President Joe Biden signed an executive order Thursday that aims to curtail the prevalence of 3D-printed guns and machine gun parts and to improve school shooting drills.
The executive order creates an “Emerging Firearms Threats Task Force” that will deliver a report to the White House in 90 days detailing the threat posed by 3D-printed machine gun parts and firearms as well as how federal authorities can stop the circulation of the devices, with the order also directing other agencies to improve shooter drills in schools, according to a White House announcement. The Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Bureau (ATF) reported a 570% increase in full-auto conversion devices between 2017 and 2021 and the previous 5-year period, according to the White House.
“In April 2021, one of the Biden-Harris Administration’s first executive actions to reduce gun violence was to address the emerging threat of firearms without serial numbers, often referred to as ‘ghost guns,’” the White House said in the announcement. “Now, President Biden and Vice President Harris are taking additional action on two emerging firearms threats: machinegun conversion devices and unserialized, 3D-printed firearms.”
“Guns are the number one killer of children in America, more than any other cause. It’s sick,” Biden said during the event.
Biden was joined by Harris and Democratic Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin. He lauded Biden and Harris for “investments” in American neighborhoods and said that Biden was a “true friend” to Birmingham.
“Today we work to loosen the grip that gun violence has on our communities,” Woodfin said. “My community, and I’m sure other communities, are still finding the use of these devices at crime scene after crime scene.”
Shootings in Birmingham, Alabama, and Apalachee High School in Georgia have recently reignited the gun control debate. Police believe that the shooters in Birmingham used so-called “glock switches” that enabled automatic fire, which caused more people to be caught in the crossfire, according to CNN.
China is a large contributor to the increase in switches in the U.S., with federal authorities in Boston seizing over 350 websites in involved in the illicit transport of the devices into the U.S, according to the Department of Justice in September. Often, the contraband is mislabeled as innocuous things to pass through U.S. customs, such as “necklace” or “toy.”
Biden called for a ban on “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines” and for other “common-sense gun legislation” after the Georgia shooting, according to a press release.
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