Biden Signs Executive Order Strengthening Gun Background Checks

What's the story?

• President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that mandates required background checks for all firearm sales and cracks down on sellers who break the law.
• Biden signed the order in Monterey Park, California, the scene of a mass shooting in January that left eleven people dead.

“Every few days in the United States, we mourn a new mass shooting," Biden said in the order. "We cannot accept these facts as the enduring reality of life in America,” the order said. “Instead, we must together insist that we have had enough.”

• His executive order does not require the approval of Congress and does not change government policy, it merely enables Biden to take action within his authority as president.
• The president cannot unilaterally enhance the Safer Communities Act, a piece of bipartisan legislation passed by Congress after the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings. However, his order can empower federal agencies to ensure compliance with existing laws. 
• Biden has been growing more vocal about his anti-gun stance, saying to Congress:

"Ban assault weapons once and for all.”

• White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said ahead of the order:

“Too many lives have been taken by gun violence. But he believes we need to do more. You’ll hear him call on Congress to take action and not to stop ... that we need to continue.”

What will the executive order do?

• The executive order comes at a time when partisan divisions in Washington make action on gun control a slow and divisive process.
• As long as Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives, it is unlikely that Biden's goal of an assault weapons ban and universal background check will pass.
• Biden wants to repeal the immunity from prosecution that gun manufacturers currently enjoy.
• The president signed a gun violence reduction measure into law last year but urged Congress to do more to address the "epidemic" of gun violence.
• Legislation that requires criminal background checks for gun sales has not had broad support in the Senate and has been rejected by both Democrats and Republicans.