The Biden Administration is set to announce this week that it is creating a new Office of Gun Violence Prevention, according to several reports.
The new office emerges out of requests from gun violence prevention advocates and Democratic lawmakers who’ve been pressing for a government office dedicated to focus solely on gun violence.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D), whose district includes Newtown, Connecticut where in 2012 the country’s deadliest school shooting occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary, applauded the move by the White House.
“This is an idea I have been pushing relentlessly for some time, and I’m thrilled President Biden is making the Office of Gun Violence Prevention a reality,” Murphy said in a statement Wednesday.
Murphy, along with Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced bicameral legislation earlier this year to establish just such an office.
It came on the heels of last year’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act—the first first major federal gun safety legislation in decades—following mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.
“The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is the most significant gun safety legislation in thirty years, and we need to make sure the federal government is totally focused on using it to save as many lives as humanly possible,” Murphy had said in a March 22 statement. “A dedicated office at the Department of Justice will help make sure state, local, and federal agencies are working together to enforce gun safety laws, educate the public, and fund gun violence prevention programs that work.”
As of Wednesday morning, there had been at least 504 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive which defines the crime as four or more victims killed or wounded. The organization notes that the nation is on pace to suffer more than 700 mass shootings by year’s end—the most in at least a decade.
Further, the U.S. has so far suffered a total of more than 31,000 gun deaths this year, including the approximate number of suicides, the Gun Violence Archive reported Tuesday based on CDC data.
President Biden is set to announce the new Office of Gun Violence Prevention at an event at the White House on Friday.
PHOTO: Biden signs the Safer Communities Act into law, June 2022
