President Biden on Friday will announce the creation of a new office for gun violence prevention, an escalation of the administration’s efforts to tackle the issue amid stalled progress in Congress, according to four people briefed on the action who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that were not yet public.
Biden and Vice President Harris are scheduled to announce the new office at an event in the White House Rose Garden on Friday afternoon, the people said.
Greg Jackson, a gun violence survivor who is the 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 have key roles in the office, the people said.
Hopefully they’ll look at what could have been done to resolve each shooting instead of dumb, knee jerk reactions that don’t resolve the problems.
For example:
The Allen, Texas mall shooter:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Allen,_Texas_mall_shooting
“Garcia was then enlisted in the U.S. Army in June 2008, but he never completed basic training: he was terminated after three months due to mental health concerns.[38][39] Because this was an administrative separation, rather than a punitive discharge, Garcia’s termination by the Army would not show up on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.[40]”
If the Army can’t have you because they think you’re mentally unstable before you even finish basic training, maybe that’s thr sort of thing that NEEDS to be in a background check. Ya think?
This wasn’t a case of buying through a gun show loophole, or an illegal purchase. Guy had no crimimal record, passed the background check, and bought the gun.
The problem is “What goes into the background check?”
“Mental health issues” != Violence issues
“Mental health issues” == 12x more likely to be a victim of a violent crime than the perpetrator.
Mental health issues are already a blocker on gun ownership, but only if it’s adjudicated in court.
Maybe that needs to change for people ejected from the military.