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Vice President Kamala Harris will head a new federal office for gun violence prevention, the White House said Thursday.
President Joe Biden will formally announce the new office on Friday during a Rose Garden event where several advocates and lawmakers were invited to attend.
This is the first federal government office dedicated to fighting gun violencewhich takes the lives of thousands of people in the country every year.
Harris, who has played a leading role in security and gun control policy, will oversee the office, according to a White House statement. Stefanie Feldman, a longtime Biden aide who has worked on gun policy for more than a decade, will be its director.
“The new Office of Gun Violence Prevention will play a critical role in implementing President Biden and my efforts to reduce violence to the fullest extent provided by law, while engaging and encouraging leaders of the Congress, state and local leaders, and advocates to come together to build on the significant progress we have made to save lives,” Vice President Harris said in a statement.
The office will have the mission of coordinating the efforts of various state and local authorities in the fight against gun violence and will also help implement a law passed by Congress last year, in what was the most significant measure in terms of gun control. weapons in the last 30 years.
Harris was chosen to lead this initiative because of her personal passion for this issue.
As attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017, Harris played a leading role in gun control in law enforcement and during his time in the Senate from 2017 to 2021, he pushed several initiatives to ban assault weapons and strengthen background checks for gun buyers.
“America’s epidemic of gun violence requires urgent leadership to end the fear and trauma Americans experience every day,” Harris said.
AND reaffirmed its commitment to the fight against armed violence. “Our promise to the American people is this: we will not cease our efforts to end the epidemic of gun violence in every community, because we do not have a moment or a life to waste,” he emphasized.
According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more Americans died from gunshot wounds in 2021 than in any other year for which statistics are available.
In total, 48,830 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021, according to the CDC.
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