By Jesus Garcia
Jun 27, 2024, 3:46 PM EDT
The Bipartisan Safe Communities Act (BSCA) has allowed President Joe Biden’s administration to implement several programs, to reduce gun violence.
A first step was creation of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the White Housebut Greg Jackson, deputy director of the office, highlights other aspects that have been fundamental to the comprehensive strategy.
“First, [la Administración Biden] invested $15 billion dollars in violence prevention strategies,” he said in an interview. “Strategies such as expanding line 98 to address suicide crisesinvest in community violence intervention programs and make the largest investment in youth mental health in American history, adding 14,000 mental health professionals in schools.”
One of the law’s contributions was to create the legal framework for the arrest and prosecution of persons who traffic in weapons.
“The bill also made gun trafficking a federal crime. for the first time,” he said. “In fact, we have prosecuted more than 500 people who were actually trafficking weapons throughout the country. And before they were released with a warning, but now there are federal charges.”
The law faced intense debate in 2022, including on background checks.
“We have improved our background check system and ensured that [compradores] are under 21 years old,” he said. “Before they are approved to purchase a gun, we look at their mental health records and their juvenile criminal history.”
What are the challenges?
Although there has been important progress with the bipartisan law, there are challenges remaining, including all states implementing federal guidelines.
“The biggest challenge is that some of these measures require state action,” Jackson acknowledged. “We invested $750 million dollars in the implementation of risk protection laws extremes or red flag laws that can remove a gun from the home if someone is in crisis, but only 14 states have laws that can take advantage of that.”
That is, state laws can prevent a risky situation with weapons in a home from escalating, but the majority of states, mainly Republican, have not implemented such action, although Jackson defends that it is not a “blue or red” issue. ”, in reference to partisan governments.
Asked whether the states that do not want to join the effort are those that strongly defend the use of weapons and have ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA), the official partially acknowledged this assertion.
“For the most part,” he said briefly. “Unfortunately, there are some states across the board, we think of red flag laws, that have not passed local legislation. […] It’s not as simple as blue or red, because in Florida, the law was passed by Republicans and run by Republicans. And this is something that in certain states Republicans have been advocating for. So we’re going to keep pushing.”
Although Jackson does not establish a direct connection between this bipartisan law and the new gun violence crisis alert, in the end they are complementary efforts that affect youth and other populations.
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