The president said last month in commemorating the Uvalde elementary school massacre that elected officials still had not done “nearly enough” to address gun violence.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will travel to West Hartford, Conn., on Friday to participate in a national gun policy summit and deliver remarks touching on the bipartisan gun control measure he signed into law a year ago.
Biden will speak at the National Safer Communities Summit at the University of Hartford around 2 p.m. ET. The president is expected to highlight the law he signed — the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — considered the most sweeping legislation aimed at preventing gun violence in 30 years.
When he signed the law in June 2022, Biden had called it “real progress,” but acknowledged that the issue of gun violence required additional action. He was more blunt last month as he marked the anniversary of the Uvalde school massacre that created momentum for the legislation, saying elected officials had not done “nearly enough” to address gun violence.
Biden has tried to leverage potential new executive authorities from the law to strengthen the national background check system. In March, he directed Attorney General Merrick Garland to “clarify the definition of who is engaged in the business of dealing in firearms” — a potential step that could close major loopholes in the background check system that Congress was unable to do through legislation in the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.
His administration is still implementing parts of the law, including new grants that the Department of Justice announced Thursday that are meant to help state record repositories and state courts find ways to make a greater share of eligible records available to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
These grants, the DOJ said, will help states “by improving and modernizing outdated state records systems and procedures, converting records into electronic form, and capturing new data.” It’s expected that “more complete, accurate, and timely records will become available in these systems, including the additional criminal history, mental health, and juvenile information,” the release said.
On Friday, the departments of Education and Health and Human Services are expected to send a letter to governors outlining available resources from the mental health investments provided under the law.
Meanwhile, Biden has also repeatedly vowed to seek a new legislative ban on assault weapons, similar to one he helped usher into law as a senator in 1994 that expired 10 years later. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has not committed to putting the legislation on the Senate floor, in part to shield vulnerable Democrats from taking difficult votes ahead of a competitive election.