Joe Biden unveils steps to tackle America’s rampant gun violence

Name: Georgia spa shootings kill 8 people, including 6 Asian women
Uploaded: 2021-04-08T05:12:20.000Z
Duration: 2 min 11 s
Description: Georgia spa shootings kill 8 people, including 6 Asian women

New measures include plans to crack down on ‘ghost guns’ and ‘stabilising braces’, which effectively turn pistols into rifles

The US president has faced pressure to act on gun control after a spate of mass shootings

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US President Joe Biden is already facing resistance from political opponents and the National Rifle Association. Photo: AFP

Reuters

Published: 1:12pm, 8 Apr 2021Updated: 1:43am, 9 Apr 2021

US President Joe Biden and his Attorney General Merrick Garland announced limited measures to tackle gun violence in the United States on Thursday, in what the White House described as a first step to curb mass shootings, community bloodshed and suicides.

The new measures include plans for the Justice Department to crack down on self-assembled “ghost guns” and make “stabilising braces” – which effectively turn pistols into rifles – subject to registration under the National Firearms Act.

Biden said he will also ask the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to release an annual report on firearms trafficking in the United States, and make it easier for states to adopt “red flag” laws that flag at-risk individuals who own guns.

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Georgia spa shootings kill 8 people, including 6 Asian women

“Today we’re taking steps to confront not just the gun crisis, but what is actually a public health crisis,” Biden said, speaking in the Rose Garden to an audience filled with family members of victims of gun violence. He noted another mass shooting in South Carolina this week.

“This is an epidemic for God’s sake and it has to stop,” Biden said.

Biden, a Democrat who has a long history of advocating for gun restrictions, has come under pressure to step up action after recent mass shootings in Colorado and Georgia.

Biden announced the measures alongside Vice-President Kamala Harris and Garland, who Biden said would prioritise gun violence as head of the Department of Justice.