Days after releasing a much-ballyhooed 13-page progress report on the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, the Biden-Harris administration has announced a new executive order that may be more flash than substance, but it will generate some headlines with the national election just over one month away.

According to the announcement, this executive order establishes an “Emerging Firearms Threats Task Force” to assess “the threat posed by machinegun conversion devices and unserialized, 3D-printed firearms.” This report, due within 90 days, will also include “an assessment of federal agencies’ operational and legal capacities to detect, intercept, and seize machinegun conversion devices and unserialized, 3D-printed firearms; and an interagency plan for combatting these emerging threats. The report will include any additional authorities or funding the federal agencies need from Congress in order to complete this work.”

There doesn’t appear to be anything in this exercise about actually confronting, arresting, prosecuting or taking down criminals.

An old political axiom holds that the best way to do nothing is to launch a study. In this case, announcing a “task force” which will consist of “leadership from key federal departments and agencies” to do an “assessment” just might be the new way to define an old political tactic of making it look like something is being done.

Translation: The Biden-Harris White House just used 2,748 words to essentially accomplish nothing.

Of course, the announcement generated news coverage. It talked about the dangers posed by “conversion devices” used to illegally convert semiautomatic firearms to fire full auto. Fox News reported, “The assessment will also include a review of federal agencies, operational and legal capacities to detect, intercept and seize these firearm and firearm components.”

That still doesn’t look like gang thugs and other miscreants will be rounded up and imprisoned.

Buried deeper in the White House announcement is this: “By the end of October, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will announce that states may choose to use Medicaid to pay a health care provider for counseling parents and caregivers on firearm safety and injury prevention.”

Are these “health care providers” also certified firearms instructors? If not, any “counseling” they might offer, whether it is to get guns out of the house or make sure there’s a loaded Model 1911 in every room, should be eyed with suspicion.

Once again, this reveals the Biden-Harris philosophy, which treats gun-related violence as a public health problem—which it isn’t—rather than a crime problem, which it most definitely is.

Another tenet of the Biden-Harris announcement is “Facilitating Enhanced Background Checks for Individuals Under Age 21.” Included in this one learns that the Justice Department “is issuing model legislation that additional states may use to inform their own legislation and allow a carve-out to share juvenile records solely for the purpose of enhanced background checks.”

A few lines later, the announcement says, “Part of the enhanced background check requires requesting records from state and local law enforcement and mental health repositories about potential purchasers under 21.”

Also included in the White House announcement:

“Today, the FBI is announcing that it will collect additional detail in its data collection for gunshot injury wounds in the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) by June 2025. The FBI will implement a new injury code to reflect a gunshot wound in the NIBRS victim segment. NIBRS will also enable law enforcement agencies to submit additional detail as to how firearms were used in specific crimes, and the nature of the crime at issue.”

Will this make the FBI annual crime report more user-friendly? Since 2020, the easily understood and utilized Uniform Crime Report has been replaced by the NIBRS, which makes information more difficult to obtain, understand and utilize. When this correspondent tried repeatedly to contact FBI information officers for clarifications, via telephone voice mails and emails, nobody from the agency ever responded.

“Encouraging Safe Storage of Firearms: Today, the Department of Education is providing schools, school boards, and policymakers with a new tool to promote safe gun storage in their communities. Following up on its initial safe storage actions, the Department of Education is publishing an interactive website that highlights examples of state, community, and school district actions across the nation that promote safe gun storage within school communities. The website includes a map with state safe storage laws, examples of how schools are communicating with parents about safe storage, and examples of local policies on safe storage education. This new resource builds on guidance the Department published earlier this year to highlight physical safety measures schools can pursue to help keep students safe in the event of gun violence in schools.”

And then there is this:

“Facilitating Voluntary Out-of-Home Storage to Prevent Firearm Suicide: Voluntary out-of-home storage of firearms is an effective tactic to saves lives by creating time and space between a person in crisis and a firearm. A number of states, including Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, have developed gun storage maps to show different locations where a gun owner can voluntarily store their firearms…”

It raises the question, what happens in the event a gun owner needs his/her firearm in an emergency, such as a home invasion or the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster?

While all of this may sound good and cause anti-gunners to feel like something is being done, is it all smoke and mirrors?

Will any of this stop a single madman from trying to shoot a president or a candidate for office? Will it prevent a teen thug from robbing a convenience store and maybe shooting the clerk?

If not, then what really is the point?

About Dave Workman