Biden to tout efforts to curb gun violence at Everytown summit

President Biden will speak Tuesday at a gun violence prevention summit to highlight his administration’s efforts to reduce crime on the heels of FBI data that showed violent crime decreased in the first few months of 2024.

Biden will deliver remarks at Everytown for Gun Safety Gun Sense University, where the White House said he would tout the benefits of bipartisan legislation passed in 2022. Specifically, Biden will announce the Justice Department has charged more than 500 defendants for violating provisions around gun trafficking and straw purchasing.

The president is also expected to speak about creating the Office of Gun Violence Prevention at the White House and investments through the American Rescue Plan in local police departments.

Biden’s speech will come a day after the White House and his campaign trumpeted preliminary FBI data for the first quarter of 2024 on Monday that showed violent crime overall decreased by 15 percent. 

Murders dropped by 26 percent, and robberies dropped by about 18 percent, according to the FBI data. 

“This progress we’re seeing is no accident,” Biden said in a statement.

Biden and his reelection campaign have increasingly tried to lean into the idea that crime is down nationwide during his presidency, seeking to combat a popular argument from Republicans that violent crime is rampant in major cities.

The campaign is also hoping to draw a clear contrast with former President Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, over his record on gun violence.

Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz wrote in a memo on Tuesday that while Biden signed major gun safety legislation two years ago, Trump “has repeatedly caved to the NRA instead of protecting kids.”

“Fighting gun violence is on the ballot this November, and we are campaigning on this issue,” Munoz wrote.

He noted the campaign has held press conferences and events with survivors of gun violence in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Atlanta, while Vice President Harris held a campaign event in Maryland last week specifically focused on gun violence prevention.

Trump often pledges to voters that he will protect their Second Amendment rights if reelected, and he has spoken annually at the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) gatherings.

“I promise you this, with me at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, no one will lay a finger on your firearms — just as took place for four years when I was your president,” Trump said at a February NRA event in Pennsylvania.