‘He hasn’t been a leader’: Gun control advocates dismayed at Biden

Many gun control advocates are feeling disappointed with US President Joe Biden, who has failed to take any concrete action to address America’s runaway gun violence.

Biden received generous campaign donations from gun control advocates during the 2020 election. They also poured money into many other Democratic campaigns, hoping that a Democrat-held Congress could pass widespread gun control laws.

But a year after taking office, Biden has yet to deliver legislation that gun control campaigners had expected to see.

Advocates are particularly disheartened by Biden’s inadequate response to the recent school shooting in Michigan, when a sophomore opened fire at school and killed four of his fellow students, according to The Hill.

“I think the biggest thing to highlight here is that the president has been a friend to the gun violence prevention (GVP) movement this year and we’re thankful, but frankly, he hasn’t really been a leader,” said Zeenat Yahya, deputy policy director at March for Our Lives.

“We’re definitely surprised. We were really hopeful and he made a lot of promises. We are thankful for some of the actions the president has already taken but there is so much more he can do that’s a comprehensive top-to-bottom approach,” Yahya added.

March for Our Lives was a student-led demonstration in support of gun control legislation, which took place in Washington and throughout the United States in March 2018.

The events followed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting a month earlier, which was described by several media outlets as a possible tipping point for gun control legislation in the United States.

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After the shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan in November, Biden briefly addressed the nation to offer condolences, but he fell short of announcing any plan to tackle the scourge of gun violence.

“For me, the failure to more dramatically acknowledge what happened in a public way was disappointing. I hope that that doesn’t happen again,” said Fred Guttenberg, senior adviser of Brady PAC and father of a victim in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting.

Advocates wanted Biden to put more pressure on Congress to move on gun violence, where a 50-50 Senate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans is a major impediment.

“What we need more than anything right now is a comprehensive strategy to deal with this reality, what is the plan?” asked Peter Ambler, executive director and co-founder of Giffords, a gun control group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was gravely wounded in a shooting.

Like his predecessors, Biden has issued executive orders on gun violence prevention but legislation to expand background checks has stalled in the Senate.

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While gun control activists ''acknowledge the political roadblocks'' in Washington, they still believe Biden could have applied more pressure on Congress to take action on the issue, The Hill said.

Advocates are also dismayed at President Biden for giving in to pressure from gun rights groups and pulling David Chipman’s nomination in September to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Chipman, a former ATF agent who became a prominent gun control advocate after leaving the agency, was the subject of a brutal confirmation battle in the Senate since Biden nominated him this spring.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that gathers data and information about shootings across the US, more than 20,000 people have died from gun violence in the country this year. Total gun-related deaths stand at more than 44,000 if suicides are counted.

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