Professional gun control advocates have always had a seat at the table in the Biden White House. Now, however, they will not only sit at the table but determine its menu, set it, and compile the guest list for it. This comes under a new initiative launched by Joe Biden last Friday to establish an Office of Gun Violence Prevention, to be overseen by none other than Kamala Harris. But while the effort is supposedly being run by the White House “to reduce gun violence,” its real purpose is to employ professional gun control advocates and amplify their propaganda and agenda with taxpayer dollars.
There are different ways to look at this effort.
One is to dismiss it as a publicity stunt and a way to appease the always demanding, never satisfied gun control lobby, which is a key constituency of the Biden-Harris Administration. After all, the new office has no congressional authorization, no dedicated congressional appropriation, no policy-making or enforcement authority, and no clearly defined reason for being, other than a vague mandate to “coordinate” the administration’s efforts on guns.
The appointment of Harris as its nominal head is perhaps telling, as she has a dismal favorability rating (including with Democrats), a reputation for speaking incoherently, and precious little success in shepherding consequential legislation through Congress. Even the administration’s collaborators in the press can’t seem to settle on a consistent narrative about her, sometimes portraying her as a liability to the Biden ticket and the party and sometimes trying to rehabilitate her image. Harris’ “oversite” portfolio also includes “stemming the migration on the southern border,” where the situation has only gotten worse from national sovereignty, human rights, and law enforcement standpoints. Besides unchecked illegal immigration that strains infrastructure and social services (leading even the Democrat mayor of New York City to characterize is as an existential crisis for the city), America’s porous border promotes smuggling of contraband and persons, often with deadly consequences. If there is a more disliked and ineffectual politician in D.C. than Kamala Harris, it’s hard to imagine who it is.
But it would be foolish to dismiss the fact that the office’s creation represents a new milestone in an ever-expanding gun control infrastructure that encompasses the legacy media, academia, the digital technology sector, and significant portions of institutional medicine and the entertainment industry. Meanwhile, the executive branch itself is increasingly being weaponized against gun owners and the gun industry in the form of persecutory rulemakings and enforcement policies. Having a dedicated office of fulltime zealots to interface with this infrastructure could indeed go a long way toward provoking the generational change in hearts and minds necessary to disrupt long-established freedoms, traditions, and legal regimes. The U.S. is currently undergoing its own Cultural Revolution, of sorts, and our Second Amendment rights are not immune to its effects. The newly-created office, if competently administered, could help nudge that process along.
But what is clear is that Biden is determined to use the White House’s own (apparently vast) budget to employ professional gun control advocates at the public’s expense. Previously, the most blatant and egregious example of this was its nomination of a “senior policy advisor” and paid shill for the gun control lobby to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which enforces federal firearm laws. The effort to nominate David Chipman to that role fortunately went down in flames, thanks to your NRA’s all-out opposition.
But the deputy directors of the new office include Robert Wilcox, who will also serve as special assistant to the president. Wilcox previously worked as the senior director of federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety. There, his salary was underwritten by billionaire anti-gunner Michael Bloomberg. In his new role, however, it will be paid with YOUR federal taxes. Wilcox as an anti-gun lobbyist pushed such radical policies as banning America’s most popular rifle, the AR-15; banning private firearm transfers; holding law-abiding firearm dealers accountable for the acts of criminals; and limiting the capacity of magazines used in self-defense firearms. Wilcox is not just another policy wonk or expert bureaucrat whose job is to serve the public at large. He is an activist dedicated to the destruction of Americans’ Second Amendment rights. And now money coming out of YOUR pocket will fund his life’s work.
Chipman’s appointment was subject to Senate approval. Wilcox’s is not. But it is just as clearly a thumb in the eye to hardworking Americans who are struggling to get by in Joe Biden’s economy and who believe in the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
What can best be hoped for Biden’s new antigun office is what can often best be hoped for other unnecessary and politically-charged appendages to the federal bureaucracy: that it spend money while doing and accomplishing nothing. Your NRA will be monitoring its operations carefully and will report on any noteworthy developments.
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