President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled new measures that he says will address gun violence and violent crime, promising to aggressively pursue gun dealers who willfully break the law and to boost federal funding for local law enforcement amid a rise in homicide rates in the country over the past year.
The first agenda in the administration’s new five-point plan is to “help stem the flow of guns into the hands of those responsible for violence,” including by having a “zero tolerance” policy for gun dealers that violate the law.
As part of the policy, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) under the Justice Department will seek to revoke the licenses of gun dealers who are found to violate federal law by “willfully” transferring a firearm to a person prohibited from owning one, failing to run a required background check, falsifying records such as a form for firearms transaction, failing to respond to a tracing request from the ATF, or refusing to let the ATF carry out an inspection.
“These merchants of death are breaking the law for profit,” Biden said at the White House. “If you willfully sell a gun to someone who’s prohibited, my message to you is this: We’ll find you and we’ll seek your license to sell guns. We’ll make sure you can’t sell death and mayhem on our streets.”
A senior White House official told reporters on Tuesday the move “will be a historic policy that will make sure that we hold gun dealers across the country who are contributing to the supply of crime guns accountable.”
The ATF will coordinate with state and local officials to be better informed about which dealers are supplying gums that show up at crime scenes, according to the White House. “This information may provide valuable leads for ATF investigations and serve as a source of information that helps focus inspection resources on the places that need them most,” according to a White House fact sheet.
