Biden’s plan to target ‘merchants of death’ in doubt due to lack of research

High-quality research has not been done to examine if tightening restrictions on gun dealers leads to a reduction in violent crime, raising questions about whether President Biden’s recently announced crime-prevention strategy will work.

Mr. Biden’s plan to combat a rising tide of violent crime includes targeting licensed gun dealers who break laws, creating strike forces to stop firearms trafficking and giving more money to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the agency that tracks the nation’s guns.

The president said the three-pronged strategy will save lives by targeting “merchants of death,” but he offered no metrics on how much his new policies could reduce gun deaths.

The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit think tank, has analyzed thousands of studies on gun policy research published since 1995. In a report released last year, researchers concluded there was a surprisingly limited base of scientific evidence on the effects of commonly discussed gun policies.