By Nicole Gaudiano

As more mass shootings add up, President Joe Biden is calling attention to a different milestone in the gun violence epidemic: 500 illegal gun purchase denials.

The Justice Department has denied those purchases from people under 21 years of age, who presented a danger to their communities, because of enhanced background checks under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, Biden announced Friday while also highlighting a drop in homicides.

Biden signed the law last year — the first major gun safety legislation in 30 years — after a racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, and a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 21 people.

“By interrupting these illegal gun purchases, we are taking action to stop suicides, deadly domestic violence, and mass shootings,” Biden said. “Simply put: this legislation is saving lives.”

The statement comes a day after the nation’s fourth mass shooting in as many days in 2024. In Perry, Iowa, a sixth-grader was killed and five others were wounded in a school shooting Thursday before the shooter apparently killed himself. The incident followed other 2024 mass shootings in Los Angeles, Baton Rouge, La., and Springfield, Mo.

The White House responded on Thursday by calling on Congress to do more to pass gun control measures. And Biden, in his statement on Friday, reiterated his call for Congress to enact universal background checks, ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, end the gun industry’s immunity from liability, and pass a national red flag law.

“There are already too many empty seats around family tables,” he said. “It is fully within our power to stop this epidemic.”

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The gun legislation Biden signed is designed to close certain background check loopholes, support gun violence prevention programs and invest in school safety and mental health services.

He said it keeps guns from young people who shouldn’t have them for reasons such as criminal records or because they’ve been determined to be a danger to themselves or others. And it’s part of his plan to reduce crime, he said.

Biden used the milestone to call attention to a drop in homicides, which polling shows hasn’t been acknowledged by the public.

“There’s more work to do, but we’re making real progress: there was a significant drop in crime in 2023 – including one of the largest-ever yearly declines in homicides in history,” he said. “I am proud to have taken more executive action than any president in history to combat gun violence in America, and I will never stop fighting to get even more done.”

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Biden Touts Denials of Illegal Gun Purchases, Decline in Homicides