The Biden Administration on Thursday confirmed it was standing up a new "White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention," reporting to Vice President Harris. 

As previously reported by Guns.com, the taxpayer-funded office, the first of its kind, will be used to spearhead policy efforts by the administration when it comes to the national conversation on guns. However, rather than offer gun owners, Second Amendment advocates, and shooting sports groups a seat at the table, the Oval Office said it will name two gun control activists – Everytown's Robert Wilcox and Greg Jackson of the Community Justice Action Fund – as "Special Assistants to the President" with the titles of "Deputy Director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention."  

Wilcox and Jackson will report to White House Staff Secretary Stefanie Feldman, a long-time policy staffer who served in the Obama-Biden Administration before working for the Biden-Harris Administration. While serving as Biden's Deputy Assistant for Domestic Policy in 2020, she was influential behind the scenes when it came to the incoming 46th President's mandates to repeal Trump-era practices and roll in the new regime. 

"During the presidential transition, I coordinated the development of dozens of executive orders and other executive actions signed by President Biden during the first 10 days of his Administration," Feldman said in a Duke University interview. "I had to make sure all of the incoming White House leadership – from counsel to communications to policy council chairs – had the opportunity to shape the documents. We then briefed the President on the proposed actions and secured his approval."

In turn, Feldman, who has been named Director of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, will report to Vice President Harris. 
 

The White House stressed the new gun control tsar's office "will focus on implementing executive and legislative action" while the President was clear that he has not given up on his push for lawmakers to enact more controls on private gun transfers and ban common semi-automatic firearms. 

"I’ll continue to urge Congress to take commonsense actions that the majority of Americans support like enacting universal background checks and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines," said Biden in a statement on Thursday. "But in the absence of that sorely-needed action, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention along with the rest of my Administration will continue to do everything it can to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is tearing our families, our communities, and our country apart."

Meanwhile, Alan Gottlieb, chair of the 650,000-member Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, was quick to respond to the news from Washington. 

"I am appalled that Joe Biden is putting the gun prohibition lobby on the White House payroll,” Gottlieb told Guns.com. "I know that many pro-gun rights members of Congress are working on legislation to prohibit funding for this obnoxious scheme."
 
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