President Joe Biden’s new executive order on guns won’t reduce gun-related violent crime, nor will it make our communities safer, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Biden signed the executive order Tuesday in Monterey Park, California. He is bypassing Congress, “with the goal of increasing the number of background checks conducted before firearm sales,” and moving the country closer to so-called “universal background checks” as possible without additional legislation.

“Joe Biden is trying to sell this new gun control scheme the way he’s always done, by promising less violent crime and safer neighborhoods,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “but this plan isn’t going to accomplish either goal, and he knows it. This sleight-of-hand maneuver simply makes it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to purchase firearms, while creating the impression gun dealers are crooks and the industry is unregulated.

“This is just another chapter in Joe Biden’s war on gun rights,” he continued. “It is a diversion to the Democrat failure to keep Americans safe from violent criminals who are released without bail and are free to prey on us all.”

Biden will encourage the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) “to issue a public report analyzing how gun manufacturers market firearms to minors and how such manufacturers market firearms to all civilians, including through the use of military imagery.” He will “Provide the public and policymakers with more information regarding federally licensed firearms dealers who are violating the law.” He will also direct the Secretary of Defense to develop and implement principles to further firearm and public safety practices through Department of Defense acquisition of firearms, consistent with applicable law.

“So,” Gottlieb observed, “Biden wants the Defense Department to buy more guns, he will blame crime on gun dealers and tell gun makers how to market their products. But he won’t tell the Justice Department to crack down on recidivist criminals, he’s not asking the courts to lock up armed felons and he’s continuing to treat the Second Amendment as a second-class right.

“Biden has always had an anti-gun agenda,” he added, “and on this important constitutional issue, he has never let the courts, public opinion or the Bill of Rights get in his way.”

“This is textbook Joe Biden,” Gottlieb concluded. “Talk tough, make it appear he’s doing something about crime when he really isn’t, and ultimately just continue penalizing law-abiding gun owners for crimes they didn’t commit. The only people who will be any safer are the criminals who ignore gun control laws already.”