The White House intends this week to kickstart a new "office for gun violence prevention" and staff it with advocates who have long worked for increased gun control.
The coverage of the new office, first reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday, stresses the official announcement is slated for Friday at the White House Rose Garden. Two names associated with the report should sound familiar to those on both sides of the national conversation on firearms and gun rights.
Greg Jackson, the executive director for the Community Justice Action Fund, and Rob Wilcox, the senior director for federal government affairs at the Bloomberg-backed Everytown anti-gun group, are reported by WaPo as "expected to have key roles in the office."
Jackson, a former organizer for Barack Obama, has frequently appeared with President Biden and on Capitol Hill speaking in favor of more gun control.
"To eliminate gun violence in America, we must swiftly recognize that this is a public health crisis and deliver a public health response," he testified before the House Oversight Committee in a 2022 hearing on "The Urgent Need to Address the Gun Violence Epidemic."
Likewise, Wilcox has also appeared in front of Congress, lobbying earlier this year for more support of the ATF at a time when the agency has revoked federal firearms licenses at a rate not seen in 16 years – many for minor clerical errors.
In a 2022 hearing before a House subcommittee, Wilcox stumped for universal background checks, mandatory gun lock laws, and stepped-up regulation of licensed gun dealers.
Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn) and U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.) introduced legislation to establish an Office of Gun Violence Prevention inside the U.S. Department of Justice. The proposal would coordinate gun control efforts across federal agencies, make policy recommendations, "develop a plan to collect and analyze" gun data research, and convene an advisory council made up of healthcare professionals, teachers, students, and veterans – but with no seats for hunters, target shooters, police, gun industry members, or Second Amendment advocates.
Murphy was pleased with the news that the White House is apparently ghosting his recommendation to welcome anti-gun activists into a newly created government bureaucracy without the hassle of going through an act of Congress.
"Congressman Frost and I introduced legislation earlier this year to establish this office, and though we will continue to push to codify the need for this office, the President's decision to set it up without legislation is a great step forward," said Murphy in a statement on Wednesday.
As for gun control champions, they saw it as a good first step towards more nationwide gun bans.
“Brady adamantly supports the creation of such an office and applauds the Biden-Harris Administration for continuing to make gun violence prevention such a critical priority," said Kris Brown, president of Brady. "However, executive action alone isn't enough to end gun violence, which is why Congress must still act to pass common-sense gun laws, including universal background checks and an assault weapons ban."
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