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Wisconsin Democratic Governor Tony Evers signed an executive order last week creating the statewide “Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention” to handle gun control efforts.
The initiative, which will become a permanent office in the state government, was funded with $10 million to bestow grants “supporting violence and gun violence prevention efforts statewide,” an effort that Evers said was related to the recent shooting at Abundant Life Christian School.
“As a father, a grandfather, and as governor, it is unthinkable that a kid and an educator woke up and went to school that morning and never came home,” Evers commented. “That should never happen. Not to any kid, not to any educator, not to any person or family.”
The newly formed Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention will therefore foster cooperation between state and local agencies to “prevent violence, including gun violence,” identify new laws that should be passed to limit firearms, develop “public education campaigns,” and supply the grant funding to schools, firearm dealers, law enforcement, and nonprofits.
Uses of the $10 million could include launching “gun buyback programs,” supporting “law enforcement investigations,” and creating “gun violence crisis response teams.”
“I have said from the beginning that I would never accept gun violence,” Evers said. “This issue has long deserved a comprehensive, statewide response, and that’s what we’ll be taking on with our new Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention.”
The effort appears to be modeled after the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, an initiative launched under former President Joe Biden to “expand upon key executive and legislative action” during his administration in order to promote gun control across the country.
Biden called on Congress to ban “assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” as well as require the “safe storage of firearms” and force “background checks for all gun sales.”
