Biden Pushes New Efforts to Tackle Gun Violence

President Biden said on Wednesday that states could draw from $350 billion in federal stimulus money to shore up police departments and vowed to crack down on gun dealers who fail to run background checks, as the White House seeks to combat the alarming rise in homicide rates in America’s cities.

Mr. Biden’s speech made clear that he intends to approach crime prevention by investing in, rather than defunding, the police — wading into a national debate about whether the government should give police departments more resources, or spend the...