Two Democratic representatives on Friday asked Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council Susan Rice to appoint a gun czar to streamline the federal government’s assault on the right to keep and bear arms.
In a letter also addressed to President Joe Biden, Reps. Joe Neguse, D-Co., and Lucy McBath, D-Ga., should create a so-called Interagency Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention.
They said Biden and Rice should place a National Director of Gun Violence Prevention, the “gun czar,” at the agency’s head, according to a press release.
Dozens of Democratic House members signed onto the letter.
“Gun violence in America remains a persistent and critical threat,” Neguse said. “It’s time we get serious about addressing it. If we are not doing everything we can to ensure another Columbine, another Aurora, another Highlands Ranch, does not happen again, then we are not doing enough.”
He cited mass shooting incidents to arouse fear of firearms, but the vast-majority of gun violence occurs in the cases of suicide and gang-related conflicts, Pew Research Center reported. Suicide alone accounts for 60 percent of firearm deaths.
“Every year, nearly 40,000 people are killed with guns in our nation and another 76,000 are injured, with disproportionate shares of this violence falling on communities of color,” the letter stated. “In 2020 alone, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, at least 43,561 people needlessly lost their lives due to gun violence, a 10% increase from 2019.”
Homicide has increased dramatically in heavily black and latino communities, but that stems from a variety of factors.
These factors include the lockdowns—which caused depression, drug abuse, violence, and suicide to skyrocket—the abolition of cash bail, and the Black Lives Matter movement, which has made police officers afraid to confront black suspects who commit a plurality of the nation’s crimes.
Neguse and McBath tried to place the blame on law-abiding gun owners, who commit few crimes.
“As gun ownership soars to record levels, we fear that this violence will only continue to grow,” they wrote in the letter.
