The Biden-Harris administration has released a 13-page progress report on the Office of Gun Violence Prevention’s (OGVP) first-year accomplishments, emphasizing “executive actions to combat gun violence” and how the White House has been helping state lawmakers push new gun control measures.

“The White House Office of Gun Violence released the Safer States Agenda, a playbook of 14 legislative actions that states can pursue to prevent gun violence and save lives,” the report states. “Since December 2023, at least 31 states have introduced new legislation to address gun violence. At least 17 states have enacted new legislation, including a safe storage law in California, a gun dealer accountability law in Washington, a victims compensation law in Maryland, a ghost gun ban in Vermont, a background check expansion in Maine, and a permit to purchase law in Delaware.”

Now, with Kamala Harris running hard to replace Joe Biden in 2025, it appears gun control is back in the spotlight, especially after she acknowledged being a gun owner while almost in the same breath saying the nation needs to ban so-called “assault weapons.”

As noted by Scripps News Service, the creation of the White House gun control office was “a landmark moment for President Joe Biden, for whom the issue of gun violence has been a decades-long focus.”

True enough, as Biden has been a gun control proponent since his early days on Capitol Hill a half-century ago.

Scripps quoted Stefanie Feldman, director of the OGVP, stating, “President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to continuing their long legacy of leadership on this work.”

In a statement from the White House, it was acknowledged the Biden-Harris OGVP has “encouraged other states and cities to establish their own offices of violence prevention to coordinate their work to reduce gun violence, and partnered with existing offices of violence prevention to share best practices.”

The statement revealed that Maryland, Pennsylvania and Maine have established their own offices of violence prevention, and in May, the White House “convened over 80 leaders from city and local offices of violence prevention in over 50 cities across the country to share common challenges their offices face.”

What it means in simple terms is that the Biden-Harris administration has spread its gun control tentacles to the states.

The Scripps report quoted data from the Gun Violence Archive indicating mass shootings have declined by 20 percent this year over the same period in 2023. A report in the Nebraska Examiner said the school shooting in Georgia “marked the 30^th mass killing in the United States this year, defined as an attack in which four or more people, excluding the perpetrator, are killed.” This is based on a database maintained by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University, the Examiner detailed.

Expect more anti-gun news to crop up, including the oft-repeated claim that guns kill more children than traffic wrecks. Even NYU News recently reported that “gun violence remains the leading cause of death among children and teenagers.” Is that really accurate?

Back in early February, the Washington Post’s reliable fact checker Glenn Kessler took on this claim, and while not issuing any “Pinocchio’s” to the people making the argument, he did explain how including people aged 18 and 19 into the mix, and excluding infants under the age of one year can skew the data. Here’s what he wrote at the time:

“By including 18- and 19-year-olds, excluding infants under age 1 and comparing firearm deaths with only vehicle crashes, Johns Hopkins reports that in 2021, there were 4,733 firearm deaths of “children and teens” compared with 4,048 deaths from motor vehicle crashes.

“But by counting only children 17 and under, including infants under the age of 1, and comparing with all motor vehicle deaths, the CDC data shows that in 2021, there were 2,590 firearm deaths of children, compared with 2,687 motor vehicle deaths.

“Excluding infants under 1 from the data narrows the gap to a near tie — 2,580 deaths from motor vehicles compared with 2,571 from firearms. If one focuses just on vehicle crashes, as Johns Hopkins does, then starting in 2020, firearm deaths exceeded motor vehicle deaths of children ages 1 to 17.”

Harris will no doubt push the claim that the OGVP, which she ostensibly oversees, has made great strides in reducing gun-related violence. Whether it is an accurate claim could be open to argument, but what is a certainty is that gun control, as predicted months ago, is going to be an issue as the nation rushes toward the November elections.

About Dave Workman