Biden to Announce Executive Order Increasing Background Checks, Ramping Up Use of Red Flag Laws

President Biden is set to announce an executive order on Tuesday to increase the number of background checks required for gun sales and to intensify implementation of laws that permit courts to confiscate firearms from individuals deemed dangerous.

The executive order — to be announced in Monterey Park, Calif., near the site of a recent mass shooting — will direct Attorney General Merrick Garland to guarantee that gun sellers “who do not realize they are required to run background checks under existing law, or who are willfully violating existing law, become compliant with background check requirement,” according to a summary published by the White House.

With the order, the Biden administration admits it aims to get the U.S. as close as possible to adopting universal background checks without having to go through the normal legislative process.

While calls for increased background checks tend to follow high-profile shootings, critics of the initiative have pointed out that in many such cases enhanced background checks would not have prevented the inciting events. For example, the 18-year-old shooter who killed 19 students and three adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas had no criminal record that would have appeared on a background check. He purchased the firearms he used in the massacre legally.

Use of red flag laws, which prohibit individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others from obtaining a firearm, will ramp up under the order. Biden will direct members of his Cabinet to “encourage effective use of extreme risk protection orders, including by partnering with law enforcement, health care providers, educators, and other community leaders.”

Existing federal campaigns to promote safe storage of firearms will also be expanded.

On January 21, a gunman fired his weapon at a dance studio in Monterey Park late at night after a Lunar New Year Festival, killing eleven people and wounding nine others. The perpetrator is believed to have used a Cobray M11 9mm semi-automatic weapon, which is already illegal to possess in California.

Prominent Democrats have cited the tragedy as an opportunity to demand a ban on so-called assault weapons.

“The constant stream of mass shootings have one common thread: they almost all involve assault weapons. It’s because these weapons were designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible. It’s time we stand up to the gun lobby and remove these weapons of war from our streets, or at the very least keep them out of the hands of young people,” Senator Feinstein said shortly after.