Over the past year and a half, the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention has meant more than its namesake directive. It was not only a policy outfit and coordinating hub, but also a signal that the federal government took gun violence seriously — a symbol of the Biden administration’s treatment of gun violence as a top issue.
It helped to implement the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, bring together federal agencies to launch new efforts aimed at saving lives, and, up until Joe Biden’s final days in the White House, helped improve data collection and dissemination that will guide prevention efforts in schools and neighborhoods across the country for years to come.
But as of noon on January 20, the office effectively, if not officially, ceased to exist.
Its small staff resigned in the days leading up to President Donald Trump’s inauguration. It’s unclear if Trump will formally dissolve the office as a signal of disdain for Biden’s approach, or just allow it to fade away, unstaffed, as he reorganizes the White House to fit his vision.
Either way, the office as it existed is no more, and the future of its work is at risk as the new administration signals a radical departure from Biden’s approach to gun violence.
Yet, the now-former leaders of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention — Rob Wilcox and Greg Jackson — are surprisingly optimistic. They believe that the work they did set an example for how states and local governments, and maybe future presidential administrations, can treat gun violence as a priority going forward.
Over the next two issues of The Trajectory, I’ll share interviews with Jackson and Wilcox, who reflect on their tenure, explore the lessons they learned, and consider what lies ahead for gun violence prevention advocates, communities, and policymakers.
Below is the first of those conversations, edited for length and clarity, with Greg Jackson.
Q: What would you consider to be the most significant accomplishment of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention?
The most impactful thing the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention accomplished was expanding the scope of solutions to address this crisis and pushing an all-of-government approach. For the first time, we saw the departments of Health, Veterans Affairs, Small Business Administration, and Education — really all levers of government — leaning into this public health crisis, stepping up with different solutions, resources, and approaches. This has proven most effective when America has tackled other public health crises, especially the pandemic. We saw all angles of government playing a role, and that’s precisely what we’ve needed with gun violence prevention.
Taking into account the fact that you know the office itself may be gone, what do you think will be the most lasting impact on communities and neighborhoods?
There’s nothing more important than someone coming home to dinner or spending the holidays with loved ones. The thousands of lives we saved in a short time, and frankly, the millions we think will be saved in the future, will be a huge legacy. This will be a turning point in history on this crisis, where we’ve fully or broadly implemented solutions across government that are saving lives in unique ways — whether it’s suicide, accidental harm, homicide, domestic violence, or community violence.
A huge part of that is also the survivors we’ve empowered. Rob and I are both survivors of gun violence. We brought thousands of leaders and survivors to the White House and elevated them — people like the graduates of the Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy, people who’ve been working in this movement for decades, often with little local recognition. Now, they were brought to the most powerful building in the world, celebrated by the White House, thanked by the vice president, and had a brighter light shone on their efforts and careers dedicated to saving lives in their communities.
A public health crisis requires a public health approach, which is really a people-centered approach. How are we thinking about the people first — the individuals, the human lives, their behavior, their support, their challenges, their trauma? By empowering leaders and people, we are empowering the heart of the public health approach.
Outside of the office itself and outside of the White House, did you all notice any cultural shifts in how career civil servants — the people who work day to day and the agencies outside of the White House — approach this issue? And do you think that that will last beyond this administration?
Across multiple agencies, we showed them how they can play a role proactively — through policy, resources, and campaigns — but also reactively when there are tragedies and communities are suffering. Our creation of the Gun Violence Emergency Response System pulled together 10 different agencies, each with resources to offer. When a business is impacted by a mass shooting, the Small Business Administration can provide emergency loans. When a school has a shooting, the Department of Education can support the school in reopening. When people have lost loved ones in mass violence, the Department of Health and Human Services can provide emergency expertise through the U.S. Public Health Service Corps, emergency grants, and resources for mental health, grief counseling, and support for first responders.
There were so many available resources that weren’t necessarily being activated after tragedies, and our office helped coordinate that and, most importantly, empowered them to step in, support, and do what they do best: serve the people they signed up to serve as civilians in government. This is a huge shift. Every agency now sees its part, proactively and reactively. That not only saves lives but helps communities recover, improves messaging and education, and helps us get closer to the root causes of violence and prevent it before a gun is drawn.
You only had a year and a half there, but in that time frame, is there anything that you would have done differently if you were starting over?
Looking back at our time — over 400 days serving in the White House — I feel great knowing we gave it our all. We were constantly doing everything we could, pouring everything into policy change, resources, storytelling, narrative shifting, and engaging folks. If I could do anything differently, it would be to engage even more agencies. While we brought over a dozen to the table, there were still others we could have engaged more deeply. With more time, that would have been a huge priority — getting deeper into the root causes of violence and what government can offer and do.
There are still more opportunities and more the government can do with more leadership and time. We fully implemented the first gun violence bill in 30 years — the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. We moved forward 54 executive actions, made $240 billion available for violence prevention and intervention, brought over 2,000 people to the White House, and launched an emergency response team that responded to over a dozen mass tragedies. Our pace didn’t slow down until the last day. That indicates there’s still more work to do.
So, I think the only thing I would want to do differently is to get started earlier.
I think we should kind of grapple with the fact that a lot of people in the gun violence prevention movement are probably worried about the next four years. Do you worry that the work that you did is at risk now? And what would you say to people who are concerned about that?
Well, first of all, we’ve created a playbook and an outline of what can be done and what’s possible that can never be reversed. Some policies may be changed, but we now have a roadmap for accomplishing change that we can always refer back to, whether we’re thinking about state or city offices. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is law, and it’s fully implemented. To unravel it would require legislative action from Congress. We know how hard it was to make this progress, and it will be just as hard to reverse it. Given that it was supported by Democrats and Republicans, and some of our most outspoken champions have been Republicans, I feel confident in its continued impact. The other big thing is the resources and the investments that were made. Many of the investments made are already connected to addressing other health crises, and we simply helped clarify their usage, so we don’t foresee major shifts there.
I’m optimistic because some of our most impactful changes are extremely hard to reverse, and our most impactful policies and investments have enthusiastic bipartisan support.
The key is continuing to connect the dots between the gun violence crisis and it being a health crisis. I’m optimistic because some of our most impactful changes are extremely hard to reverse, and our most impactful policies and investments have enthusiastic bipartisan support. We have so much work to do. We cannot afford to cry and mourn. We have to keep pushing forward.
This is the time to turn it up, find the next gear. We have momentum. We need to keep building.
Is there a possibility for progress on the policy front or the law front in the next four years?
I do think there’s opportunity for bipartisan progress. Senator Susan Collins of Maine has been very enthusiastic about the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, writing an op-ed in support of it and celebrating its investments in keeping kids safe. I sat next to her at the vigil after the tragedy in Lewiston, Maine, and she thanked this administration and our office for our work, having seen firsthand how we helped the community recover and heal. She’s enthusiastic and has seen our work firsthand, and I think she’ll be a great steward over the appropriations process, ensuring that these critical resources are protected.
We found many supporters among concerned Republican mayors and state legislators who, while not completely aligned with all our policies, were excited about parts of our work and wanted to leverage our office to help save lives in their communities. We saw a great deal of momentum around safe storage and responsible gun ownership, and even new champions like former Senator Bill Frist from Tennessee, who’s been very vocally supportive of actions toward gun safety, investing in research, mental health, community-based resources, strategies, and survivor services.
I don’t anticipate the same momentum we had under this administration, but I do think there are opportunities to protect our progress and make further strides.
How can state and local governments pick up on that and move forward?
I’m fired up about the progress states are making. When this administration started, there was only one statewide office of gun violence prevention. Now there are 14. Just last week, Wisconsin created their office under Governor Tony Evers. We’ve had the chance to meet, coordinate, support, and even mentor these offices. We’re seeing places like North Carolina bring in millions of dollars to implement new strategies, run statewide safe storage campaigns, and invest in violence intervention programs, even with a very hostile legislature.
States have shown so much initiative on this issue and with this approach. They’re now looking at their agencies and asking: “How do we create an all-of-government approach? What does our public health approach look like in Maryland, New Mexico, California, Colorado?” There’s so much opportunity there. Much of what we’ve done can be duplicated and scaled in the states. There are also real gaps that states can fill that the federal government may fall short on, especially when it comes to investing in victim services, aggressively holding gun traffickers accountable, and developing intercity strategies to cut off the flow of illegal firearms and find the source of trafficked guns.
We now have over 120 city-level offices of violence prevention. Places like Memphis are, for the first time, building out their own strategies, developing their own data and tracking around the crisis of violence, and taking a strategic look at their resources, policies, and existing or lacking teams to build real solutions. When major cities like Memphis start to turn a corner on this crisis, we’ll see tremendous reductions on top of the historic reductions we’ve already seen. One major stride was the CDC dashboard that mapped out injuries, violence, and violent deaths. It’s clear from both the FBI and the CDC that the states and cities with the best policies, the most resources to prevent violence, and the strongest strategies are seeing the greatest results. We rolled out our Safer States agenda with key policies that every state could consider passing. We saw 17 bills passed in response, and we think that’s just the beginning, because many of those battles are still being fought.
Do you think there will be another White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the future? Should there be?
I feel confident that there will be, and that the work will continue in future administrations. But to do this work at its full scale will take more than a White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. When we look at the number of people impacted and lost to this crisis and compare that to fires, floods, or hurricanes, there’s a strong case for a FEMA-style entity within the government to reactively deal with these emergencies. Looking at the scale — how this is the leading cause of death for youth, Black men, pregnant women, and a leading cause of newly disabled Americans — this crisis is so crippling that we should have a larger, permanent entity that thinks about this issue year-round, independent of administrations.
We do that with so many other issues. We have a Space Council. Why is it so far-fetched to have a permanent office that thinks about this issue across government and agencies, in both the short and long term? The crisis is that big, that urgent, and that impactful to Americans every day. I’m encouraged there will be an office, but to fully eradicate this crisis, we’ll need more than a policy team. Rob always said the White House was never the destination; it was the vehicle for ending this crisis. That will continue to be true as we strive to end gun violence.
