As Donald Trump rolls out his picks for cabinet secretaries and senior members of his administration, one open question is what he’ll do with the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which is currently staffed with longtime anti-gun activists.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation says Trump shouldn’t bother to replace anti-gunners like Everytown alumn Rob Wilcox and Tides Foundation Community Justice Action Fund veteran Greg Jackson, and instead should defund and disband the office entirely.
“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,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. “Nowhere else, within the U.S. Government, are taxpayers forced to fund efforts to denigrate their rights protected by the law. This office was established to appease the special-interest gun control lobby and donors. 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. This office must no longer exist after January 20, 2025.”
Keane suggests that Trump could replace the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention with “one dedicated to the advancement and preservation of the Second Amendment”. I brought up that very thing when Keane joined me on Bearing Arms Cam & Co the day after the 2024 elections, and I’m still fully on board with that proposal.
Instead of directing more than $100 million to pushing and implementing state-level “red flag” laws, why not give states or even private non-profits grants to develop publicly accessible ranges?
The White House has also spent more than $270 million on “community-led violence intervention programs and related training and technical assistance and research”. Some of those programs may very well be useful and effective at reducing violence in all its forms, but without oversight and accountability a lot of that money is simply going to be wasted.
We’ve already seen issues like that in Philadelphia, where the Philadelphia Inquirer found the city gave tens of millions of dollars to “organizations that did not meet its own stated guidelines and did not have the infrastructure to manage the money.”
One grantee, in violation of city policy, used the money to pay police officers (and to provide stipends for many of their children) to run a boxing program outside the police district, an earlier Inquirer investigation found. Police Internal Affairs and the Philadelphia Inspector General both said they were launching their own investigations in response. The boxing program was dropped, and the captain who helmed it resigned for unrelated reasons, after receiving a notice that he faced firing.
Rather than focusing on groups in the most hard-hit neighborhoods, grants were distributed relatively evenly across 29 ZIP codes with above average rates of gun violence. The controller’s report concluded that a lack of “a fair, open, and transparent bid process” had created — intentionally or not — a “perception of favoritism or bias” towards certain providers who were ultimately selected.
While the city previously denied allegations of political favoritism, one grant was awarded to a sitting Democratic ward leader, who was given nearly 60% more than his group had initially applied for. The controller found 12 other organizations had received more money than what was originally requested, while 12 organizations received less — but the city did not provide “additional details or explanation as to why their share was reduced.”
How closely has the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and the Biden administration vetted the organizations that have received federal grants? I’m fairly confident that a healthy portion of that money could be re-directed to programs that encourage and foster a culture of responsible gun ownership without damaging the programs that have been proven and effective at reducing crime without putting more gun laws in place.
There’s no reason why Trump should keep the Office of Gun Violence Prevention around. His administration can focus on reducing violent crime without blaming gun owners and the firearms industry for the actions of criminals or serving as a central hub for gun control efforts across the country. A White House Office to Promote Responsible Gun Ownership that combats the political and cultural push to make gun ownership taboo and abnormal while also supporting grassroots efforts to reduce violent crime that don’t involve more gun control would be a valuable addition to Trump’s second term, but at the very least the in-house gun control group that currently exists should be shut down on day one of his administration.
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