Biden to announce crackdown on guns and will let states use $350B Covid funds to hire cops as crime surges
JOE Biden will unveil a crackdown on guns on Wednesday while announcing that states are allowed to use $350billion in Covid funding to hire more cops as crime across the US surges.
The president is predicted to lay the blame for the rising crime rate on guns as he unveils a “zero tolerance” policy with firearms dealers who break federal laws.
The policy will reportedly revoke a dealer’s license on the first offense.
Biden will speak on Wednesday alongside Attorney General Merrick Garland about the administration’s new Gun Crime Prevention Strategy.
He is set to unveil a series of executive orders aimed at reducing the recent violence as he renews calls from Congress to pass gun reform legislation.
“Yes, there need to be reforms of police systems across the country. The president is a firm believer in that,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.
“But there are also steps he can take as president of the United States to help address and hopefully reduce that crime.
“A big part of that, in his view, is putting in place gun safety measures … using the bully pulpit but also using levers at his disposal as president,” she added.
Before the speech, Biden was criticized by Second Amendment lovers who claim that the surge in crime has no link to guns.
"It is the height of hypocrisy for Joe Biden to demonize guns, gun dealers, and gun owners,” Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, told the Washington Examiner.
“For the past year, the anti-gun Left looked the other way when rioters were destroying cities and murdering civilians and cops.
"Not only that, the anti-gun Left began releasing criminals early from jail and started defunding the police in several big cities," he added.
“The police were vilified so badly that they began retiring early in droves. Others took extended time off work or suffered from the 'blue flu.’”
Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene also hit out at Biden on Twitter on Wednesday.
“Crime is exploding in Democrat-run cities … this is 100% the result of their left-wing policies of defunding the police, backing BLM / ANTIFA, destroying families, and coddling of criminals!” she wrote.
Biden has shown opposition to the “Defund the Police” movement and had a record of being tough on crime when he was a senator.
Yet he is also trying to boost progressive’s efforts to reform policing.
One of his orders for Wednesday looks set to anger those calling for funding to be withdrawn from police departments, however.
Under the $1.9million Covid relief package he signed in March, there is now new federal funding available for municipal governments to keep more police officers on the streets.
This will allow them to hire more law enforcement, even if it raises the total number to above pre-pandemic levels, according to DailyMail.com.
It comes amid a crime surge and fears for a violent summer fueled by the pandemic that has caused economic hardship, displacement, and anxiety.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Tuesday that nationwide there has been a double-digit increase in murder and violent crime.
“It is staggering. It is sobering,” she said at a violent-crime forum held by the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum.
“And it’s something that the DOJ is committed to doing all we can to reverse what are profoundly troubling trends.”
She added that to tackle the violence, the Justice Department would launch strike forces in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
The forces would target violent crime caused by illegal gun trafficking.
Former President Donald Trump and then-Attorney General Bill Barr announced a similar approach last summer.
He blamed the spike in crime last year on the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd protests.
Biden’s announcement on Wednesday will add to a half-dozen executive actions on gun control he introduced in April following a wave of mass shootings.
They included a crack down on “ghost guns,” homemade firearms that lack serial numbers used to trace them and that are often purchased without a background check.
Ahead of the remarks, Biden is scheduled to meet with AG Garland as well as the Democratic mayors of Baltimore and Miami-Dade County, the Republican mayor of Rapid City, South Dakota; the Democratic attorney general of New Jersey; the police chief in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and community activists.
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