Biden grappling with ‘perfect storm’ of rising gun violence
Illegal guns are flooding the streets. Teenagers are being murdered. And alarming numbers of police officers have been shot dead.
Gun violence already on the rise during the pandemic is spiking anew, and beleaguered cities are struggling with how to manage it. President Joe Biden visits one of them, New York, on Thursday as he tries to dispel criticism from the right that he hasn’t been tough enough on crime.
Biden will showcase federal, state and local efforts to get guns and repeat shooters off the streets. But there are limits to what the president can do when there is no appetite in Congress to pass gun legislation. The strongest effort in recent years failed, even after 20 children and six adults were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.