Local advocates, gun owners react to Biden executive order

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - President Joe Biden announced an executive order on Tuesday strengthening existing gun regulations.

The order includes several provisions that ensure compliance with the bipartisan gun bill passed last summer, such as directing the United States attorney general to make sure required background checks are conducted before all firearms purchases.

The order also includes actions on improving public awareness about red flag laws, addressing gun thefts and losses during shipping, and making ATF inspection records available when dealers violate federal law.

Claudia Patrick, who runs the Moms Demand Action chapter in Wyandotte County, said the order would help keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a danger to public safety.

“This is a home run for public safety,” Patrick said. “This makes it so you can’t go to a buy show and buy a gun, which until this is signed into law you could without a background check.”

But Don Pind, a firearms instructor and gunsmith at Cory’s Northland Gun, said that many provisions of the order may be unenforceable, and could potentially inhibit responsible gun owners and businesses without improving public safety.

“The way they’re trying to do this now is that if you want to buy, sell or give away a gun you have to go through a gun store, which is going to put it on paper,” Pind explained. “The people who are not law-abiding citizens will not change their minds by the president signing something stupid.”

Rosilyn Temple, the founder of Kansas City Mothers in Charge, believed the measure would help reduce local gun crimes. Temple’s son was killed in a 2011 shooting.

“You don’t want to be in the place where I’m sitting after losing a child,” Temple said. “We’re in a community where we have had 29 homicides already. We have to do better. Every life matters.”

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