US President Joe Biden will announce gun control measures on Thursday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Wednesday (April 7th).
The Democratic government has not detailed the nature of these announcements but, according to the Politico site, Joe Biden will issue presidential decrees to better regulate certain types of sales.
Accompanied by his Minister of Justice Merrick Garland, he should in particular tackle so-called “ghost” weapons which are handcrafted and have no serial number.
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Joe Biden, a longtime proponent of better gun regulation, pledged during his campaign to act on this front.
A spate of shootings in recent weeks has increased the pressure for him to take action.
After killings in Georgia and then Colorado, he called on Congress to ban assault rifles and pass legislation to better verify the background of buyers, but short Democratic majorities in both chambers make it difficult to pass. texts on this very divisive subject.
Acting by decree will allow it to go faster.
43,000 gun deaths in 2020
In 1994, then senator, Joe Biden had participated in the adoption of a law banning assault rifles.
But the measure was only valid for ten years and could never be renewed after 2004 given the opposition of elected Republican officials to what they perceive as a violation of a constitutional right.
Guns killed more than 43,000 people, including suicides, in the United States in 2020, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
But many Americans remain very attached to their guns and have even rushed to buy more since the start of the pandemic, and even more during the major anti-racist protests of the spring and the electoral tensions of the fall.