President Joe Biden claimed gun violence costs the country $280 billion per year as he rolled out a slew of executive actions pertaining to firearms.
“Gun violence in America … [is] estimated to cost the nation $280 billion a year,” Biden said during a Thursday White House Rose Garden address.
Moms Demand Action, a gun-control group, said on Twitter that the president was referencing one of its reports in which the group generated the massive figure from “immediate costs starting at the time of an incident; subsequent costs such as treatment, long-term physical and mental health care, forgone earnings, criminal justice costs; and cost estimates of quality-of-life lost over a victim’s lifespan.”
To combat the violence, Biden expressed a willingness to regulate so-called “ghost guns,” homemade firearms without serial numbers, and reclassify rifle-style pistols under the National Firearms Act, a move that would likely make the sale and transfer of the guns in question more difficult. The NFA tightly regulates short-barreled rifles, which are long guns with a barrel length shorter than 16 inches.
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In order to buy one, a person must register that firearm with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and pay a $200 tax. Gun manufacturers, for years, have been selling guns that have barrel lengths shorter than 16 inches but are equipped with pistol braces, which allow a shooter to stabilize his or her arm while firing, making the gun a handgun in the eyes of the ATF. This helps to avoid the registration hassle and fee to obtain a similar firearm.
Citing gun fatality statistics, including that 106 people die every day in the United States after being shot by a firearm, Biden described gun violence as a “public health crisis” and “an epidemic.”
The president vowed to institute more comprehensive red flag laws, which allow local law enforcement officers to seize guns from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, and announced the appointment of a new director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, David Chipman, a former ATF agent and senior policy adviser to the gun-control group, Giffords.
The Gun Owners of America, one of the largest pro-Second Amendment groups in the country, slammed Biden’s potential moves on guns and vowed legal action if they come to fruition.
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“After sitting on his hands for more than a year while rioters destroyed American cities, Joe Biden is now blaming innocent gun owners for the destructive acts of criminals,” GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt told the Washington Examiner. “Biden’s press statement references the ‘historic spike in homicides’ as justification for his executive actions. But all he can offer are failed gun control restrictions that never make anyone safer, and only violate the constitutional rights of American citizens. Gun Owners of America will challenge the Biden administration at every step, including legal action if these regulations go into effect.”
