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The White House announced an executive order on Thursday that aims to improve school shooter drills and combat emerging gun threats stemming from new technology. This order comes one year after President Joe Biden created the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which was launched as a way for him to address gun violence while bypassing the gridlock of Congress.
The executive order establishes a new Emerging Firearms Threats Task Force and directs the body to issue a report within 90 days that includes an assessment of the threat posed by machine-gun conversion devices and unserialized 3D-printed firearms.
Machine-gun conversion devices “enable semi-automatic firearms, including easily concealable handguns, to match or exceed the rate of fire of many military machineguns with a single engagement of the trigger—up to 20 bullets in one second,” according to a White House fact sheet. They are illegal to possess under federal law, but these devices continue to be found at crime scenes because they are small, cheap, and easy to install.
Unserialized 3D-printed firearms, which the White House said are often employed to make machine-gun conversion devices, are often trafficked and unlawfully possessed by criminals and people convicted of domestic violence.
“The 3D-printing of a machine-gun conversion device costs as little as 40 cents and takes fewer than 30 minutes,” according to the White House. “As 3D-printing technology continues to develop rapidly, the safety threat posed by 3D-printed firearms may suddenly increase.”
The executive order also calls for a plan to lessen the trauma inflicted on children by active shooter drills.
