The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) wants to see an end to the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
On Thursday, the gun industry trade group asked President-elect Donald Trump to undo President Joe Biden’s initiative. NSSF accused Biden of creating the office to “appease the special-interest gun control lobby and donors.” It said Trump should simply disband it or replace it with one “dedicated to the advancement and preservation of the Second Amendment.”
“President-elect Trump has the ability to stand strong with law-abiding Second Amendment supporters and wipe away this unprecedented abuse of government authority that has been used as a blunt instrument against rights that are protected by the U.S. Constitution,” Lawrence Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President, said in a statement. “Nowhere else, within the U.S. Government, are taxpayers forced to fund efforts to denigrate their rights protected by the law.”
The NSSF’s call provides insight into some of the things the gun industry is hoping to achieve in the next Trump Administration. It also sheds light on one of the things Trump could do on gun policy without needing Congress to pass new legislation, a tall task with the thin majorities his party will have.
Trump hasn’t mentioned any plans for the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention since winning last week’s election. He didn’t call it out by name on the campaign trail either. However, he did promise to undo all of Biden’s gun initiatives earlier this year.
“Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated my very first week back in office,” Trump told NRA members in February.
Biden created the office and picked Vice President Kamala Harris to lead it back in September 2023 as part of a broader effort to restrict firearms and promote violence-prevention programs through executive action. Biden said the office would coordinate efforts to reduce gun violence across government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels.
“Last year, I signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to keep guns out of dangerous hands, and have taken more executive action than any President in history to keep communities safe. But as I’ve said before – while these are important steps, they are just the first steps toward what is needed,” Biden said at the time. “Today I’m announcing additional steps forward, with the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, overseen by Vice President Harris, to build upon these measures and keep Americans safe.”
However, it also represented a home for gun-control activists inside the administration. The office worked directly with gun-control groups, and Rob Wilcox, who Biden appointed as the office’s deputy director, came from Everytown for Gun Safety. Republicans and gun-rights activists have accused the office of “colluding” with gun-control groups to pressure Glock into altering its gun designs after a tweet from Everytown’s president alluded to conversations between the company and federal officials.
Gun-control advocates decried NSSF’s call for Trump to shut down the office and asked Trump to keep it in place.
“It’s no surprise to anyone that the NSSF, whose principal mission is firearm industry profits, is now pushing to shutter the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention – proving, once again, that the industry cares more about lining their pockets than they do about saving lives,” Emma Brown, Giffords Executive Director, said in a statement. “Shutting down the Office of Gun Violence Prevention would be a severe blow to public safety. Americans deserve a government that prioritizes saving lives over the interests of the gun industry, and we strongly urge the incoming administration to keep this critical office in place.”
NSSF said Trump should toss the office on day one.
“The Biden-Harris administration has used this office to attempt to justify their unconstitutional and whole-of-government attacks on Second Amendment rights and the industry that makes those rights possible to exercise,” Keane said. “This office must no longer exist after January 20, 2025.”