By ZEKE MILLER and COLLEEN LONG (Associated Press)

SAN DIEGO (AP) — President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday aiming to increase the number of background checks to buy guns, promote better and more secure firearms storage and ensure U.S. law enforcement agencies are getting the most out of a bipartisan gun control law enacted last summer.

The Democratic president plans to address his latest efforts to curb gun violence in a speech from Monterey Park, California. In January, a gunman stormed a dance hall in the community near Los Angeles and shot 20 people, killing 11, following a Lunar New Year celebration.

Biden’s rhetoric has only grown stronger around guns — he routinely calls for banning so-called assault weapons in his speeches — and Democrats didn’t push such a vocal gun-control platform even during the Obama administration, when Biden was vice president. But Biden has been emboldened by the midterms after his regular talk of gun control didn’t result in massive losses, and he’s expected to continue to push for strong changes as he inches toward a 2024 run, his aides say.

Biden invited Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old who wrestled the semi-automatic pistol away from the gunman in Monterey Park, to his State of the Union address and praised the young man’s heroism.

“He saved lives. It’s time we do the same as well,” Biden said in his speech to Congress. “Ban assault weapons once and for all.”

But the president’s power is limited to go beyond bipartisan legislation passed by Congress last summer, the most sweeping gun violence bill in decades. It followed the killings last year of 10 shoppers at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store and 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.

“Too many lives have been taken by …read more

Source:: The Denver Post