this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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President Joe Biden will announce the creation of the first-ever federal office of gun violence prevention on Friday, fulfilling a key demand of gun safety activists as legislation remains stalled in Congress, according to two people with direct knowledge of the White House’s plans.

Stefanie Feldman, a longtime Biden aide who previously worked on the Domestic Policy Council, will play a leading role, the people said.

Greg Jackson, executive director of the Community Justice Action Fund, and Rob Wilcox, the senior director for federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety, are expected to hold key roles in the office alongside Feldman, who has worked on gun policy for more than a decade and still oversees the policy portfolio at the White House. The creation of the office was first reported by The Washington Post.

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[–] RotaryKeyboard@lemmy.ninja 93 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Oh, man. Can you imagine the misery of being appointed to this post? Literally half of the government would hate and despise you and would look for ways to undercut you just to have an extra talking point while they stand in the hall talking to Fox News. And to top it off, what could you actually do to affect change? I sympathize with the poor workers of this office.

[–] tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Also knowing that you’re guaranteed to be “downsized” on the first day of the next party change in the White House.

[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

And imagine how much security you'll have to hire to keep yourself from getting shot.

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[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Next time a Republican takes office they will set this department's budget to 1 dollar, just like the consumer protection bureau. It will get to the point that parts of the government will only work when dems are in charge.

[–] astral_avocado@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

I was really curious to learn more about CFPB's financing, I found an article about Trump slashing their budget by a quarter but I haven't been able to find anything about their funding year by year.

It's turbo fucked if they haven't refunded them because they've returned billions to consumers by prosecuting fraudulent organizations like Wells Fargo!!

[–] Hazdaz@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's "Starve the Beast" politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

Everyone should know what this is and how and why it is done.

In short, Republicans want to starve a department of funding to a level below which they can not properly function. Then they can claim that agency isn't doing it's job, so we might as well cut it altogether. They are trying to set up these departments and programs to fail and can come in and claim they are saving taxpayers money. What they are really doing is making it easier for corporations and the ultra rich to pollute or side-step their tax obligations. Kind of hard to claim someone is a tax cheat if there isn't an IRS to audit them. Same with the EPA, Amtrak, USPS, DoEducation, and a host of other departments.

Once again, we can thank Reagan for this mess.

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[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago (5 children)

What are they going to do that the ATF and FBI don’t already do?

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Prevention of gun violence isn’t exactly the remit of either of those agencies. The ATF focuses on the tracking of and illegal sales of guns while the FBI focuses on crimes committed with them (and other crimes, of course). Neither of those are about prevention of gun violence.

A separate agency that can focus more on the social issues that are behind gun violence could act in many ways that neither of the other two agencies could while not having to worry about drawing focus or manpower, from how those two agencies operate.

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (16 children)

They could provide free firearm training courses and encourage young people to take them. Which would help with accidents.

A separate agency that can focus more on the social issues that are behind gun violence

I doubt they are going to give this agency the necessary tools to lower poverty and the wealth gap, lower the rate of single parents, increase healthcare affordability, increase housing production, and destroy the culture of degrading those who try to better themselves. These are the issues that cause people to be unhappy enough with life they chose to murder. Happy individuals with productive lives don't generally decide murder is the correct course of action.

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[–] dan1101@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Maybe not encourage guns to be sold to cartels, unlike the ATF Fast and Furious program. It was supposed to track firearms going south, but just lost them.

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[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Actually collect data on police shootings?

[–] pimento64@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Shoot your cat and goldfish instead of just your spouse and your dog

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[–] Iwasondigg@lemmy.one 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Whoo boy, that's gonna set off the crazies. And finally Rick Scott will know which Federal agency he wants to eliminate when asked the question. I don't see this as particularly effective or constructive going into an election year. But what do I know?

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep going harder on gun control stuff is going to do nothing but lose votes for Democrats. Because if you're already anti-gun then you're voting [D] anyway right? Personally I'm never voting for any politician who proposes to limit any freedoms. I'm pro-freedom only. I don't really have much to vote for these days.

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[–] Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“After months of research, we have written a 1000 page report proving the solution is fewer guns.”

Republicans: “MORE GUNS! ARM EVERYONE!”

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] fullstopslash@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To go along with all the prayers.

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[–] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From the WaPo article:

The new office will report up through Stefanie Feldman, the White House staff secretary and a longtime Biden policy aide who has worked on the firearms issue for years, the people said. Feldman previously worked on the Domestic Policy Council and still oversees the gun policy portfolio at the White House.

So it's going to be a purely policy role within the White House? Well that's disappointing. I was hoping it was going to be somewhere in HHS, or at least DoJ.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago

That would likely require explicit funding. Yes this is just to make a headline. He could actually direct the ATF to follow up on straw purchases, improve data sync with NICS and other federal databases if he wanted to do something meaningful.

[–] havokdj@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Great idea, but I do not have faith that this will be well executed.

If the democrats had the same drive as their republican counterparts, this would be a better country.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

3, 2, 1...here come the gun nuts...

[–] quindraco@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago (10 children)

As expected every time guns are brought up in a political context, the comments are already full of people talking past each other while ignoring the real issues.

It is exactly as difficult to get rid of guns in this country as it would be to get rid of the electoral college, and the electoral college has done thing like lead directly to the covid pandemic being far worse than it had to be because Trump fired the guy we had in position to warn everyone if China leaked a pandemic.

Instead of discussing that, all you're going to find in a thread like this is back and forth about getting rid of guns (nearly impossible) or decrying the department as redundant (the DHS is proof this is also meaningless) or the like.

[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

If something is not realistically achievable in the short term, that means we shouldn't be able to talk about it?

I disagree. If we limit discourse only to the immediately achievable we stop talking about how things should be, and how best to get there. Sometimes change happens overnight, sometimes it takes decades. It's worth talking about.

[–] johnthedoe@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

It definitely feels like a lost cause banning guns. It’s part of the culture. When we banned guns in Australia after one single mass shooting, I don’t believe Australia had nearly as much of a gun loving culture. It was still seen as a tool in the country side for hunting and such. I don’t know the answer to changing culture. It’ll take generations possibly. Smoking was seen like an everyday thing in the 60s. Now it’s disgusting. Perception can change eventually.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Most people are not asking to "get rid of guns." Most people are asking for restrictions that keep people safe, not least our school children, and a ban on military-style weapons like AR-15s. That's not unreasonable nor impossible.

[–] astral_avocado@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

AR-15s are functionally the same as the majority of rifles, they're semi automatic. Calling AR-15s military style immediately shows you know almost nothing about guns.

We'd have a better return on our investment banning handguns which are used in more deadly non-police shootings by a whole fucking lot.

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[–] PopcornTin@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The difficult problem is the ones who decide to do bad things with guns, don't exactly have much respect for the law. Pass whatever restrictions you want, if someone wants to shoot anyone badly enough, they will find a way.

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[–] endhits@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (25 children)

You claim that no one is asking to get rid of guns, and then call for a ban on an entire class of firearms (and a vague one, "military-style weapons", which is intentionally vague and demonstrates a lack of knowledge of firearms).

Make a decision please.

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[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

IMO a more robust mental and other healthcare system and social services would go a lot farther in preventing these kinds of things. Identifying and fixing/containing the people that are so deranged that they would kill others would stop most killings and the kinds of things that lead up to it. Most of the gun crime is a symptom of a much larger problem of people with little to no support lashing out.

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