Joe Biden Can Use Flags To Fight Gun Violence

 

     Joe Biden can use flags to fight gun violence. With a string of mass shootings in Georgia, Colorado, and Virginia, 20 people were left dead over just the course of a week. Every time a shooting occurs, the flags are lowered to half-staff via presidential (usually alongside gubernatorial) proclamation. Instead of just lowering the flags for a day or a week, why not lower them for a day for every person killed in a mass shooting? But the flags would never be flown regularly!!! That's precisely the point. The United States has more mass shootings than the rest of the developed world combined, and this simple use of executive power can serve as a constant, stark reminder for people on both sides of the aisle concerning the gravity of gun violence.

     This is just one action. Aside from supporting the Bipartisan Background Checks Act and a Federal Assault Weapons Ban, as he already has, Biden could establish a White House Interagency Task Force on Gun Violence and introduce legislation seeking to ban ghost guns. The president could also sign executive orders, a move Obama took in 2013 when he was unable to secure legislation in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Gun violence was not going to be a focal point of his presidency, but sometimes actions shape presidencies, and President Biden has an opportunity to succeed in an area President Obama was not able to, a failure the latter described as his "biggest regret." More lives are on the line.