Biden announces executive actions on gun control, says changes won't impact Second Amendment

President Biden on Thursday announced executive order's he signed on gun control, including ones to address the issue of homemade, untraceable firearms knows as "ghost guns" and strengthen so-called "red flag" laws that allow police or family members to ask a court to order the temporary removal of guns from a person they say presents a danger to themself and others.

"Enough, enough, enough," Biden, a Democrat, said in a Rose Garden event before announcing the orders, and following a recent series of mass shootings.

He also said the orders he'll sign won't impact Americans' rights to own guns under the Second Amendment.

He also called on Congress to do more to stop what he called an "epidemic" of gun violence. Biden also called for a ban on what he called "assault weapons" and high-capacity firearms.

Biden said he wanted to create a national red flag law and said the Department of Justice will create a "model red flag legislation" that would allow states to craft their own red flag laws now. Red flag laws allow the police or a family member to remove someone from owning or attempting to own a firearm. 

He spoke the day after a gunman in South Carolina fatal shot four people, including two children, before taking his own life.

Biden also announced that Justice Department would issue a program within 60 days to tighten regulations on a device that effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle. One was used during the mass shooting last month in Boulder, Colorado.

Biden said he would tighten laws around pistol braces which, "essentially makes that pistol a hell of a lot more accurate in the mini rifle. As a result is more lethal, effectively turning into a short-barreled rifle."

The president was joined by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who announced that the Justice Department will give over $1 billion in funding to over a dozen programs to use and create "evidence-based intervention strategies" like street outreach and hospital-based violence intervention services to reduce gun violence.

Garland announced that Biden had nominated David Chipman to be the next leader of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Chipman is a policy adviser for the gun-control advocacy group Giffords and a former ATF agent. 

"None of these measures or any of the other critical law enforcement work the department does with respect to illegal guns can be effectively carried out without strong leaders," Garland said.