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(CNN) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris appeared at the White House together on Thursday for an event on curbing gun violence — an issue on which they are touting the administration’s success and slamming the GOP ticket.
“Together, we’re making clear, if you want to talk about reducing crime and violence in American, you need to talk about guns in America,” Biden said ahead of signing a new executive action that overhauls active shooter drills in schools, among other things. “Last year, after another school shooting, my predecessor said like so many members of Congress say, ‘Just get over it.’”
Biden, alluding to Sen. JD Vance’s comment earlier this month that school shootings have become a “fact of life,” said, “Who the hell do these people think they are?”
Harris leaned into the rights and freedom message that’s been a part of her campaign trail rhetoric.
“I believe the right to be safe is a civil right,” Harris told the room. “And that the people of America have a right then to live, work, worship and learn without fear of violence, including gun violence. And yet, our nation is experiencing an epidemic of gun violence.”
The Democratic nominee, who has acknowledged being a gun owner, criticized what she called a “false choice” between preventing further carnage and respecting the Second Amendment.
Harris later added: “I am in favor of the Second Amendment, and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban, and have universal background checks, safe storage laws and red flag laws.”
Biden touted measures his administration has taken — including 2022’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and $15 billion in funding from the American Rescue Plan to surge funding for law enforcement communities — and pointed at Harris.
“And so many of these, because we had a first-rate prosecutor, who had a ton of experience dealing with these things,” he added, alluding to Harris. “She got a lot of heat from the other guy talking about we’re not helping – we’re the ones funding cops!”
Besides overhauling active-shooter drills in schools, the executive order Biden signed aims to address the threat from emerging gun technologies, including 3D printed and ghost guns.
It also establishes a task force that will assess risks posed by “machine-gun conversion devices,” which can turn ordinary semi-automatic pistols into fully automatic firearms, and un-serialized printed firearms, which can be 3D-printed from computer code available online.
Randall Woodfin, the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama — which experienced a mass shooting over the weekend that police said involved guns with conversion switches — was on hand, as was Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath, whose son was killed in a 2012 shooting, and former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was wounded in a 2011 shooting in a supermarket parking lot.
Biden warned that any effort to strengthen gun laws could be undone if Republicans win the White House or Congress in November, while Harris called on lawmakers to do more to address gun violence.
“We need more leaders like the leaders in this room in Congress, who have the courage to take action, to stand up to the gun lobby and to put the lives of our children first,” she said.
