Everytown Previously Released New Research and Recommendations for How the President Can Take Executive Action to Reduce Gun Violence
WASHINGTON – In advance of President Obama’s meeting today with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and ATF Deputy Director Thomas Brandon to discuss executive action on guns, Everytown for Gun Safety released the following statement from President John Feinblatt:
“As he meets with Attorney General Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and ATF Deputy Director Thomas Brandon, we are grateful to President Obama for directing his team to look carefully into new actions to reduce the gun violence that kills 88 Americans and injures hundreds more everyday. Since Congress has failed to take action, we have made specific recommendations for how the White House can independently take action and hold high-volume sellers accountable for fueling the black market for guns that endangers our communities. We are hopeful that this meeting will result in meaningful executive orders that will save American lives from gun violence.”
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
- Last month former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Everytown President John Feinblatt met with President Obama and shared recommendations for executive action on guns.
- In November 2015, Everytown released Business As Usual, an undercover investigation of federal prosecutions and online gun sales that showed how President Obama can take executive action to reduce gun violence by clarifying the unclear definition of which gun-sellers are “engaged in the business” of selling firearms.
- In November 2015, Everytown also ran ads (viewable here) in Washington, D.C. taxis featuring hidden-camera footage of gun sales by unlicensed sellers at gun shows without background checks. The ads closed with a call for President Obama to take executive action on gun violence.
- In October 2015, Everytown released Beyond Gridlock, a report recommending more than a dozen life-saving steps the White House can take to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
- Everytown, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the Everytown Survivor Network and other partner organizations gathered more than a million petition signatures and took part in a National Call-In-Day that generated more than 15,000 calls urging the Administration to take executive action to reduce gun violence.
- In December 2013, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, now part of Everytown, released In the Business, Outside the Law, research that found nearly one in three gun ads on the website Armslist.com were posted by high-volume unlicensed sellers, many of whom are likely “engaging in the business”—at a rate wherein these sellers would transfer nearly 250,000 guns per year.
- In August 2009, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, now part of Everytown, released the Blueprint for Federal Action on Illegal Guns, which recommended that the Department of Justice should adopt a legal test for whether an individual’s firearms sales, by virtue of volume and other indicators, constitutes being “engaged in the business.”
