Democrats react to Trump closing Office of Gun Violence Prevention
The Biden White House had an Office of Gun Violence Prevention, however President Trump took steps to eliminate that office. Democrats say that was a mistake.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) claims the office was making meaningful progress to bring down homicide rates.
'The minute that Donald Trump was sworn in that office vanished, that office vanished. Because the gun lobby is back in charge of the White House,' Murphy said.
Senator Murphy and Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) have introduced a bill to re-establish the office.
'It wasn't a political office about Democrats versus Republicans. It was about the people versus the problem,' Frost said.
With Republicans in control of the White House and Congress their legislation faces an uphill battle.
'Maybe, maybe under the right circumstances, we can get a handful of our colleagues to move, but more likely we're going to be able to have a public conversation.' Murphy said.
A White House official told Nexstar that the Office of Gun Violence Prevention didn't actually do anything to combat gun crime.
John Commerford, Executive Director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, agrees with that.
'It's not focused on actually dealing with criminals and putting criminals behind bars. It's focused on quote on quote solutions that would only impact law-abiding gun owners,' Commerford said.
He argues the new administration is doing the opposite, pointing out that President Trump signed an executive order directing his attorney general to protect and expand 2nd Amendment rights.
'It's an excellent start to restore the rights of gun owners that were trampled on by the Biden Administration,' Commerford said.
Gun control advocates see the actions differently.
'We should be safe and have the truest freedom of all: the freedom to live without getting shot,' Frost said.
Commerford says the Trump White House is using better strategies to fight crime and put violent people in jail.
'So, law abiding citizens are safer out there. But the answer is never to restrict the rights of the law abiding who just want to provide for their own self-defense and provide for the protection of their families,' Commerford said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
12 minutes ago
- New York Post
Kamala Harris' latest Stephen Colbert flop shows exactly what's wrong with both of them
Kamala Harris' visit Thursday to Stephen Colbert's 'Late Show' was a fine reminder of why both of them are failures. Mind you, this marked Harris' eighth Late Show appearance — one more illustration of the futility of doing the same thing over and over and somehow expecting different results. What made her think this would help promote her new book? Advertisement The marquee moment was her inability to say who's leading the Democratic Party just now — which was actually simple honesty, since neither Dems nor Republicans have clear leaders these days unless it's a sitting president. But she couldn't explain that simple truth, nor did Colbert show any sign of getting it as he pushed for an answer. Her incoherence was part of another classic Kam performance, full of word salads and non-answers. Advertisement So why did Colbert even bring her on a supposed comedy show? Because he's followed most of the late-night crew down the 'we need to promote liberal politics' toilet, of course — hosting 176 Dem politicians and one Republican since 2022, and hewing one side of the aisle every minute in between. That formula earned him cancellation and may well take out all his peers. It's another puzzle of modern life that so much of the entertainment industry somehow forgot that sanctimoniousness (political or otherwise) is the enemy of humor.
Politico
13 minutes ago
- Politico
The Supreme Court just dropped a hint about its next big Voting Rights Act case
The order came in a case challenging Louisiana's congressional map, which contains two majority-Black districts out of the state's six House seats. The court heard arguments in the case in March and had been expected to rule by June. But on June 27, the justices punted the case into their next term and ordered that it be reargued. Now, Friday's order loosely sketches the terrain on which the justices want further arguments: the claim that the longstanding practice of drawing majority-minority districts under the Voting Rights Acts may be unconstitutional because of its focus on race in drawing district lines. The voters challenging Louisiana's map had already advanced that constitutional claim in the case, but the justices' call for further briefing on the issue suggests they want to consider the claim more fully. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law passed during the civil rights era, generally prohibits race-based discrimination in voting laws and practices. In redistricting, the law is used to protect against racial gerrymandering that would unfairly dilute the voting power of racial and ethnic minority voters. States across the country routinely seek to comply with Section 2 by drawing congressional districts where minority voters can elect their chosen candidates. Louisiana's previous map contained only one majority-Black district, even though Black residents make up about a third of the state's population. After a court struck down that map for likely violating the Voting Rights Act because it diluted the power of Black voters, the state's Republican-controlled legislature drew the new map with two majority-Black districts. A group of voters — who self-identified as non-Black — challenged the new map. That's the case now before the Supreme Court. A ruling overturning the current map could result in Republicans picking up an additional congressional seat in Louisiana. The state's two majority-Black districts are both represented by Democrats, while the other four districts are represented by Republicans.
CBS News
13 minutes ago
- CBS News
Pfizer CEO attending $25 million fundraiser at Trump's golf club after president demands drug price cuts, sources say
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is among those expected at a fundraiser President Trump is attending Friday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, sources told CBS News. The fundraiser for the pro-Trump super political action committee MAGA Inc. aims to raise about $25 million, one of the sources said. One day prior to the event, Mr. Trump sent letters to pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, demanding they lower U.S. drug prices to more evenly match what other countries pay. The White House's letters to 17 drug companies, including AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi, asked for commitments within 60 days to sell drugs for Medicaid patients and all new drugs at "most favored nation" rates. The president posted images of the letters to Truth Social. Mr. Trump signed an executive order in May telling federal officials to draw up "most favored nation" regulations unless pharmaceutical companies made progress toward cutting prices. This week's letters — which were addressed to Bourla and the other CEOs — accused the drugmakers of promising "more of the same" since then. The president said Friday he's "gone to war with the drug companies and, frankly, other countries" on the drug price issue. "I think we're going to be very successful fairly soon. We'll have drug prices coming down by 500, 600 800 even 1,200 percent," Mr. Trump said in an interview with Newsmax on Friday afternoon. The high cost of prescription drugs has vexed both parties for decades. Proposals to tie drug prices for U.S. patients to the typically much-lower rates charged in other developed countries have floated around for years, but the idea has faced some legal pushback. Meanwhile, drugmakers argue price caps could discourage innovation by making it harder to pay for research and development for new drugs. The industry also argues that Americans tend to have access to more groundbreaking drugs than residents of foreign countries with stricter price regulations — and says high drug prices are just one part of a broader trend of higher healthcare spending in the U.S. Bourla has engaged with Mr. Trump in the past. Pfizer was one of the drugmakers that was picked to rapidly develop COVID-19 vaccines in the first Trump administration's "Operation Warp Speed." And two weeks before Mr. Trump's second inauguration, Bourla and other Pfizer executives traveled to Mar-A-Lago for meetings, the Financial Times has previously reported. CBS News has reached out to Pfizer and the White House for comment.
