It’s been two weeks since President Donald Trump took the oath of office for a second time. His inauguration thrust out the Biden administration, which had treated gun reform as a top priority, and replaced it with a White House that has vowed to undo its predecessor’s gun policies. Since then, federal funding for gun violence research and prevention has been thrown into chaos, a side effect of the Trump administration’s dramatic back-and-forth on spending writ large, the Trace reports. Whether the muddle will have lasting effects remains to be seen. But the end of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention was one of the first and clearest effects of Trump’s return. The office no longer exists. Yet its former directors are optimistic that the changes they made can withstand Trump. The Trace interviewed Rob Wilcox. Wilcox specializes in the development of comprehensive approaches to address gun violence, and technical advice on the development of evidence-informed policy solutions.
“Within our first week on the job, there was a cabinet meeting where the president and vice president challenged each agency to do more. We worked with each agency to develop a suite of actions,” Wilcox said. "Some of them are about economic opportunity and the development of recreation. Some of it is an investment in community violence intervention and suicide intervention through the 988 crisis centers. Other pieces have to do with stopping access to guns for those who are in crisis or those who might commit harm. Really focusing on how we get upstream to the gun traffickers, to the illegal importers of machine gun conversion devices, to gun sales without background checks. It isn’t in a single piece of policy. It’s the historic decrease in gun violence that we’ve seen across this country. The legacy isn’t just policy; it’s results."
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