Vern Evans
Since former President Joe Biden established the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, many gun-rights activists have been hopeful that the next president might immediately do away with the ill-conceived attempt to use tax dollars to promote gun control schemes.
Only a day into President Donald Trump 2.0, it has been proven that some wishes do come true. On Tuesday, the office was dismantled, according to reports from several sources. The website for the office has been scrubbed from the White House website, leaving visitors to the site to receive a 404 error message.
While the White House hasn’t made a statement about the absence of the site, it appears President Trump is quickly following through with promises to scrap ineffective anti-gun schemes put into place by the Biden Administration. And in the case of getting rid of the White House Office of Gun Violence, that’s an especially good thing.
Not only was the office a partisan effort to get more restrictive gun control laws passed at the federal, state and local level, but it also was involved in some shenanigans that many in Congress thought were illegal. In October 2024, the U.S. House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention as part of an investigation into potential collusion between the Biden Administration and gun control groups. The inquiry centered around the pending litigation City of Chicago v. Glock, with allegations that the White House coordinated with anti-Second Amendment plaintiffs.
“This raises serious concerns about whether you or your staff abused the authority of your office and committed ethical violations by colluding with outside parties to initiate a lawsuit against a politically disfavored private entity,” Committee Chairman James Comer stated at the time in a letter to Stefanie Feldman, director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
After the election, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) urged President Trump to disband the office. NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane remarked that Trump has the chance to “stand strong with law-abiding Second Amendment supporters and eliminate this unprecedented abuse of government authority.”
In this instance, the Trump Administration apparently passed an early test with flying colors.
Those on the other side of the Second Amendment debate weren’t happy, though. In a teary-eyed story about the demise of the office, Newsweek.com claimed that the office had made great strides in fighting “gun violence,” more aptly called criminal violence.
“The Office of Gun Violence Prevention also helped to drive down homicides by 13.5 percent, shut down over 800 non-compliant gun dealers and stopped over 500 illegal gun purchases,” the story stated.
Of course, that’s completely inaccurate. The office likely had nothing to do with any drop in homicides that might or might not have occurred. And those 800 “non-compliant” gun dealers Newsweek bragged about were mostly those making simple paperwork errors targeted by Biden’s zero-tolerance policy, which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) recently reversed before President Trump could do away with it.
Gun-ban groups were also quick to lament the office’s removal from the website. Kris Brown, president of Brady—formerly named Handgun Control Inc. until banning handguns became widely unpopular—chided the Trump Administration over the move.
“In his inaugural address, President Trump talked a big game about keeping Americans safe,” Kris Brown, Brady president, said in a news release. “But now—less than 24 hours later—he’s gutting the federal government’s ability to respond to gun crime and mass shootings. The White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention wasn’t about politics—it was about strengthening the government’s ability to protect Americans (more than 300 of whom are shot every single day) from guns. By shuttering it, Trump is putting the interests of the gun lobby above our kids, our communities and our country.”
Ultimately, it was only a matter of time before the Trump Administration did away with the highly politicized office that targeted gun rights more than ways to stop violent criminals from preying on lawful Americans. The fact that it only took one day is yet another good reason for gun owners to celebrate the end of Biden’s America.
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