(PresidentialWire.com)- The White House is getting aggressive against guns, with President Joe Biden announcing new regulations for firearms on Monday.
Biden announced that the country will start to regulate ghost guns, which until this point were unregulated and untraceable weapons that allowed people to make them at home using a kit.
The way the guns will now be regulated is that background checks will be required before someone is able to purchase these ghost gun kits. Some of the components will also be required to have a serial number on them.
In announcing the new rules at a press conference at the Rose Garden Monday, Biden said the new requirements are “basic common sense.” He also brought a ghost gun kit with him, holding it up for all to see at the press conference.
The president even demonstrated how easy it was to put a ghost gun together, while saying:
“If you buy a couch you have to assemble, it’s still a couch. If you order a package like this one over here that includes the parts that you need and directs the assembly of a functioning firearm, you bought a gun.
“It doesn’t take very long. Anyone can order it in the mail.”
While ghost guns account for a small percentage of the total number of guns that are sold in the U.S. each year, law enforcement agencies have said they are seeing them used in crimes at an increasing rate. Just last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said gun violence was now a “serious public health threat.”
Biden has been trying since he took office to increase gun control, but he’s been hampered in doing so by Congress, which hasn’t taken any definitive action toward it. While liberals have tried, conservative members of Congress have fought back — successfully thus far.
The president referred to this at the press conference Monday, saying that things such as closing loopholes to background checks and banning all assault weapons would require Congress to act.
He referred to this when he commented on his new ghost gun rules by saying:
“None of this absolves Congress … for the responsibility to act.”
The Department of Justice rushed to get these new rules in place because gun violence typically spikes during the summer. According to the DOJ, the kits to build ghost guns can easily be purchased online.
Then, once people receive the kits, they are able to put them together in roughly 30 minutes.
The problem for law enforcement is that these ghost guns can’t be traced. Because of this, criminals often go to ghost guns because they have trouble passing a background check for a legitimate gun.
In explaining the new rules requiring serial numbers on components and background checks, Biden said:
“All of a sudden, it’s no longer a ghost. It has a return address, and it’s going to help save lives, reduce crime and get more criminals off the streets.”
