Biden targets gun violence in NYC visit

US President Joe Biden on Thursday called for more police funding and a series of efforts to curb gun violence during his trip to New York City, projecting a united front with New York City Mayor Eric Adams after a series of violent crimes that have rattled the city.

"The answer is not to defund the police," Biden said at New York Police Department (NYPD) headquarters where he and Attorney General Merrick Garland met with Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul. "It is to give you the tools, the training, the funding to be partners, to be protectors and know the community."

Adams, who is a former police captain, called gun violence "domestic terror that is pervasive in this city and country".

"We can't expect you to do every single solitary thing that needs to be done to keep a community safe. It's time to fund community policing to protect and serve the community," Biden said.

His trip to the city came as it just held funerals for two police officers who were shot last month while responding to a domestic incident. They are among five to die of 32 officers shot nationwide so far this year.

"Every day in this country, 316 people are shot, 106 killed; there have been six NYPD victims of gun violence so far just this year," Biden said.

The president reiterated his call on Congress to pass gun laws, like universal background checks, and to reach bipartisan agreement on the fiscal year 2022 appropriations bill, which includes significant funding for the steps he is proposing.

The administration is still facing challenges to implementing its gun violence agenda. The White House withdrew Biden's nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) amid opposition from Republicans and some moderate Democrats. No new nominee has been put forward.

The Justice Department on Thursday morning also announced a set of new initiatives to address gun violence. They include cracking down on illegal "ghost'' guns made at home that don't have serial numbers and can't be traced. Background checks also aren't required to purchase those guns.

The Justice Department will also strengthen its multistate task forces that target the so-called Iron Pipeline, the illegal flow of guns from the South, which has fewer restrictions on gun sales, to locations in the North.

The NYPD said it confiscated a record 135 ghost guns in the city between last January and October. On a national level, 8,712 ghost guns were confiscated by law enforcement in 2020, a 400 percent increase compared with 2016, according to data from ATF.

The US is by far the most heavily armed society in the world, with more guns than people, and sales to first-time buyers skyrocketed in 2020, according to Reuters. There were more than 44,000 gun deaths and over 40,000 gun injuries recorded in the US last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that identifies and tracks gun incidents through police reports, news items and other sources.

Civil rights groups expressed concern that the partnership between Biden and Adams will swing too far in support of aggressive policing.

"What New York City does not need is more federal resources to needlessly supercharge the NYPD, which already has the biggest budget and head count of any police force in the nation, or to impose blanket surveillance that will run roughshod over civil liberties and target communities of color," New York Civil Liberties Union head Donna Lieberman said in a statement Thursday.