Biden order hopes to curb 3D guns, improve active shooter drills in schools

By Andrea Shalal and Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled a new executive order on Thursday to combat increasing threats from 3D printed and converted firearms and improve schools' active shooter drills.

The order, signed by Biden at a White House event, sets up a new federal task force to assess the threat posed by machine gun conversion devices, which he said could be 3D-printed for less than 40 cents in less than 30 minutes, and other 3D-printed firearms that cannot be detected by security scanners and have no serial numbers, making them hard to trace.

Biden said one gun conversion device, which enables handguns or other semi-automatic firearms to match or exceed the rate of fire of many military machine guns, was found on the scene of a mass shooting on Saturday in Alabama that killed four people.

"Enough," Biden told a gathering of more than 100 survivors of gun violence including former Representative Gabby Giffords, and relatives of those killed, vowing to keep fighting against gun violence even after he leaves office.

"We're experiencing an epidemic of gun violence," Harris said, noting that more children were now killed by guns than any other cause, including car accidents or cancer.

"I believe the right to be safe is a civil right," she said, drawing loud cheers, underscoring the cascading trauma caused by gun violence for those affected. "People of America have a right to live, work, worship and learn without fear of violence, including gun violence."

Biden's order also directs federal agencies to develop and publish within 110 days information for U.S. schools, colleges and universities on how to create, implement, and evaluate evidence-informed active shooter drills. Most U.S. states require schools to conduct mass shooting drills, but some research has found them ineffective and traumatic to students.

It was Biden's first gun-related event with Harris since he named her to oversee an office on gun violence prevention created one year ago, a White House official said.

Homicides have dropped 17% in the period since then, building on the largest-ever drop in homicides in 2023, the White House said earlier this week, while mass shootings were also down 20% to date in 2024 compared to a year earlier.

Harris replaced Biden in July as the Democratic presidential candidate in the Nov. 5 U.S. election, but is closely tied with Donald Trump, her Republican challenger, in many of the states likely to be crucial to the outcome of the election, polls show.

Democrats largely favor stricter gun laws as a way to reduce deaths from gun violence, while Republicans generally oppose stricter laws, citing the right to bear arms established in the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.

Trump will continue to protect gun rights, an adviser said after an assassination attempt on the former U.S. president in July.

PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS

The new order is part of a broader push launched by Biden and Harris - both of whom are gun owners - to reduce gun violence since taking office in 2021. Biden signed the first major gun legislation in decades in July 2022, which aimed to block gun sales to domestic abusers, among others.

The U.S. surgeon general declared gun violence a public health crisis in June, calling for more research funding, better mental health access and other steps such as secure storage.

Machine gun conversion devices are already illegal, but White House officials say law enforcement officials are seeing them show up at crime scenes because they are small, cheap and easy to install.

Biden said the order would also direct new resources to communities suffering from gun violence.

"We have to keep going. There's so much more that we have to do," said Biden, who began fighting against gun violence when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in the 1970s.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Paul Simao and Stephen Coates)