(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) The Biden administration is taking measures to limit access to firearms via an executive order that will expand background checks and increase the criteria for red-flag laws.
President Biden announced the order will bring the country closer to universal background checks—without the approval of congress—and would make it a priority to hold the gun industry “accountable.” The law would also support the effort of law enforcement to apprehend shooters.
According to the Daily Wire, Biden said he is continually working to ban “assault weapons” with high-capacity magazines, “come hell or high water.”
The order tasks U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to make a plan to prevent firearm dealers whose licenses are expired to continue selling guns.
Biden also called on the Federal Trade Commission to publish reports on how they market guns to minors.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre emphasized that Biden will continue to move in a more stringent direction to combat gun violence.
“Too many lives have been taken by gun violence,” Jean-Pierre said. “You’ll hear him call on Congress to take action and not to stop … that we need to continue.”
Biden announced the order in Monterey Park, California, where a shooter took the lives of 11 and injured nine others at a Lunar New Year celebration in January.
This order follows the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which Biden signed into law last year. Legislators passed the law as an alleged preventative measure against mass shootings and expanded background checks for 18 to 21 year olds.
“Again and again, he has called for Congress to act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for all gun sales, requiring safe storage of firearms, closing the dating violence restraining order loophole, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability,” claimed a statement regarding the law.
Last summer, Democrats attempted to pass a bill banning some semi-automatic guns. Republicans fought the bill, claiming it was a “gun grab, pure and simple.”
