Gun control's jubilation over Biden's new Office of Gun Violence Prevention reeks of hypocrisy
Gun control activists who have been angered by President Joe Biden’s inaction that he hasn’t done more to “combat gun violence” have forced the president’s hand. Their disappointment with the administration has often spilled over into public media reports.
The president is so desperate to generate some kind of excitement that he caved to their demands and during a White House Rose Garden gun control speech announced the creation of a new federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention. It’s something one of the president’s key voting constituencies has demanded since he first took office.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who seems to be “failing up” in Washington, D.C., has been tapped to lead the office. She’s been criticized as being mostly ineffective during her time as Veep, most notoriously so for her dismal record while “in charge” of securing the southern border.
In addition, several longtime gun control groups – including Everytown of Gun Safety – have garnered key leadership positions in the office. The hypocrisy of the gun control movement’s enthusiasm for the new federal office so closely aligned with the White House is not lost.
They were singing a different tune 20 years ago.
Vice President Harris' announcement
President Biden and Vice President Harris were joined by U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and dozens of gun control activists and attendees at the White House for their announcement. Exclusive speech excerpts were unsurprisingly given to a supportive mainstream media ahead of time.
Today, the president remarked, “I created by executive order, I’m determined to send a clear message about how important this issue is to me and to the country.” That’s in stark contrast to previous comments the president made, declaring earlier this year, “I have gone the full extent of my executive authority to do, on my own, anything about guns.”
Vice President Harris added, unironically, “President Biden and I believe in the Second Amendment but we also know common sense solutions are at hand.” She said, “The new Office of Gun Violence Prevention will play a critical role in implementing President Biden’s and my efforts to reduce violence to the fullest extent under the law, while also engaging and encouraging Congressional leaders, state and local leaders, and advocates to come together to build upon the meaningful progress that we have made to save lives.”
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, also chimed in. “If this announcement is, in fact, the creation of a single point of leadership on gun violence in the administration, it’s a very big deal for the movement,” Watts said.
Officials at March For Our Lives also praised the president’s announcement, taking credit for their pressure campaign. “We’ve called for this office for so many years because we know it will be a critical tool in our toolbox to end gun violence.”
Various gun control legislators like U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) have even pushed for the creation of the office within the Department of Justice. They disregard the fact that a federal agency within the DOJ charged with enforcing laws passed by Congress related to firearms and regulating the firearm industry already exists – it’s called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Skeptical media reported the president’s “new Office of Gun Violence Prevention will do nothing to save lives.” There was no talk of holding criminals accountable or replacing soft-on-crime prosecutors. The announcement is also being widely viewed as window dressing, as Pres. Biden’s longtime domestic policy advisor — which one would assume includes the president’s gun control agenda — has been tapped as the office’s director. Following his disastrous nomination for director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and subsequent withdrawal from consideration, it was rumored that gun control lobbyist for Everytown and Giffords David Chipman could likely lead such a federal office, though that never came to be either.
Different political party, different message
In 2000, when then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush was the Republican nominee for president, gun control groups caught wind of a leaked off-handed comment by a high-ranking leader at a prominent pro-Second Amendment group.
“If we win, we’ll have a president where we work out of their office – unbelievably friendly relations,” the National Rifle Association’s Kayne Robinson remarked to at a closed-door meeting.
Gun control groups went bonkers. The Washington Post reported, “Gun control groups say Bush has rarely strayed from NRA orthodoxy” and that the president has “for years aggressively promoted its political platform.”
Handgun Control, Inc. — the forerunner organization of Brady United Against Gun Violence — immediately went to work and featured Robinson’s comments in a nationwide television attack ad campaign.
At the time of the incident, The Guardian reported then-Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic nominee facing Gov. Bush in the election, intended to make the remarks and gun control “a central issue of his campaign.”
At the heights of the campaign, firearm manufacturers were facing numerous frivolous lawsuits brought by city and county governments seeking to blame law-abiding gun makers for the criminal misuse of lawfully sold firearms committed by criminals.
Rolling Stone reported the comment was used as an attack line against Gov. Bush that he “was forced to declare that, no, the NRA would not operate out of the Oval Office.”
Fast forward two decades and Pres. Biden and the same early gun control proponents of yore are openly celebrating the announcement, that Yes, there will be an official federal office, and Yes, it will openly and proudly coordinate with the most activist gun control organizations in the country. The White House itself, as reported by POLITICO, announced Community Justice Action Fund’s Greg Jackson and Everytown for Gun Safety’s Rob Wilcox, senior director for federal government affairs, will report to Stefanie Feldman as deputy directors of the new office. They aren’t even trying to be coy.
Already a track record
If there’s any doubt about what sort of antigun propaganda the new office will push and to what extent it will step over the bounds of Congressional authority, there’s already a track record in place.
Previous bombshell reporting revealed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) purposefully omitted defensive-use data sets from an official report after being lobbied by gun control groups. The CDC is the government-funded agency charged with saving lives and protecting people from health threats. The move was the result of months of political arm-twisting by three different gun control groups — Gun Violence Archive, GVPedia and Newtown Action Alliance. Those groups will no doubt have a direct pipeline into the White House’s new office.
Several additional current examples are well-known of the administration overstepping its executive authority at the expense of law-abiding gun owners and the industry that supports the exercise of the Second Amendment.
The president’s announcement is not surprising. The hypocrisy of gun control activists is maddening, if not unexpected. And the administration should know Congressional overseers who revere the Constitution and the right of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms will no doubt be watching closely.
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