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<\/p>\nWASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014 As\u00a0cities nationwide grapple\u00a0with soaring\u00a0gun violence, President Joe Biden is launching a full-scale government effort Wednesday he hopes will reverse the troubling trend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a White House speech, Biden\u00a0will announce a crime prevention strategy that includes\u00a0establishing a “zero tolerance policy” for rogue gun dealers and steps to stop the\u00a0illegal\u00a0trafficking of firearms, according to senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The president’s push\u00a0comes\u00a0as he’s been unable to gain Republican support in Congress to pass sweeping gun control legislation. Republicans plan\u00a0to seize on the crime surge to attack Democrats in their bid to take\u00a0back control of the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.<\/p>\n
Gun deaths in 2021\u00a0are up 21%\u00a0over last year. Public safety experts fear gun violence will get even worse this summer, when it historically spikes with the arrival of warm weather. The start of summer\u00a0coincides\u00a0with relaxed COVID-19 restrictions in most states that have reopened aspects of American life after months of shutdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden’s\u00a0strategy\u00a0is in response to gun violence that started increasing\u00a0five years ago,\u00a0accelerating further over the past 18 months amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Although some cities have reported spikes in\u00a0other forms of violence, Psaki pointed to guns as the most serious threat. Burglary,\u00a0larceny and drug offense rates nationally were\u00a0each down over the first four months of 2021 from last year.<\/p>\n
“We believe that a central driver of violence is gun violence and the use of guns,”\u00a0Psaki said at Tuesday’s White House press briefing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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President Joe Biden speaks about reaching 300 million COVID-19 vaccination shots, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Friday, June 18, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Evan Vucci) ORG XMIT: DCEV311 (Photo: Evan Vucci, AP)<\/span><\/p>\n Biden’s plan includes a new Justice Department policy that will allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to revoke federal licenses of\u00a0gun dealers the first time they violate federal law. Violations\u00a0could include\u00a0selling firearms to a prohibited buyer, failing to run required background checks or falsifying firearm transaction forms or other records.\u00a0<\/p>\n A USA TODAY\/The Trace investigation this month found that ATF inspectors routinely document violations at shops around the country, only to be overruled by higher authorities to issue warning letters instead of revoking licenses.\u00a0Biden is also calling for additional federal funds to hire more ATF inspectors and agents.<\/p>\n The Justice Department plans to target\u00a0the illegal flow of firearms across state lines through the creation of five new firearms strike forces. Authorities\u00a0will coordinate with the ATF and cities and states to crack down on significant gun trafficking corridors that have diverted guns into New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, the Bay area and Washington D.C.\u00a0<\/p>\n A rack of rifles are shown inside a New Jersey gun shop in July 2020. A two-year set of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives records found many of the weapons dealers recommended to lose their licenses instead kept them. The New Jersey shop was not cited in the records reviewed by reporters. (Thomas P. Costello\/Asbury Park Press) (Photo: Thomas P. Costello\/Asbury Park Press)<\/span><\/p>\n Other parts of Biden’s strategy\u00a0include:<\/p>\n \u25ba The Treasury Department will “highlight” that cities and states can use their portions of $350 billion in direct aid from Biden’s COVID-19 rescue plan, approved by Congress in March, on hiring police officers and other law enforcement officials, prosecuting gun traffickers and new technology to respond to gun violence.<\/p>\n \u25baBiden will unveil a new partnership with 15 cities to expand community violence intervention programs with federal funds and private dollars from philanthropic organizations. Biden proposed $5\u00a0billion for such programs in his infrastructure and jobs plan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u25baThe White House will work to expand summer employment, programming and other opportunities for youth and young adults. Biden’s Department of Labor this month awarded $89 million through the federal YouthBuild program for pre-apprenticeships for people 16 to 24 years old.<\/p>\n \u25baThe Biden administration also identified\u00a0steps to help\u00a0formerly incarcerated individuals to enter the workforce. That includes an $85.5 million Labor Department grant to improve access to jobs in 28 communities and evaluating potential barriers preventing the formerly incarcerated from getting hired by the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n Through the first 172 days of 2021, gun violence killed 9,420 Americans, an average of 55 people a day, according to data collected by the Gun Violence Archive, a research nonprofit. The figures include homicides and accidental gun deaths but not suicides.<\/p>\n That’s about 21% more gun deaths than the 7,795 gun deaths at this time in 2020 \u2013 which turned into the\u00a0deadliest year in at least two decades. Homicides rose in the country’s largest cities by 30% in 2020. There\u00a0here have been 296 mass shootings in 2021, compared to 218 at this time in 2020.<\/p>\n “It is steamrolling out of control right now,” said Mark Bryant, executive director of the Gun Violence Archive. “We’re running well over a month ahead, and I’m seeing nothing suggesting we’re slowing down. In fact, it seems it’s the opposite.”<\/p>\n Family members mourn at the scene where their loved ones were killed early Sunday, May 9, 2021, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Photo: Jerilee Bennett, The Colorado Springs Gazette via AP)<\/span><\/p>\n Biden has called gun violence in the U.S. a “public health epidemic” and a “national embarrassment.”<\/p>\n His\u00a0latest gun efforts build\u00a0off his initial\u00a0actions\u00a0in\u00a0April to strengthen\u00a0regulations on “ghost guns” and\u00a0stabilizing braces that make firearms more lethal. Biden has called for Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban and pass legislation to\u00a0close loopholes in gun background checks, but the legislative efforts face resistance from Republicans in the\u00a0evenly divided Senate.<\/p>\n Biden will deliver his remarks after meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland and local officials about the rise of crime. They include New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir\u00a0Grewal and Rapid City, South Dakota Mayor Steve Allender, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.<\/p>\n In\u00a0St. Louis, 96% of all homicides so far in 2021 have came from firearms, according to Psaki. And in\u00a0New York City, shooting incidents are up 77%\u00a0from March 2020 to March 2021, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Daniel Webster,\u00a0director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy, said the increase in gun violence spans both cities and suburbs and\u00a0all regions. He anticipates it will increase\u00a0more in the summer when more people go out, party and consume alcohol.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I don’t know if it will be worse than last year. Last year was pretty horrific,” he said of the summer months. “Even if it is only as bad as last year, that’s really, really bad.”<\/p>\n Police officers are seen next to marked shell casings from a gun in Times Square on May 8, 2021 in New York City. According to reports, three people, including a toddler, were injured in a shooting near West 44th St. and 7th Ave. (Photo: David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n Webster said the gun violence spike predated the pandemic, but picked up when the spread of the virus last spring led to soaring unemployment, closed schools and upended lives. He said it accelerated even more amid the national unrest following the death of George Floyd, a\u00a0Black man in Minneapolis killed by a white police officer, setting off nationwide protests.<\/p>\n Besides these two major events,\u00a0he said another factor for the spike in gun violence is more fundamental: more Americans are carrying guns. Arrests for illegal gun possession are also up over last year.<\/p>\n “Somewhat perversely, the actions that people take to protect themselves as individuals collectively does the opposite,” Webster said. “And I think that’s an important part of where we are right now.”<\/p>\n For Biden, the rise in crime also has political implications.\u00a0<\/p>\n Republicans have long attacked Democrats as being soft on crime. And in the 2020 election, Republican candidates worked aggressively to\u00a0tie Democrats to the “defund the police” slogan of progressive activists\u00a0\u2013 even though Biden and many Democrats said they didn’t support the movement.<\/p>\n Republicans plan to double down on that\u00a0line of attack in the 2022 midterms.<\/p>\n Steven Law, president and CEO of Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with\u00a0Senate\u00a0Minority Leader\u00a0Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told USA TODAY that\u00a0Republicans will argue “defund the police” has turned\u00a0from\u00a0a rhetorical slogan to an active policy pursuit by some Democrats. Republican Senate candidates\u00a0will couple that with anxiety about rising violent crime.<\/p>\n “You have an issue that has been completely quiet for decades, and all of a sudden, people are noticing it in their communities\u00a0and feeling very personally threatened by it,” Law said. “You will see\u00a0political problems the\u00a0Democrats suffered in 2020 and see it significantly amplified, because it’s now a bigger issue than ever.”<\/p>\nBiden to push COVID rescue funds for police hiring\u00a0<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nGun deaths up 21% over last year<\/h2>\n
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