is that mass shootings are down 20 percent this year over last year. So we are making progress.”
Clinton County Sheriff David Favro, a Democrat, was not yet familiar with the executive orders. He noted that his officers participate in multi-agency active shooter drills at schools without students present.
“There’s been a lot of controversy over that. We had one at Peru (Central School) a few years back and the students were at the building but they were released out into the yard, almost like a temporary evacuation drill,” recalled Favro. “We don’t do our tactical responses inside the building when there are students in it for a variety of reasons. We do it generally with volunteers from our agency or other agencies that will role play. They’ll play a part of a teacher, custodian or student.”
Favro says sheriffs are debating how active shooter drills should be conducted and the impact on students.
“I know there’s been at our various annual trainings there’s been a lot of discussion over it,” Favro noted. “And some sheriff’s will say look it’s very traumatic, especially for the younger students. Other sheriffs may say that it plants ideas in heads of older students that may have some serious problems and contemplate this. And then some sheriffs say no it’s a lot easier for us to focus on the footprint, the doors, the lights and those are the things that we really need to be able to understand. So if you throw it all out at once and you have students, you have a building, it can become more of a confusing event than an organized training event. So you have to be careful where you do it and how you do it.”
NRA Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director Randy Kozuch issued a statement criticizing the new executive orders saying in part: “This Executive Order is just one more attempt by the Biden-Harris Administration to deflect attention from their soft-on-crime policies that have emboldened criminals in our country. The orders are notably heavy on election-year rhetoric and light on substance.”
Audio from President Biden’s press conference is courtesy of C-Span.
