Sponsors (137)
Official title: To establish the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 13, 2025 by Maxwell Frost · Last progress February 13, 2025
The bill centralizes and clarifies federal leadership, data, and support for gun‑violence prevention—potentially improving prevention, treatment, and transparency—while increasing federal costs, raising local–federal tension, and creating trade-offs in how prevention resources are prioritized.
Law enforcement, state and local governments, and communities get a clearly defined federal Office and Director with an explicit definition of 'gun violence,' improving coordination, accountability, and administrative responsibility for prevention efforts.
Federal programs, data, and research on gun violence will be centralized and annually reported to Congress, improving evidence-based policy, transparency, and the quality of recommendations to lawmakers.
Communities affected by gun violence, families, and first responders will receive coordinated federal support (crisis response, increased access to mental-health services, first-responder training) and public-education campaigns (secure storage, suicide prevention), which can reduce harm and improve recovery.
Creating a new DOJ office, advisory council, and expanding the Office's scope will increase ongoing federal administrative costs paid by taxpayers.
Expanded federal coordination and involvement in local public-safety programs could raise concerns about federal overreach and tension with state and local officials.
Broadening the definition to include suicides and unintentional injuries risks shifting limited prevention resources away from homicide and violent-crime interventions if priorities are not clearly managed.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Establishes a DOJ Office of Gun Violence Prevention to coordinate federal policy, data, research, education, and community response and to convene an advisory council.
Creates an Office of Gun Violence Prevention within the Department of Justice to coordinate federal gun-violence prevention work, set research and data priorities, run public education campaigns, support community crisis response, and produce annual reports to Congress. The Office is led by a Director appointed by the Attorney General and is supported by an Advisory Council of DOJ leaders and external stakeholders representing survivors, service providers, public health, clinicians, educators, students, veterans, and state officials. The Office must identify data gaps and develop a data plan, evaluate and recommend policy across DOJ components (including FBI, ATF, U.S. Attorneys, and grant programs), coordinate with other federal agencies, and publish an annual report. The measure authorizes “such sums as are necessary” to carry out these duties and requires the Attorney General to convene the Advisory Council within 180 days and at least quarterly thereafter.