President Joe Biden’s administration released details of a new executive order on Thursday aimed at targeting machine-gun conversion devices and 3D-printed firearms, as well as improving active-shooter drills in schools.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver remarks on reducing gun violence one year after Biden appointed Harris to oversee the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, the White House announced Thursday morning. It will mark the Biden-Harris administration’s latest effort to crack down on gun violence.
Thursday’s executive order, in part, tackles emerging firearms threats: machine-gun conversion devices, which can allow handguns to fire up to 20 rounds per second with a single pull of the trigger, and 3D-printed firearms without serial numbers.
Unserialized “ghost guns,” which are untraceable, have been the target of the president’s past executive actions since April 2021.
Biden will direct a task force to complete a report within 90 days that assesses the threat these weapons pose and the federal agencies’ operational and legal capacities to detect and seize them. The task force will be led by federal departments and agencies.
The newly announced executive actions come days after a mass shooting at an entertainment venue in Birmingham, Ala. Local law enforcement believe the shooters used conversion devices, which are already illegal under federal law. Police officers have reported finding these devices at crime scenes.
The order also sets out to improve school-based active-shooter drills by keeping guns away from potential school shooters and investing more federal resources in school safety and gun-violence prevention.
The Biden administration said schools have limited resources to manage active-shooter drills. Biden wants federal agencies to help schools improve their drills so that they’re less traumatic for students and students can be better prepared.
As part of the order, Biden will direct Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and other federal officials to provide information to K-12 schools and higher-education institutions about active-shooter drill research and preparations within 110 days.
Additionally, several federal departments and agencies on Thursday will promote safe gun storage and red-flag laws, fund community-violence interventions, improve the background-check system, and prevent firearm suicide, among other actions.
The White House touted in a press release that it “had already announced more executive actions to reduce gun violence than any other administration” by mid-2022. In June 2022, Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major federal gun-safety bill passed in roughly three decades.
The Office of Gun Violence Prevention’s one-year progress report cites data from the Department of Justice showing a 17-percent drop in the national homicide rate between January and June, compared to the same period last year. Moreover, the Gun Violence Archive reported that the number of mass shooting so far in 2024 has dropped by 20 percent.