As ironic news stories go, this one is hard to beat.
In September 2023, the Biden Administration rolled out a new government bureaucracy called the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. The office, touted as a solution to the problem of “gun violence,” was actually designed to cater to special-interest gun control supporters and used taxpayer funds to erode the rights protected under the U.S. Constitution.
Of course, this farce of a federal office’s name is even based on a core fallacy that when criminals use lawfully produced, legally sold firearms for illegal means, what results is “gun violence,” not criminal violence. That allows Biden and other soft-on-crime Democrats to continue to coddle criminals while blaming the gun and lawful gun owners for the country’s criminal violence problems.
Shortly after the establishment of the office, Vice President Kamala Harris, who President Biden had charged with running the office, came up with the bureaucracy’s first major push—the Safer States Agenda. The Number 1 goal of that agenda was to get states to establish a state office of gun violence prevention.
Fast forward just over a year, and now Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is boasting about his state’s new Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention. The office, like its federal counterpart, will certainly look for more ways to restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners. It will utilize $10 million in federal funding—also known as tax dollars paid by all Americans, including Wisconsin residents—to achieve this.
“I have said from the beginning that I would never accept gun violence as a foregone reality or stop working to change it,” Gov. Evers said in a press release announcing the office. “Violence, including gun violence, is a statewide problem, with statewide consequences for people and families across our state. This issue has long deserved a comprehensive, statewide response, and that’s what we’ll be taking on with our new Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention.
Here’s the ironic part: As Gov. Evers touts his new state office, which was encouraged by Biden and Harris, the White House Office Of Gun Violence Prevention is likely on its way out. At least one gun-rights organization—the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF)—has publicly asked President Trump to quickly do away with the office after he is inaugurated.
NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane stated that Trump has the opportunity to “stand strong with law-abiding Second Amendment supporters and eliminate this unprecedented abuse of government authority.”
Ultimately, the federal office that facilitated the creation of the state office achieved nothing except for causing more money to be wasted at the state level. And you and I are paying for it!
I know most gun owners join the NSSF in urging Trump to quickly relegate the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to the dustbin of history, and it’s likely he will do just that once in office. However, the damage will already be done in Wisconsin, where we will all have to watch $10 million of our hard-earned taxes be used to bolster schemes that infringe on the right of Wisconsin citizens to keep and bear arms.
