The latest step in the Biden administration’s war on guns will be the establishment of something called the federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention. As Politico is reporting . . .
Stefanie Feldman, a longtime Biden aide who previously worked on the Domestic Policy Council, will play a leading role, the people said.
Greg Jackson, executive director of the Community Justice Action Fund, and Rob Wilcox, the senior director for federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety, are expected to hold key roles in the office alongside Feldman, who has worked on gun policy for more than a decade and still oversees the policy portfolio at the White House. The creation of the office was first reported by The Washington Post.
This is payback to the gun control industry and a (probably vain) attempt to shut them up after years of harping by everyone from Brady to Giffords to Everytown about how much more the Biden administration could be doing to limit gun rights. And if Biden isn’t going to man-up and issue an executive order outlawing “assault weapons,” this is the least he can do.
Since Biden’s election, gun groups have called on him to take this action, which activists see as a concrete step beyond his unanswered pleas for an assault weapons ban and universal background checks. Activists have argued that such an office will help the administration coordinate on gun policy issues across the federal government, while also allowing the president and Vice President Kamala Harris to show leadership on the issue.
Kamala Harris. Leadership. Hilarious.
This seems to be the new hotness for gun-grabbers. In its never-ending desire to be at the vanguard of the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex, the state of California established its own Office of Gun Violence Prevention last year under Attorney General Rob Bonta as yet another way to absorb extra taxpayer dollars to little or no practical effect.
Look for the federal version to be every bit as effective as California’s version at a minimum of ten times the cost.
And that’s actually the good news here. When politicians want to be seen as doing something about a perceived problem without really doing anything, they appoint a commission to “study” the matter and make recommendations. This is pretty much the same thing, but on a bigger, more expensive scale.
“A White House office of gun violence prevention would build on the already tremendous record of President Biden and Vice President Harris on gun safety,” said Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords. “This has been a top priority of ours for years, and it would provide an important center of gravity for leadership across the administration as the President and Vice President implement the historic Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and continue to push Congress to pass legislation to save lives. The hiring of Greg and Rob would show how seriously this administration takes its responsibility to address this crisis.”
Yadda, yadda, yadda.
For the same cost, the BidenBots could spend these dollars on targeted law enforcement in America’s 20 most violent cities and make an almost immediate, measurable impact on gun crimes. They could focus on gangs, illegal gun trafficking, and well-known, recidivist violent offenders who commit — by far — the majority of violent crime in this country.
But that would be both boring and politically problematic. It would involve enforcing laws that are already on the books and that’s just not sexy. It would also mean prosecuting and incarcerating an inconvenient number of people from what are euphemistically referred to as “diverse communities.”
Far better then to throw the gun control industry yet another bone, spin up a new bureaucracy, and staff it with anti-gun advocates, academics, and gun control organization type. They’ll then be overpaid with your tax dollars and mine to think about the issues, write white papers, preach gun control on cable news, and ultimately…do little to nothing. It’s what government — particularly at the Federal level — does best.
So on the one hand, while this bureaucratic abomination is in existence, it will probably mean little to nothing in terms of gun rights on a practical level. That’s a very good thing.
We can, of course, hope that one day, a President is elected who isn’t beholden to the gun control industry and the billionaires who fund it, is willing to take the inevitable political outrage and media heat that will result and…actually decommission this atrocity.
We can also hope for the return of 10-cent 9mm ball ammo, delicious calorie-free ice cream, and a winning lottery ticket.
