The White House posted a recap Monday of the twenty-one executive actions President Joe Biden has taken related to guns and gun violence.
The actions include new regulations on firearms that Democrats refer to as “ghost guns,” a DOJ “proposed rule” on stabilizer braces for AR-pistols, a DOJ-designed red flag outline for state-level adoption, and an ATF rule “clarifying firearms dealers’ statutory obligations to make available for purchase compatible secure gun storage or safety devices,” among other controls.
Biden’s twenty-one gun control actions began on April 7, 2021, when he spoke from the Rose Garden just weeks after an attacker with a legally acquired firearm shot and killed ten people in a Boulder, Colorado, grocery store.
Breitbart News reported that Biden used his Rose Garden address to announce executive actions to place new restrictions on “ghost guns,” launch the DOJ push for red flag laws, recategorize AR-15 pistols (with stabilizer braces), and begin DOJ-led research into gun trafficking.
As for the red flag laws, Biden did not point out that Colorado’s red flag law took effect January 1, 2020, but failed to prevent the March 22, 2021, Boulder attack.
Nearly half of the 21 executive actions recapped by the White House deal with the distribution of funds to various programs and communities, as well as funding “to help formerly incarcerated adults and young people in 28 communities transition out of the criminal justice system and connect with quality jobs.”
Biden has made clear that he wants an “assault weapons” ban, but that desire was hedged by his admission that he lacks the authority to ban such firearms via executive action.
On December 11, 2020, Breitbart News noted that Biden told a group of civil rights leaders he wanted to “undo every damn thing [President Trump] has done by executive authority.”
However, when it came to “assault weapons” he said, “No one’s fought harder to get rid of ‘assault weapons’ than me, but you can’t do it by executive order. You do that and the next guy comes along and says, ‘Well, guess what, by executive order…everybody can own machine guns again.’”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.