Within the first 24 hours of President Donald Trump’s (R) inauguration, the web link for former President Joe Biden’s (D) gun-control office, which was known as the “White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention,” went dark.
The gun-control group Brady had a meltdown.
“By shuttering it, Trump is putting the interests of the gun lobby above our kids, our communities, and our country,” said a statement from Brady. “President Trump campaigned on ‘make America safe again.’ But these words are empty without action on guns.”
The office, of course, was entirely staffed with people with gun-control cred. But Brady didn’t mention this. Nor did they articulate that the “action on guns” they want is almost entirely focused on controlling the law-abiding.
They did list things that they attributed to this gun-control office:
• Created America’s first federal Gun Violence Emergency Response Team, bringing together the FBI, FEMA, and multiple federal agencies to respond to mass shootings [They say this as if the FBI, ATF and more were not already involved in these cases.]
• Coordinated implementation of over 40 executive actions on gun violence—more than any previous administration [No surprise here, as they liked Biden’s executive orders that focused on controlling law-abiding armed citizens.]
• Helped drive a 13.5% reduction in nationwide homicides in 2023—the steepest decline in American history [Its source for this statistic is a now-dead link to whitehouse.gov. I could not find any way to recreate this statistical claim. We do know that last October, the FBI quietly released revised numbers indicating that, rather than decreasing by 2.1%, violent crime in 2022 actually increased by 4.5%. Most of the claims out there about falling crime in 2023 simply compare it to 2022.]
• Supported ATF in shutting down over 800 dangerous rogue gun dealers [If the owners or employees of these dealers were deliberately selling guns illegally, then they should be prosecuted; but, as it turns out, this total includes gun dealers who made minor and inadvertent paperwork errors.]
• Worked with states and local governments to distribute nearly $200 million in Community Violence Intervention funding [More information on the results of these expenditures of taxpayer money would be helpful.]
• Implemented enhanced background check systems that stopped over 500 illegal gun purchases [Everyone is for stopping criminals from getting guns, but this data is not as simple as they pretend.]
A number of people—indeed, some contributors to this magazine—have contacted me since Trump’s win arguing that the office should not be terminated, but rather that it should be renamed and refocused on where it should have been all along: on nabbing actual criminals while respecting our freedom. Those conversations have been interesting explorations of what-ifs; for example, imagine such an office in the White House nudging the legacy media into reporting that crimes are committed by criminals.
But then, considering that Trump's cabinet—and, indeed, the judges he will nominate—are likely to respect the restrictions placed on government by the U.S. Constitution, such a White House office is not necessary.
