Biden signs order to strengthen checks on gun buyers

MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Tuesday aiming at increasing background checks to buy guns, promoting more secure firearms storage and ensuring U.S. law enforcement agencies get more out of a bipartisan gun control law enacted last summer.

The Democratic president was to address his latest efforts to curb gun violence in a speech in this suburban Los Angeles community, where a gunman stormed a dance hall and shot 20 people, killing 11, following a Lunar New Year celebration in January. He was also meeting with families of victims and with first responders from that day.

Biden’s rhetoric has grown ever stronger about guns — he routinely calls for banning assault weapons — in pushing a vocal gun-control platform even tougher than during the Obama administration when he was vice president. He has been emboldened by the midterm elections, when his regular talk of gun control didn’t result in massive losses. He’s expected to continue to argue for strong changes as he inches toward a 2024 reelection run, his aides say.

Biden was greeted at the Los Angeles airport Tuesday by Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old who wrestled the semiautomatic pistol away from the gunman in Monterey Park. The two shook hands; Biden had invited Tsay to his State of the Union address in January where he praised the young man’s heroism.

But the president has only limited power on guns to go beyond bipartisan legislation passed by Congress last summer after the killings last year of 10 shoppers at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store and 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.

Tuesday’s action does not change U.S. government policy. Rather, it directs federal agencies to ensure compliance with existing laws and procedures — a typical feature of executive orders issued by presidents when they confront the limits of their own power to act without cooperation from Congress.

Biden, in the order, acknowledged Congress’ opposition, but said, “In the meantime, my administration will continue to do all that we can, within existing authority, to make our communities safer.”