President Biden on Thursday will sign a new executive order on gun violence prevention, aiming to crack down on 3D printed guns and to improve active shooter drills at the nation’s schools.
The president and Vice President Harris will both give remarks on the new orders, which will be their first joint event on gun violence prevention since Biden asked Harris to oversee the newly-formed Office of Gun Violence Prevention a year ago.
The first part of the order will focus on emerging firearm threats, including machine gun conversion devices, which turn a pistol into a semi-automatic firearm. Such devices are illegal but law enforcement have found at crime scenes.
The other threats are guns without serial numbers that are 3D printed, which sometimes are even undetectable by metal detectors.
The order will establish an emerging firearm threats taskforce, which will be directed to issue a report within 90 days that includes an assessment of the threats of these guns, the federal agencies’ operational and legal capacities to detect and seize them, an inter-agency plan for combatting them, and what funding the administration needs from Congress to crack down on them.
The second part of the order will work to improve active shooter drills in schools after Biden administration officials reported that schools have limited resources to know how to handle the drills and that parents have concerns about trauma the drills cause on students.
The order will direct the secretaries of the Departments of Education and Homeland Security and other officials to develop and publish, within 110 days, information for schools regarding active shooter drills in an effort to minimize trauma that may result from poorly implemented drills.
Biden and Harris also are expected on Thursday to announce additional executive actions that will promote safe storage on guns, promote implementation of red flag laws, fund community violence interventions and improve the background check system, among other actions.
Harris has called for an assault weapons ban and universal background checks, which Biden has long called for, but such legislation would need a wide Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress to pass.
Throughout his tenure, Biden has issued rules to crack down on those dealing firearms.
He signed bipartisan gun control legislation in in 2022 that enhanced background checks for gun purchasers between the age of 18 and 21, made obtaining firearms through straw purchases or trafficking a federal offense and clarified the definition of a federally licensed firearm dealer.
