WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – President Joe Biden signed an executive order focused on helping schools improve active shooter drills by maximizing effectiveness and limiting trauma to students.

“The lack of guidance today on how to prepare students while minimizing the trauma of active shooter drills is unacceptable,” Biden said during a signing event on Thursday night.

Under the order, people within the Biden administration will research how active shooter drills impact students and educators and try to find ways to maximize effectiveness, minimize harm and create age-appropriate content.

“We just have to do better, and we can do better,” Biden said.

Biden emphasized the importance of schools communicating with parents before and after drills, so parents know when they are happening.

Additionally, the president said his administration is creating a new tool that will give schools resources to communicate with parents about how to safely store firearms.

The executive order will also create a federal task force to examine emerging firearm threats like machine-gun-conversion devices and the increase in 3D-printed guns.

Vice President Harris said she believes “the right to be safe is a civil right.”

She acknowledged the trauma that comes with being a survivor of gun violence and how that trauma typically goes untreated.

“It does not have to be this way,” Harris said.

The executive order received praise from gun-control groups. However, it was criticized by the executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, Randy Kozuch, who said it was “just one more attempt by the Biden-Harris Administration to deflect attention from their soft-on-crime policies that have emboldened criminals in our country.”

Both Biden and Harris said more needs to be done to curb gun violence, including establishing universal background checks and requiring the safe storage of firearms.

“I am in favor of the Second Amendment, and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban,” Harris said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.