In a stunning move yesterday, President Joe Biden announced that he would no longer seek reelection in November, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic nominee. Since Biden’s inauguration in 2021, his administration has pushed through numerous gun reform policies — a record Harris, as the president’s second-in-command, could inherit for her own campaign.
Harris has some direct connections to the administration’s gun policies: She oversees the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which Biden launched via executive order last year, and in March announced the launch of a national center to help make extreme risk protection order laws more effective. The vice president could also tout some of the administration’s other moves, which include a rule meant to reduce the number of guns sold without background checks, an order directing federal agencies to reduce the risk of firearms theft during shipment, restrictions on gun exports to countries where weapons are at high risk of ending up in the hands of criminals, and enhanced background checks for potential gun buyers younger than 21. Biden also signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first federal gun reform legislation in nearly 30 years — into law in 2022, and his administration instituted restrictions on ghost guns and pistol braces.
During her bid for president in 2020, Harris ran to the left of Biden on guns, according to The Reload. A former prosecutor, Harris also ran further to the left of the president on criminal justice issues, including police reform.
As The Marshall Project reports, however, her positions could have changed over the past four years, particularly after gun violence spiked during the first years of the coronavirus pandemic and demonstrators nationwide protested racist policing after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020. Those events prompted some politicians to veer their stances toward “tough on crime” policies.
From The Trace
When a Butler Township police officer responded to reports of a gunman atop a roof outside former President Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania campaign rally on July 13, he met a threat he was ill-equipped to counter: an AR-15-style rifle.
The officer quickly retreated, falling down the ladder he had used to climb to the roof, according to news reports, and the shooter went on to make an attempt on Trump’s life, killing one person and injuring at least two others in doing so. The response recalled other active shootings in which an AR-15 may have deterred police from intervening: The 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; the 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas.
Shootings like these highlight how access to high-powered semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 is fundamentally reshaping the way American police respond to lethal threats. The Trace’s Champe Barton, Alain Stephens, and Olga Pierce explain why police may not be prepared to effectively counter AR-15s and other assault weapons, and share the data on how frequently these firearms are showing up at the scenes of mass shootings.
What to Know Today
An Illinois sheriff’s deputy, who is white, was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm, and official misconduct for allegedly shooting and killing 36-year-old Sonya Massey, a Black woman who had called 911, inside her home on July 6. Prosecutors allege that the deputy discouraged another officer from rendering Massey aid as she lay dying. The deputy, who was fired the same day he was indicted, faces life in prison if convicted on the murder charge. Body camera footage of the shooting is scheduled to be released today. [The Washington Post/NPR Illinois]
Former President Donald Trump now numbers among the hundreds of Americans who have experienced a high-profile mass shooting. For other survivors, the attempt on Trump’s life at a July 13 campaign rally was a reminder of their own trauma, and that gun violence can happen anywhere, anytime. Some have a cautious hope that the rally shooting will galvanize change. [The Guardian]
In 1984, a shooter killed 21 people and injured 19 others at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California. After four decades, survivors of the massacre reflect on their experiences — and make sure those who died aren’t forgotten. [KPBS]
Victims of the 2022 mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park are suing the Illinois State Police, alleging that the agency negligently approved the shooter’s gun ownership application in 2019 despite local law enforcement issuing a “clear and present danger” alert against him months earlier. [Chicago Sun-Times]
Dramatic acts of political violence, like the attempted assassination of Trump, can have distressing effects on the public psyche. But unlike the assassination of JFK or the shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the rally shooting took place in the social media era — meaning that millions of people witnessed the event through images and videos online. How will this new kind of exposure change the country’s recovery? [Scientific American]
In a 92-minute speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, Trump trampled on the GOP’s attempt to remake his image into a softer candidate, with harsh, often false, rhetoric that demonized his opponents. Notably missing from his record-long speech was any mention of gun rights. [The Reload/Reuters]
Archive
Early in his career, Biden said gun regulation was ineffective. Several decades — and one notorious crime bill — later, he’s pushing the most expansive reform platform in history. (October 2020)
