Though there are more than enough guns and willing trigger-pullers already here to do plenty of damage for a long time, we can’t argue with Joe Biden that easy access to firearms via the Iron Pipeline is fueling death and destruction on New York streets, so we commend his promise to ramp up the feds’ cooperation with cities and states to combat gun trafficking.
We welcome the federal funding he wants to send the way of New York and other cities, asking Congress for a $300 million boost in a grant program to hire cops and $200 million more for gun violence prevention programs. We also welcome a Justice Department crackdown on ghost guns.
We applaud his commitment to trying to get new gun safety laws through Congress — one he’ll have to honor with action. It’s crowd-pleasing to condemn the obscene magazine with 40 extra bullets that Lashawn McNeil used to kill Detectives Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora, which became federally legal in 2004 when Republicans let the assault weapons ban expire. It is hard to get a new ban or an end to outrageous liability protections for gun makers or universal background checks through even a narrowly Democratic Congress, where not enough lawmakers have an appetite for new firearm laws.
