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DURING HIS presidential campaign Joe Biden promised that ending America’s gun violence epidemic was “within our grasp”. It may be slipping away. Last year the country experienced a surge in murders. On April 8th President Biden laid out his first steps to bring the problem under control. He made much of a promise to stop the proliferation of “ghost guns”, which are produced without serial numbers and so are untraceable. The number of such weapons is hard to assess but, according to America’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), police recovered around 10,000 of them in 2019 during searches, arrests and investigations. By comparison, they recovered 269,000 firearms with serial numbers. Even if ghost guns make up a small number of the almost 400m firearms in America, their use in a number of high-profile shootings (in 2017 a man in northern California used one to kill four people and injure ten more) has brought them to public attention. What
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Facebook posts claim that recently signed New York state legislation legalizing recreational marijuana includes a back-door policy barring cannabis users from purchasing guns. This is false; there was no mention of firearms in the bill, and although federal law prohibits marijuana use by gun owners, experts say this restriction is unlikely to impact firearm owners in the state.
“Hey NYers…..don’t get too excited about pot being legalized. It’s a trick…” warns an April 2, 2021 Facebook post later shared as a screenshot.
“If you purchase pot using your NYS ID, you will be disqualified from purchasing firearms. Little back door gun control policy included in the bill,” it claims.
Biden tightens some gun controls, says much more needed
By Alexandra Jaffe, Aamer Madhani and Michael Balsamo - Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden, in his first gun control measures since taking office, announced a half-dozen executive actions Thursday aimed at addressing a proliferation of gun violence across the nation that he called an “epidemic and an international embarrassment.”
“The idea that we have so many people dying every single day from gun violence in America is a blemish on our character as a nation,” Biden said during remarks at the White House.
He announced he is tightening regulations for buyers of “ghost guns” homemade firearms that usually are assembled from parts and often lack serial numbers used to trace them. Also, a proposed rule, expected within 60 days, will tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces like the one used in Boulder, Colorado, in a shooting last month that left 10 dead.
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Gun violence in the U.S. is an epidemic and an international embarrassment, President Biden said. (Photo courtesy C-SPAN livestream)
WASHINGTON Gun violence is out of control and action needs to be taken to reduce it, President Biden said Thursday. Gun violence in this country is an epidemic, and it s an international embarrassment, said Biden. And it has to stop.
During a speech in the White House Rose Garden, the president announced a series of six actions that his administration was taking to combat gun violence:
Developing a model red flag law. The Justice Department must publish model red flag legislation for states within 60 days; these laws allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others. States that have red flag laws have seen a reduction in the number of suicides in their states, said Biden. In addition,