Gun Violence

Parkland, Santa Fe and the Aftermath

Florida H.S. Shooting Was 18th School Shooting and 30th Mass Shooting in 2018 

POSTED 2/15/2018

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this shooting, their families, and their friends. But the truth is, for those who have the power to act and to save lives, thoughts and prayers are not nearly enough."  - Gabby Giffords

It's time to make civilian possession of assault weapons illegal again.  The 1994 law banning assault weapons expired in 2004 and has not been renewed since.  This time, there should be no loopholes, no grandfathering, and no exceptions.   

"Back in 1996, Australia imposed a much stricter version of the assault weapons ban [than the US 1994 ban] after a mass shooting. The Australian version avoided many of the loopholes in the U.S. law: Not only did the country ban all types of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, but it also spent $500 million buying up nearly 600,000 existing guns from private owners.  As Wonkblog's Sarah Kliff pointed out, Australia's law appears to have curbed gun violence. Researchers in the British Medical Journal write that the ban was “followed by more than a decade free of fatal mass shootings, and accelerated declines in firearm deaths, particularly suicides.” (Washington Post, 12/17/2012)

One of the most powerful lobbies in Washington in our money-corrupted political system is the gun lobby, or as they like to call themselves the "gun rights" lobby. Gun control groups are still "badly outspent overall. In the 2016 election cycle, they accounted for just $3 million in outside spending compared with $54.9 million from gun rights organizations, almost all of which came from the NRA, according to CRP." (CNBC, 2/15/18)  


Photo: NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre (Getty Images)

The evidence of the effect of strict gun control laws is overwhelming. Vox updated its powerful graphic today (America’s unique gun violence problem, explained in 17 maps and charts).  One of the many that stands out: there have been 1500 mass shootings since Sandy Hook.  For the 30 this year (that's 30 in 46 days!), Business Insider lists them all here.

Banning assault weapons is just an obvious first step towards what needs to be done to reduce gun violence.  

Then there's the Supreme Court's mis-interpretation of the Second Amendment - I mean, what part of "a well-regulated militia" don't they understand?  Perhaps it's time to repeal the Second Amendment.  As Kurt Eichenwald writes in Vanity Fair, "The amendment has nothing—nothing—to do with modern America. We need to get rid of it and try again with an amendment that makes sense."  Eichenwald offers many suggestions that could reduce the gun violence in this country, and concludes: "Some gun owners—some—will rage about this idea, saying that they have the right to protect themselves. Well, so do the rest of us—the right to protect ourselves from them. "

RJC 2/15/18

Florida State Senate Offers Moment of Silence after Rejecting Assault Weapons Ban

POSTED 3/4/2018

The NRA carried the day in Florida as gun "rights" won out over sanity and safety.  A bill to ban assault weapons, including the AR-15 used in the school shooting, failed by a 20-to-17 vote.  Instead, the Senators offered a moment of silence for the victims of the largest mass killing at a US high school.  

"Jaclyn Corin, the junior class president at Stoneman Douglas High, tweeted that the vote 'breaks my heart, but we will NOT let this ruin our movement.'  She then wrote on Twitter: A MOMENT OF SILENCE WILL NOT SAVE THE LIVES OF INNOCENT AMERICANS." (Washington Post, Mar 3)

Hundreds of thousands of students walk out of school in nationwide gun violence protest 

POSTED 3/16/2018

A month after the largest high school mass killing in US history, thousands of students across the country walked out of their classes to protest gun violence.  On the national level, Congress has done nothing other than a House bill that provides $50 million to train students, teachers, and police how to identify potentially violent individuals.  Trump has reneged on his "send me a big bill to combat gun violence" after a meeting with the NRA - essentially leaving it to the States to pass their own laws and abandoning any leadership in the effort.   The modest steps by retailers and the state of Florida (raising age when someone can buy a gun to 21) are being contested in lawsuits by the NRA.  So much for leave it to the states.  It's a disgraceful failure of leadership at the national level.  And yet the students remain optimistic and are planning more nationwide and local protests.  Who knows?  Maybe they can succeed - if not now then when they get the right to vote.  In the meantime, America's gun violence epidemic and mass killings will continue at a level unknown in the industrialized world. - RJC 3/16/2018

"...students across the country walked out of their classrooms Wednesday and onto athletic fields and city streets as part of a massive ­national protest on gun violence spurred by a Florida high school shooting a month ago that left 17 dead. The walkouts, which came 10 days before a march on Washington that could draw hundreds of thousands of students to the nation’s capital, are unprecedented in recent American history, not seen in size or scope since student protests of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s...." (Washington Post, March 14)

"More than 3,000 registered demonstrations took place in all 50 states, according to organizers with Women’s March Youth Empower, which helped coordinate the “#Enough” school walkouts. It put the initial tally at nearly 1 million and said it was still counting." (Wall Street Journal,  March 15)

"In the coming months, several more nationwide, student-led rallies are planned to keep attention on the issue and press for legislative action.  On March 24, the nationwide March for Our Lives, led by survivors of the Parkland shooting, will hold rallies in Washington, D.C., and cities across the country. The event is meant to 'demand that a comprehensive and effective bill be brought before Congress to address gun issues'...On April 20, another National School Walkout is planned, marking the anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting. The student-led event...is meant to protest 'congressional, state, and local failures to take action to prevent gun violence'...Beyond the national rallies, some student groups have begun planning further actions at the local level. In Wisconsin, students are planning a four-day, 50-mile march from Madison to the hometown of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in Janesville. Kicking off March 25, a day after the March for Our Lives, the 50 Miles More walk is about “keeping the national spotlight on gun reform.”  (Huffington Post, March 15)

"March for Our Lives" Rallies Demand Stricter Gun Laws

POSTED 3/24/2018

Protesters across the US marched to demand stricter gun control laws.  The largest rally was in Washington D.C. where the Republican-controlled Congress and the Administration have refused to act - other than in the most symbolic and non-threatening-to-the-NRA-way.  Unlike the gutless politicians and political "leaders", the students and others attending the rally put the blame exactly where it should be: on government inaction on serious measures to stop gun violence and on the influence of the NRA and its campaign donations. - RJC, 3/24/2018

Hundreds of thousands attend D.C. March for Our Lives rally (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Vox reports: "On Saturday, thousands of people from around the US hit the streets of Washington, DC, to participate in the March for Our Lives — the main event protesting gun violence in schools, which came as a response to last month’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17. Since then, survivors of the shooting have rallied people across the country, particularly other students, to speak out and try to make sure what happened in Florida never happens again....The protesters also happen to be incredible at making signs. Lots and lots of signs. A few themes recur: The signs generally blast politicians for their inaction on gun violence, and they criticize the role that the National Rifle Association (also known as the NRA) plays in our current political debate."

And from Reuters: "In the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Parkland, thousands of people passed through police checkpoints to assemble in a park for a rally and march. Many held signs with slogans including "Am I Next?" "A Call To Arms For the Safety of Our Sons and Daughters"....Adam Buchwald, who survived the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told the crowd he and his friends would stay focused on getting new legislation passed. 'Sadly, this could be repeated in your city or town. This stops now!' he said to loud cheers....In Sydney, Australia, rally organizer Jennifer Smith told a crowd of about 300 people, many of them Americans, that she could 'breathe easy' about sending her children to school in Australia with its tough gun laws. 'I never have to worry about them having to do active shooter drills,' she said.  Organizers of the U.S. marches retweeted photos from sister demonstrations as far afield as Northern Ireland, Mauritius, and Stockholm.  Organizers want the U.S. Congress, many of whose members are up for re-election this year, to ban the sale of assault weapons like the one used in the Florida rampage and to tighten background checks for gun buyers."

Right: Students from Centreville, Virginia wear targets on their chests as they arrive for the March for Our Lives rally March 24, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Above: D.C. demonstrator with sign protesting congressional inaction (Image is from Vox article)

After Parkland: Recent Gun Control Actions

POSTED APRIL 18, 2018

The baseless and appalling attacks on the Parkland survivors ("actors", "cowards", etc.) by the extreme right continues but apparently no one is taking these personal attacks seriously - except the base audience of these far-right websites. 

One set of parents of gun violence victims - from Sandy Hook - is fighting back by launching a lawsuit against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.  "InfoWars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has repeatedly claimed that the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting that killed 20 first-graders was a hoax. The three parents, who filed a defamation suit against Jones on Tuesday, are the first Newtown parents to sue Jones. Jones has long asserted, citing misleading and false evidence, that the shooting was staged by opponents of gun rights."  Jones is one "strike" away from losing his YouTube channel with his 2 million followers after receiving strikes for his videos on Parkland. 

NBC News had a piece, "After Parkland, this survivor is fighting for gun control and against Islamophobia" on Sara Imam, an 18 year-old Parkland survivor, who said she was attacked on Twitter with Islamophobic and anti-immigrant comments.  

On bump stocks,  devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like a machine gun:

Bump stock maker Slide Fire will shut down its website and stop taking orders 

Maryland has finalized its ban on bump stocks


CNN has a listing of actions being taken by cities and states since Parkland in the absence of any meaningful Federal action.


10 killed in Texas High School Shooting

"Spare us your thoughts and prayers and do your job." - Dallas mayor's message to Congress and President 

POSTED 5/19/2018

Just a week or so ago, I read about the NRA's record-breaking donations in March, the first full month after the Parkland H.S. shooting. The $2.4 million haul is the most money raised by the NRA's political arm in one month since June 2003, the last month when electronic federal records were readily available. It surpasses the $1.1 million and $1.5 million raised in January and February 2013, the two months after the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.  What a bizarre reaction - rushing to defend gun rights and gun manufacturers in the aftermath of a massacre! 

Friday's shooting at Santa Fe H.S. in Texas, which killed 10, was the 22nd in the US this year where someone was hurt or killed.  That's more than one a week.  And still the Republican Congress does nothing meaningful, so fearful are they that the NRA will give their money to someone else.  

Texas Governor Republican Greg Abbott, running for re-election this year, said he wants new gun laws "to make sure this tragedy is never repeated." The governor will begin holding roundtable discussions next week with "stakeholders to begin to work immediately on swift solutions to prevent tragedies like these from ever happening again." Democrats welcomed the governor's calls for talks on the issue:

Arlington Rep. Chris Turner, chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, said "we've been ready to have it for a long time," and asked state leaders to "act immediately" to implement universal background checks, a database for stolen firearms and implementing a campaign to promote the safe storage of guns.  

"Thoughts and prayers don't replace the need for a plan," Andrew White, a Houston businessman running for governor, said in a statement within hours of the Santa Fe shooting. 

White's opponent, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, also issued a statement saying "enough is enough." "Our children are literally marching in the streets, demanding that we, the adults, make the change to keep them safe," Valdez said. "We will act to make change. There is no other option."

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings had a more pointed message for Congress and President Donald Trump: "Spare us your thoughts and prayers and do your job." (Dallas Morning News, May 18)

State and city efforts to decrease gun violence may be the only thing we can expect until the Democrats regain control of Congress. More than half a dozen governors — most of them Democrats from the Northeast — recently announced plans to launch an “unprecedented” multistate consortium that will study gun violence as a public health issue.  The governors said they were upset at the lack of action from Washington and are looking to fill a void left by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has been restricted in its ability to collect data to advocate for gun control. (Politico)

Without action at the national level, however, state efforts will be less effective than they could be.  Black-market guns from states with less strict gun control laws readily flow across state lines.  And there are other measures that directly work against state efforts to reduce gun violence.  In December, for example, the House GOP passed a gun bill that has been uniformly condemned by law enforcement leaders across the country. "These lawmakers brushed off the impassioned pleas of police leaders for one simple reason: The legislation—known as the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act—is the No. 1 priority for the National Rifle Association." (Slate)

RJC 5/19/2018


Kavanaugh's Gun Issues

POSTED JULY 13, 2018

Forget "reasonable" gun safety laws.  If Brett Kavanugh's nomination to the Supreme Court is confirmed by the Senate, "sane" gun laws may be on the chopping block. In 2011, he issued a dissenting vote on a challenge to D.C.'s assault weapons ban.  Apparently in Kavanaugh's mind, the Second Amendment allows the average citizen can have a weapon made for military and police purposes and which is implicated in most of the mass murders our country has suffered.   Read more...

Another day, another mass shooting in America

POSTED SEPTEMBER 20, 2018/UPDATED SEP 22

As Brett "assault weapons are okay" Kavanaugh prepares for another round of hearings on his nomination to the Supreme Court, America witnessed its 262nd mass shooting in 263 days.  That's one mass shooting per day so far this year.  It happened in Aberdeen, Maryland where this morning an employee opened fire, killing three before turning the gun on herself.  

Vox, September 20: "Beyond mass shootings, the US has a lot of gun violence, including homicides, suicides, and accidental events. A study published in JAMA found that the US is one of six countries that make up half of gun deaths worldwide; the other countries were Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Guatemala. The US had a rate of 10.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2016, which dwarfed comparable developed countries: Switzerland’s rate was 2.8, Canada’s was 2.1, Australia’s was 1, Germany’s was 0.9, the United Kingdom’s was 0.3, and Japan’s was 0.2. The good news is that crime and murder have generally trended down over the past couple decades in the US. The bad news is that the US, based on the numbers from the JAMA study, continues to see far more gun deaths than other developed nations.  That’s not because America is completely helpless in the face of these tragedies. The reason other developed nations have less gun violence in general is because they have stricter gun laws and fewer guns. (For reference, the US had 120.5 guns per 100 people in 2017 — more guns than people — while Canada had 34.7 per 100 people, Germany had 19.6 per 100 people, and Australia had 14.5 per 100 people, according to the Small Arms Survey.)"

The NRA is gearing up for the midterms and beginning to spend its money to ensure that sensible gun laws are not passed anytime soon.  The people at Trace.org are keeping track of where the NRA is spending its money by supporting or opposing individual candidates.

Related story: In a span of twenty four hours, three ordinary places of busines became danger zones (CNN, Sep 22)

Mass Shooting #293 - 11 dead, 7 injured

POSTED OCTOBER 28, 2018

The tragic shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue yesterday is being investigated as a hate crime.  It was the 293rd mass shooting in the US this year and the deadliest since the Parkland high school shooting in February.  

Trump should re-think his decision to cut funding for investigating right-wing hate groups and his absurd comment that the shooting had nothing to do with gun laws.  Of course it did.  Until assault weapons are banned and background checks are required for every gun sale, these mass killings will continue.  Trump has richly repaid the NRA's $30 million support of his candidacy by his Kavanaugh nomination.  NRA-supported Brett Kavanaugh, who issued a dissent on a D.C. ban on assault weapons, now sits on the Supreme Court.  The NRA is counting on Kavanaugh to be a tie-breaker in gun law decisions.

Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Congress does nothing to end the country's epidemic of gun violence.  The National Rifle Association’s political spending is sharply down heading into the 2018 midterm elections, "a shift that could reflect declining fundraising in the wake of a string of mass shootings and an FBI investigation into the group’s Russia ties."  The NRA has focused its efforts on tight Senate races in West Virginia and Montana.  Perhaps once the power of the gun lobby is ended, Congressional Republicans will do what's right for the country.

Mass  shooting #305 - 13 dead, 18 injured

POSTED NOV 8, 2018

Wednesday night, another mass shooting took 13 lives - this time in California at a college bar.  It was the 305th mass shooting of the year.  The motive for this latest massacre, if there was one, may never be known.  The shooter was an ex-Marine who apparently suffered from mental health issues, but still was able to purchase a gun.  

In February 2017, the month after Trump took office, the Republican Congress passed a bill to undo an Obama administration regulation restricting gun access from certain mentally ill people.  I don't know whether the Obama regulation would have prevented this tragedy, but wonder what could possibly have possessed Republicans to pass such a measure?  Could it be the $54.9 million the gun lobby spent in the 2016 election cycle? With the exception of reciprocal concealed carry, the NRA's money has gotten all it could possibly ask for, including their own justice sitting on the Supreme Court. 

Keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill is a good idea, but the main issue is the availability of guns.  No other developed country has a gun death rate that is more than a small fraction of ours*.  No other developed country has gun laws as lax as ours.  The connection is clear. Whether we will ever do something about this is not.

*Juan Cole provides a comparison of gun violence in the US and Great Britain in a November 9 post at Informed Comment.

Photo © Ringo Chiu/Reuters.  People comfort each other after a mass shooting at a bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., on Nov. 8, 2018.

Photo appeared in the New York Post.

20 dead, 26 injured in El Paso mass shooting by white nationalist 

POSTED AUGUST 3, 2019/last update Aug 5

Details are still being gathered in Saturday's mass shooting at a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas.  It was the 249th mass shooting of the year.  The suspect in custody posted a document "filled with white nationalist language and racist hatred toward immigrants and Latinos, blaming immigrants and first-generation Americans for taking away jobs."

The El Paso shooting occurs just six days after another white supremacist shooter armed with an AK-47-like weapon purchased legally in Nevada killed three, including two children, and injured twelve at a festival in Gilroy, California.  

It did not matter that California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.  That a gun illegal in California could be purchased in Nevada demonstrates the need for a nationwide ban on assault weapons.  In spite of its recent troubles, the NRA continues to contaminate the legislative process.  As long as Republicans control either house of Congress* or the White House, the assault weapon ban which expired in 2004 will not be reinstated.  Trump himself received $30 million in NRA campaign contributions.  What are the chances he will support a ban?

And what are the chances that Trump will tone down his anti-immigrant rhetoric and demonization of Muslims and Latinos in a sick effort to inspire "his base" ?  Failing that, what is needed to counter, in the words of Marianne Wiiliamson, the "dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country"?

Juan Cole at Informed Comment [link below right] argues the connection between lax gun laws and white supremacy:

And, of course, the insistence of the Washington Establishment that we all be exposed to murderous violence by unbalanced persons wielding semi-automatic military-style weaponry allows such massacres to be carried out. But the toxic ideology of behind that insistence (and it has nothing at all to do with ordinary guns or hunting) is also deeply entangled in white supremacy.

Trump is to speak on the most recent tragedies this morning, Aug 5.  I don't think I can stomach whatever empty words he speaks.  [Link below left to Haaretz article on the Trump rally "shoot them" video]

*In 2018, Business Insider's published a list of the "career total" of House and Senate members who had received NRA money.  You have to go to spot #79 before a Democrat appears.

An attendee wears an an American flag shirt depicting President Donald Trump as the Terminator during the National Rifle Association annual convention in Dallas, May 5, 2018.BY ASHLEY GILBERTSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX. 

Gun Violence, Mass Killings, White Nationalists, Trump and the NRA

POSTED AUGUST 21, 2019

Since the El Paso and Dayton massacres, "authorities have arrested six men who were allegedly plotting mass murders. At least four of the suspects are linked to far-right ideologies, including white nationalism and anti-Semitism."  At least one of the arrested found direct inspiration from none other than Donald Trump.  According to Judd Legum at Popular Information, the alleged perp - a neo Nazi named Eric Lin  "pledged to "kill Spanish peoples and Latin peoples by the millions" and sent this message on July 19:

I Thank God everyday President Donald John Trump is President and that he will launch at Racial War and Crusade to keep the N*ggers, Spies, and Muslims and any dangerous non-White or Ethnically or Culturally Foreign group "In Line" By In Line it is meant they Will either be sent to "Concentration Camps" or dealt with Ruthlessly and Vigorously by the United States Military.

It's probably too late to tell Trump to STFU, stop demonizing people, and stop inspiring your unhinged followers.  The proverbial cat is already out of the bag, and we'll need to live with his poison and resist it for the next year (or five).    

A few days after the mass killings in El Paso and Dayton, Trump paid a courtesy call to NRA President Wayne LaPierre to ask about universal background checks. The Atlantic reports [link right]:

The president reportedly asked LaPierre whether the NRA was willing to give in at all on background checks. LaPierre’s response, the sources said, was unequivocal: “No.” With that, “the Rose Garden fantasy,” as the NRA official described it to me, was scrapped as quickly as it had been dreamed up.  Earlier this afternoon, according to a person briefed on the call, the president told LaPierre in another phone call that universal background checks were off the table.

So the $30 million the NRA contributed to the 2016 Trump campaign continues to be the gift that keeps on giving good return on investment.  Without Trump support, no serious gun control legislation will pass.  The odds of obtaining a filibuster-proof law, let alone a veto-proof law, are astronomical.

One of the most far-reaching proposals to end America's gun violence epidemic has been unveiled by survivors of the Parkland high school shooting of February 2018.  They hope to turn the ongoing March for Our Lives outreach and voter registration efforts into "droves of voters" at the polls in 2020.  Given the current occupant of the White House and the Republican-majority Senate and their collective indebtedness to the NRA, driving them from office may well be the only way comprehensive national gun control legislation will be passed in the foreseeable future.

The student activists who crashed the political arena after the mass shooting last year at their high school in Parkland, Fla., are throwing their weight behind a new and ambitious gun-control program that they hope will set the tone for the debate following the most recent mass shootings and headed into the 2020 elections...March for Our Lives has been focused on voter registration and outreach across the country over the past year and a half, building a national infrastructure with more than 100 chapters centered on grass-roots organizing.... Called “A Peace Plan for a Safer America,” [the proposal] would create a national licensing and gun registry, long a nonstarter with gun rights advocates; ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; implement a mandatory gun buyback program; and install a “national director of gun violence prevention” who would report directly to the president and coordinate the federal response to what advocates call a national public health emergency. It would dramatically increase restrictions around owning guns... including raising the age to 21 from 18 for those who want to buy guns...and..a “multi-step” gun licensing system, overseen by a federal agency, that would include in-person interviews and a 10-day wait before gun purchases are approved. The license would be renewed annually. (Washington Post, Aug 21)

National gun  legislation is the most effective way to stop the gun violence epidemic.  State laws, although good in themselves, cannot prevent interstate gun traffic.  I hope I'm wrong but until Trump and his ilk are out of office, common sense national gun laws, supported by 80 to 90 percent of the country, do not stand a chance.  An exception may be a national "red flag" law, which would allow law enforcement to remove weapons from a person deemed a danger to himself or others.  Not much, but it's a start.

The Most Ignorant Statements Following the Most Recent Mass Shootings 

POSTED SEP 4, 2019

The Odessa, Texas, mass shooting left 8 dead on August 31. It's hard to keep up with the self-serving absurdity coming from pols, commentators and of course, the NRA.  Nevertheless, I've compiled a short list of some of the most ignorant, outrageous and disingenuous.

Meghan McCain

I'll start with Meghan McCain, daughter of Senator John McCain, to whom the NRA gave nearly $8 million in campaign contributions over the course of his political career.  During a debate on assault weapons with other co-hosts at "The View", McCain responded: “The AR-15 is by far the most popular gun in America, by far. I was just in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, if you're talking about taking people’s guns from them, there’s going to be a lot of violence.”  

I would pray not.  What kind of insane response would that be? What's she talking about?  Killing  law officers?  Assassinating Democrats?  Why on earth does anyone - hunter or otherwise - need a military weapon?  If some gun owners really are that violent and irrational, then maybe it is good to ban these weapons.  At a minimum, we might make buy back of existing weapons and/or renewable licensing and registration mandatory; and resale/new ownership, illegal.

Ted Cruz 

"Gun control doesn't work," Cruz wrote. "Look at Chicago. Disarming law-abiding citizens isn't the answer. Stopping violent criminals - prosecuting & getting them off the street - BEFORE they commit more violent crimes is the most effective way to reduce murder rates. Let's protect our citizens."  Chicago's mayor had a strong response to Cruz's trying to make a political point after the recent tragedy in Odessa.  

Actually Ted, state and local gun control laws do work.  The problem lies with the lack of federal gun control legislation.  This failure, endearingly engineered by the NRA, makes it possible to pick up guns out-of-state.  The most effective way to address street crime is to address the causes - poverty, lack of educational and employment opportunities, systemic racism, etc.  Ramsey Clark's 1970 classic "Crime in America: Observations on its Nature, Causes, Prevention and Control" and Jim Wallis's 2015 "America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America" should be required reading for everyone - especially legislators.  

The Texas State Legislature and Governor

The stupidity evident from the following news item needs no comment: "Less than one day after the Odessa mass shooting, a series of new laws weakening firearm regulations went into effect in Texas. Among other things, the new bills will make it easier to carry guns at schools, places of worship and in disaster zones. The NRA hailed the bills, calling the latest legislative session “highly successful.” Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has repeatedly backed measures expanding gun ownership. In 2015, he tweeted, “I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans. @NRA.” [Democracy Now! link below]

NRA

Walmart banned some types of gun and ammunition sales after two deadly shootings at Walmart stores.  They also will bar shoppers from openly carrying guns in its stores.  The NRA's predictable reaction: "The National Rifle Association (NRA) in a Tuesday statement slammed Walmart's changes to its gun policies as "shameful" after a mass shooting last month in one of its stores. "It is shameful to see Walmart succumb to the pressure of the anti-gun elites. Lines at Walmart will soon be replaced by lines at other retailers who are more supportive of America's fundamental freedoms," the statement said.

Elites?  With 90 percent of the country supporting universal background checks and more than half a ban on assault weapons, the NRA's continued opposition to sensible gun laws is what is elite.  The NRA owns the President and much of Congress, and have several sympathetic ears on the Supreme Court. Supreme Court.  Shameful?  Very little is more shameful than the NRA's role in promoting America's gun culture and lobbying against legislation that will save lives.

Seven mass shootings in seven days

POSTED MARCH 25, 2021

US gun homicide rate vs. that of other high income countries

The city of Boulder, Colorado, is mourning the latest deaths from the barrel of an assault weapon.  It was the seventh mass shooting in seven days.  The shooting at a supermarket there took place less than a week after eight people were killed in a series of attacks on spas in Atlanta.  

In spite of the COVID pandemic (or possibly because of it), gun violence reached near record levels in 2020.  According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, guns killed nearly 20,000 Americans, more than any other year in at least two decades. An additional 24,000 people died by suicide with a gun. 

Drenched in guns and blood, stymied by a powerful gun lobby, cowardly politicians, and an incredibly wrong Supreme Court decision, America refuses to address its gun violence pandemic.  [sidebar]  After particularly horrific mass shootings, conservative politicians call for "prayers for the victims" and liberal groups call for "common sense" gun laws.  We talk about it for a while and nothing gets done - legislative proposals blocked by conservative politicians and good laws struck down by conservative justices.  Politicians call these small steps - universal background checks, permit-to-purchase requirements, assault weapon and high-capacity-magazine bans, denying guns to domestic abusers - "common sense" gun laws.  A better term would be "common decency" gun laws, sort of like wearing a mask to protect others from a deadly virus.

No other advanced nation has the gun death rate that we do.  It's not even close.  The reasons for the appalling statistics are well-known: the United States has the most lax gun laws and the highest rate of gun ownership of any advanced industrialized nation.  

At the other end of the gun violence scale from the United States is Japan.  In 2020, guns caused 120 deaths a day in the United States.  That's more gun deaths than Japan sees in a year.  With a population of 126 million, Japan consistently has less than 100 gun death rates per year.  The gun ownership rate in Japan is 0.6 per 100 inhabitants; in the US, it's 120.  The total gun death rate there is 0.02 per 100,000 inhabitants; for the United States, that figure is greater than 12.  

Japan has some of the strictest gun laws in the world.  For Japanese citizens to purchase a gun, they must attend an all-day class, pass a written exam, and complete a shooting range test, scoring at least 95% accuracy. Candidates will also receive a mental health evaluation, performed at a hospital, and will have a comprehensive background check done by the government.  The class and exam must be retaken every three years.  Only shotguns and rifles can be purchased, and no civilian in Japan can own a handgun. [1]

Other countries with extremely low gun death rates such as Great Britain, Norway and Australia (rates so low they would not even be seen on the chart above) have implemented incentives or passed legislation to decrease the number of firearms in citizens’ possessions. For example, Australia implemented a buy-back program for firearms, allowing the government to buy and destroy over 600,000 guns. [1]

A few statistics from the Everytown for Gun Safety website reveal the extent and nature of America's gun violence crisis:

What can you say about a country where the very people who want to make it difficult to vote want to make it easy to own and carry a gun, or in author John le Carré's  words, who defend "the inalienable right of closet psychopaths to bear semiautomatic weapons "?  That's really what it comes down to - oppose universal gun checks, allow semi-automatic weapons, concealed carry, and on and on and on.  

Can anything be done?  Three ideas in closing:

References: [1] World Population Review

Powerful gun lobby, cowardly politicians

"The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics estimated that during the 2016 election, the NRA and its affiliates spent a record $54m to secure Republican control of the White House and Congress, including at least $30.3m to help elect Donald Trump." (UK Guardian Feb 16, 2018)

"From the earliest days of the Trump campaign, to his response to tragedy after tragedy, the NRA has clearly bought and paid for the right to dictate gun policy to the President of the United States with an uncompromising and iron fist." (Third Way, Aug 6, 2020/ link above)



An incredibly wrong Supreme Court decision

"District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized an individual right to possess a firearm under the Constitution, is unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench.

"The text of the Second Amendment unambiguously explains its purpose: 'A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' When it was adopted, the country was concerned that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several states." - former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (The Atlantic - link above)

PLEASE STOP - it is time to put an end to America's gun violence 

POSTED APRIL 17, 2021

These heart-breaking gun tragedies and cop shootings are becoming too much to bear.  This past week, three more gun tragedies reached national attention.

Lax Gun Laws and Police Shootings are Related

America is awash in guns.  Because of this, our police officers feel the need to be armed.  When police officers are armed, tragedies happen and people get killed.  Like our lax gun laws, the high rate of police shootings is unique to the United States, where police kill civilians at a much higher rate than other countries (graphic below).  The "number of police killings of civilians in the U.S. – who are disproportionately Black and other people of color – are the result of policies and practices that enable and even encourage police violence. Compared to police in other wealthy democracies, American police kill civilians at incredibly high rates." (PPI)

Police around the world all face difficult life-and-death moments.  These life-and-death moments are more frequent in the United States because of our lax gun laws.   The prevalence of guns in the US is a major contributing factor for the US high police killing rate, making US police more likely to respond with lethal force.  A particularly dangerous element of our gun laws is open carry, which may become a rallying point for police unions to take on the NRA.  45 states permit open carry of guns.

Adding to the problem here in the United States is the current state of police training.  Police training emphasizes the dangers faced and "officers are trained to shoot before a threat is fully realized, to not wait until the last minute because the last minute may be too late...In most police shootings, officers don’t shoot out of anger or frustration or hatred. They shoot because they are afraid. And they are afraid because they are constantly barraged with the message that that they should be afraid, that their survival depends on it." (The Atlantic)

At the top of the reform list is de-escalation training and most states don't mandate it. De-escalation training "teaches officers to slow down, create space, and use communication techniques to defuse potentially dangerous situations. It gives officers strategies to more calmly deal with people who are experiencing mental and emotional crises. There are 34 states that do not require de-escalation training for all officers, according to [a 2017] analysis by APM Reports."

"Every year, around 1,000 people are shot and killed by police, according to the databases. Of those victims, more than half were wielding guns, leaving officers few choices in how to respond. But in the rest of the cases, where people were holding knives, toy weapons, or no weapons at all, police might have taken additional steps, like using communication skills or waiting for backup, to try to defuse the situations." (APM Reports)

We know the minimum that we need to do

It's time to consider more far-reaching steps

The homicide surge and the perfect storm that brought us here

POSTED JANUARY 29, 2022

The surge in gun violence continues. Last year, there was a 5% increase in homicides compared with 2020 and a 44% increase compared with 2019. A CNN analysis of police department data found that “[more] than two-thirds of the country's 40 most populous cities saw more homicides last year than in 2020... Ten of those cities recorded more homicides in 2021 than any other year on record." 

Inner cities and the minority populations living there are bearing the brunt of this surge in gun violence, and as political leaders search for answers, politicians are pointing fingers. For those on the right, changes in police practices following the killing of George Floyd and others are to blame.

Really? How drastic and how widespread were these changes?

There were notable changes in several states - Maryland repealed its half-century-old Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights*; Washington state reformed use-of-force policies and created a new agency to investigate when officers use deadly force; California overcame objections from police unions to make sure officers fired in one jurisdiction couldn't be hired in another. In others, the changes were incremental – like limiting the use of choke holds and “no-knock” warrants.

It's hard to see how any of these changes would lead to a surge in gun homicides. If modest changes in police practices and slightly increased police accountability cannot explain the homicide surge, what does?

Looking at the homicide numbers mentioned previously, one cannot miss the connection with the pandemic. 2019 (baseline) - no pandemic; 2020 – 39% increase over 2019; 2021 – still pandemic – 5% increase over 2020. The year-to year increase between 2019 and 2020 was the largest ever recorded. 

Jonathan Jay, a gun violence researcher at Boston University notes that "gun violence is highly concentrated in neighborhoods with high rates of economic deprivation, trauma associated with past violence and now COVID, and poor access to resources. They’re also the most physically deteriorated and least conducive to community-building in shared spaces.”

The root causes of criminal behavior, the basic economic and health stresses caused by poverty, mental illness, addiction, and the lack of educational and employment opportunities all increased during the pandemic. So it is not surprising that the crime rate increased.

And that gets us to the unfortunate phrase of “defund the police”. The phrase has been twisted by police unions and demagogues on the right to mean that those using the phrase are “anti-police”. But what nearly all who use that phrase actually mean is that the money spent on the militarization of our police forces and on over policing for petty crimes could be better spent on heavy social investments that actually address the root causes of criminal behavior and on concentrating  police attention and presence to areas with the most violence.**

If the pandemic is one piece of the puzzle, lax gun controls laws and the prevalence of guns is the other.  Together they formed the "perfect storm" for the surge in homicides.  

The United States is unique among high income countries in its gun death rate. It's not even close.  The reasons for the appalling statistics are well-known: the United States has the most lax gun laws and the highest rate of gun ownership of any advanced industrialized nation.  At the other end of the gun violence scale from the United States is Japan.  In 2020, guns caused 120 deaths a day in the United States.  That's more gun deaths than Japan sees in a year.  With a population of 126 million, Japan, which has some of the strictest gun controls in the world, consistently has less than 100 gun death rates per year.  The gun ownership rate in Japan is 0.6 per 100 inhabitants; in the US, it's 120.  The total gun death rate there is 0.02 per 100,000 inhabitants; for the United States, that figure is greater than 12.  

Within the United States, the same correlation holds among individual states.  A new study released by the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund found a strong connection between a state’s gun laws and its rate of gun deaths.  The analysis concludes that states with strong gun safety policies have lower rates of fatal shootings while states with weaker gun laws have higher rates of gun deaths, including homicides, suicides and accidental killings. Everytown for Gun Safety makes a pretty clear point by ranking states from strongest gun laws to weakest.

The mass shootings with military-grade weapons get the headlines, but day-in and day-out, handguns do the most damage. Without a national background check requirement, strong qualification and registration requirements, handguns are essentially uncontrolled. They are easily transportable and easily hidden.  Handguns are also the main reason that police officers are forced to make split-second life-and-death decisions.  When anyone can be carrying, how can a policeman, whose training emphasized the dangers faced, make the right decision?  

In spite of all the evidence, drenched in guns and blood, stymied by a powerful gun lobby, cowardly politicians, and incredibly wrong Supreme Court decisions (link below right), America refuses to address its gun violence pandemic.  After particularly horrific mass shootings, conservative politicians call for "prayers for the victims" and liberal groups call for "common sense" gun laws.  We talk about it for a while and nothing gets done - legislative proposals blocked by conservative politicians and good laws struck down by conservative justices.  Politicians call these small steps - universal background checks, permit-to-purchase requirements, assault weapon and high-capacity-magazine bans, denying guns to domestic abusers - "common sense" gun laws.  A better term would be "common decency" gun laws, sort of like wearing a mask to protect others from a deadly virus. 

And it may soon get worse.  

When November’s oral argument before the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen drew to a close after roughly two hours of debate at the Supreme Court, it seemed likely that New York’s 108-year-old handgun-licensing law is in jeopardy. The law requires anyone who wants a license to carry a concealed handgun to show “proper cause” for the license. Courts in New York have defined “proper cause” to require applicants to show a special need to defend themselves, rather than simply wanting to protect themselves or their property.

Related What in the World? Posts

Seven mass shootings in seven days - Mar 25, 2021 

Criminal Justice System Reform: Black Lives Matter, Guns. Police Accountability and Training - Nov 4, 2019


Notes

*Maryland's Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights was the first in the nation. It codified workplace protections for police officers far beyond those afforded to other government employees. They included giving officers a formal waiting period before they had to cooperate with internal inquiries into police conduct, scrubbing records of complaints brought against officers after a certain period, and ensuring that only fellow officers — not civilians — could investigate them.

**Boston University's Jonathan Jay developed a tool called Shape-Up, which combines machine learning and satellite imagery to identify the micro locations, like specific city blocks, that have the highest risk of gun violence incidence. The idea is to help city officials and community members identify and prioritize those locations.


Sources: BU Today, ABC News, SCOTUS blog, Upworthy, CNN, NY Times, Washington Post


"The text of the Second Amendment unambiguously explains its purpose: 'A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' When it was adopted, the country was concerned that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several states."

Biden's plan to reduce gun violence

POSTED MARCH 31, 2022

After receiving severe criticism about his failure to follow through on his campaign pledge to reduce gun violence, President Biden on Monday reiterated his "whole-of-government" approach to reducing gun violence and announced details of the policy team in charge of the effort.

Activists with the March for Our Lives organization placed over 1,100 symbolic body bags, each representing more than 150 gun-related deaths, on the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol. Bryan Olin Dozier/NurPhoto via AP

The fact sheet released by the White House touts a comprehensive approach to the problem which includes stemming the flow of guns, increasing Federal support for local and state police, community violence interventions, summer youth programs and help for formerly incarcerated individuals returning to society. 

Biden's approach, which emphasizes enforcement and more money for police, is somewhat different from what most gun control advocacy groups focus on --- front-end controls like a national gun registry, bans on military style weapons, and universal background checks to keep guns out of the hands of violent felons, domestic abusers, and the mentally ill.  

Will Biden's approach work?  Or is it the only approach he can take given Republican opposition to common sense gun laws, the power of the gun lobby, and incredibly wrong Court rulings on the Second Amendment?

Let's take a look at Biden's plan step-by-step.

As for the forces holding back a more effective approach to stopping gun violence, there is no sign that they will be subdued anytime soon.  

But it's not all bad news for the gun law reform movement.  


Related posts

The homicide surge and the perfect storm that brought us here - Jan 29, 2022

Seven mass shootings in seven days - Mar 25, 2021 

Criminal Justice System Reform: Black Lives Matter, Guns. Police Accountability and Training - Nov 4, 2019

What will it take for the Gun Lobby and Republicans to allow us to end America's gun violence?

POSTED MAY 25, 2022

"I don’t have a lot of words today, except to say that there is a concerted effort right now to convince you that 'nothing can be done.' It is designed to make you give in to the exhaustion of this moment. Don’t believe it. It’s a lie. We have power if we mobilize it." 

- Sherilynn Ifill, President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund

Tuesday's massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was the 212th mass shooting in the country this year.  As our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and community where this tragedy took place and while we wonder about the motivation of the shooter, we must also ask: "What will it take for Republican politicians and the Gun Lobby to stop their opposition to measures that could reduce America's gun violence pandemic?"

The causes of the ongoing slaughter as well as the remedies are well known and well documented, but a few facts bear repeating:

Joe Biden got it half-right in excoriating the gun lobby in his comments after the shooting ("When will we stand up to the Gun Lobby?")  The powerful lobby continues to influence legislation at every level of government.  Since the 1990's, they have spent over $200 million during Federal election cycles - almost entirely on Republican candidates.  

Republicans are the other half of the issue.  These cowardly lawmakers will not renounce the money of the Gun Lobby, and, fearing the political consequences of upsetting the most extreme elements of the Republican base, they will not take the slightest action to reduce gun violence.  Thanks to the filibuster, comprehensive or even piecemeal gun violence prevention legislation stands no chance in the current Congress despite widespread public support (80%) for "common sense" gun laws and Democratic majorities in both chambers.  

Texas Permitless Carry and SCOTUS deliberations on New York "proper cause" statute

In June of last year Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation to allow "permitless carry" in the state, which means that Texans can carry handguns without a license or training.  According to the Texas Tribune, Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other Republicans who were initially noncommittal about the bill were under immense political pressure this session from conservatives and gun rights advocates, who have long lobbied the Texas Legislature for permitless carry but historically struggled to win support.  

As the nation reels from the Buffalo and Uvalde massacres, the United States Supreme Court is deliberating New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.  The case concerns a New York law governing licenses to carry concealed handguns in public for self-defense. It requires a resident to obtain a license to carry a concealed pistol or revolver and demonstrate that “proper cause” exists for the permit. In oral arguments in November, SCOTUS's conservative majority appeared poised to strike down the law, which is the exact opposite of Texas' permitless carry.  

Whatever credibility the John Roberts Supreme Court has left will be shredded should they author a broad opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.  While the mass shootings that occurred since the court began deliberating implicate assault weapons, mental health issues and age restrictions more than the conceal carry law before the court, a broad opinion could impact those kinds of laws as well.  

Mobilize

The lesson I take from the Texas permitless carry saga is that Abbott and the other Republicans initially on the fence were swayed by pressure from gun rights advocates and conservatives.  One way to counter this right-wing pressure is for gun control advocates to mount a massive grass roots campaign.  Among the groups working for change are Brady United, Giffords, and Everytown for Gun Safety.  Public pressure is also coming from students across the country who are engaging in walkouts. [link above]

One of my first posts on this website was about the Parkland, Florida high school shooting in February 2018.  Four years later, the issues still remain, and the gun violence pandemic seems to have no end.  In spite of this, we must not give up the fight for sanity in our gun laws and a reduction in gun violence.  The change may not come tomorrow and it may not come soon, but eventually it will come.


Related Posts:

The most ignorant statements following the most recent mass shootings (Sep 4, 2019) has Ted Cruz, the Texas state legislature and the NRA embarrassing themselves after the Odessa, Tx mass shooting. 

Seven mass shootings in seven days (Mar 25, 2021) and PLEASE STOP - it is time to put an end to America's gun violence (April 17, 2021) present context and actions to reduce gun violence.  "Seven mass shootings" presents the data behind the grim American gun violence statistics and "PLEASE STOP" connects the dots between lax gun laws and police shootings.

The "Mental Health" Hypocrites

POSTED MAY 27, 2022

In the aftermath of mass shootings, many on the political right and in the gun-rights movement blame "mental health issues."  It is a blatant attempt to deflect from their own complicity in weakening gun laws.  Blaming mental illness for mass shootings inflicts a damaging stigma on the millions of people who suffer from clinical afflictions, the vast majority of whom are not violent. Other countries also have mental health issues but they do not have mass shootings.  The sole difference is the availability of guns, particularly assault weapons. 

The hypocrisy of these gun rights advocates and these tools of the Gun Lobby is stunning.  Slate's Benjamin Miller writes:

"Texas is one of the 12 states that has not chosen to expand Medicaid, largely under Abbot’s watch. And when you look at the data and see how Medicaid is the largest payer for mental health and addiction services, it seems that if the governor really cared about the issue, he would have done something about that long ago...These [are the] same elected leaders who refuse to back ample funding for social programs that would improve the physical and emotional well-being of all Americans...If these leaders were truly worried about mental health, they could have, and would have done something about it long ago. We have had an anemic community based mental health system in this country for decades."

Until we can vote these cowardly politicians out of office, and understanding that we are in a nation with more guns than people and the most lax gun laws of any high-income nation, there are things that we as individuals and communities can do to prevent mass shootings.  (Spoiler: "Having only one door to the school open" as the esteemed Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) offered as a solution is NOT one of them.)

While extensive research shows the link between mental illness and violent behavior is small, there are identifiable warning signs that can be used to head off mass shooting tragedies.  Mother Jones's Mark Follman notes that "In the scores of threat investigations and mass shootings I studied, every case subject showed a mix of identifiable warning signs." Follman describes eight areas: entrenched grievances (either real or perceived), threatening communications, patterns of aggression, stalking behavior, emulation ("the copycat problem"), personal deterioration, triggering events, and attack preparation. [link below] 

A variation or expansion of community-based violence intervention (CBVI) programs might be a good place to start.  New Jersey has one such program, described in a press release on the NJ.gov website:

"The purpose of the CBVI program is to support non-profit community service providers by soliciting applications for initiatives including street outreach and mentoring, trauma-informed programs with cognitive behavioral therapy, and integration of local social service providers to connect people to social and economic services.  CBVI programs have a track record of success, and have reduced homicides by as much as 60% in communities where they were initiated. These programs employ violence intervention strategies that provide alternatives to violence and embody a community-based public safety model."

One month after the massacres in Buffalo and Uvalde, SCOTUS sets the stage for dismantling the nation's gun control laws 

POSTED JUNE 23, 2022

Ever since the oral arguments in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen last November, we knew that New York State's concealed carry law was going to be struck down.  What we did not know was how wide-ranging the ruling would be or how radical the Supreme Court would be in its interpretation of the Second Amendment.  

On Thursday, we found out.  Thanks to the maximalist written opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the John Roberts Supreme Court has opened the door to dismantle gun control laws across the nation.  A Court that has shown itself to be democracy averse in its rulings against voting rights* has now proved itself to have little use for the concept of the "common good" that lies at the heart of good government and civic society.

Slate's Mark Joseph Stern summarizes Thomas's opinion and its effect on gun laws around the country [link below]: 

"In striking down New York’s restriction, the justice also established a new standard for evaluating gun control measures. [If a law] interferes with rights protected in “the plain text” of the Second Amendment...specifically, the right to self-defense, that law is presumptively unconstitutional. The government may only save it from invalidation if it can prove that the regulation 'is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.' "

Well, "this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation" has brought us to the point where we have the greatest per capita gun ownership of any nation on the planet and where our gun death rate is an order of magnitude higher than any other high-income country.  

No longer can "common sense" gun laws be passed just because they reduce gun violence.  Data does not matter. Laws to protect lives do not matter.  Any legislative body attempting to impose gun control must find some historical analogue to justify the law.

The only limit on Bruen is Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts.  Kavanaugh clarified that states can still require licenses for concealed carry permits that may include “a background check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms handling” and that a “variety” of gun regulations remain permissible, such as “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.”

That's it: the best news from a Supreme Court ruling on gun control is some gun laws are still permissible!

Stern concludes his post in Slate noting that "gun control advocates’ best hope is that Kavanaugh and Roberts will not follow the strict logic of the majority" in future cases brought before the Supreme Court.  

In 2011 before he was confirmed to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh issued a dissenting vote on a challenge to D.C.'s assault weapons ban. So, for a gun regulation to remain law in this country, Brett Kavanaugh - who once opined that a private citizen had the right to own a weapon made for military and police purposes and used in most of our country's mass murders - will have to vote to uphold that regulation.  

I hope for all our sakes that Kavanaugh has changed his thoughts on gun rights.


Related post

Sane gun laws may be dead if Kavanaugh gets Kennedy's SCOTUS seat - July 13 2018

Note

*Decisions by the Court's conservative majority have allowed unlimited money to flow into political campaigns (Citizens United, January 2010), gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by both voiding its pre-clearance section (Shelby County v Holder, June 2013) and removing citizens' ability to challenge discriminatory voting laws after implementation (Brnovich v Democratic National Committee, July 2021) , and upheld partisan gerrymandering (Rucho v Common Cause, June 2019).  By giving additional political influence to wealthy donors and corporations, by removing voting protections for minorities both before and after the implementation of discriminatory voting laws, and by not defending the concept of one person/one vote,  these decisions constitute a "grand slam" against the bedrock democratic principle of the right to vote.  

Preventing mass shootings

POSTED JANUARY 25, 2023

The Gun Violence Archive notes that mass shootings are, for the most part "an American phenomenon."  There have been 40 such shootings* so far this year in the United States, with two recent shootings in California resulting in at least 18 dead.  

Are mass shootings inevitable?  Given our 400 million guns, patchwork and inadequate gun laws, misguided Supreme Court rulings, an intransigent Republican Party, an entrenched "gun culture" and a powerful gun lobby, one might be tempted to think so.  

Nevertheless, there is hope that we can stop mass shootings, but it will require us to change the narrative and pass the laws.

Changing the narrative

Mother Jones National Affairs Editor Mark Follman writes [sidebar]: 

"Progress begins with rejecting the longstanding narrative that mass shootings are inevitable and will never cease...The assertion that mass shootings are an inherent feature of our reality is in its own right fueling the problem, in part by validating this form of violence in the eyes of its perpetrators, who seek justification and notoriety for their actions."  

Follman, who has been investigating and reporting on gun violence for the past decade, continues:

"[We also] need to shift away from the heavy overemphasis on active shooter response—lockdown drills and the various “target hardening” measures of physical security—to a greater emphasis on active shooter prevention. This means investing in mental health care and community-based violence prevention, including behavioral threat assessment programs..."

Passing the laws

Although the political status quo is unlikely to change anytime soon, long-term efforts to pass common sense gun laws ["We know the minimum we need to do" in sidebar], most of which supported by a majority of Americans, are crucial.  Given the ease at which guns can be transported across state lines, these laws must be enacted by Congress nationwide.  California Senator Alex Padilla had this reply to those who question the efficacy of California's strict gun laws in light of the recent shootings there:

"Many of my colleagues have pointed out: Doesn’t California have some of the strictest laws and protections of any state in the nation? That is true. And they have worked, and it is helpful. But when there’s a patchwork of laws and protections to various degrees across states, then, clearly, there are vulnerabilities that can impact any community in the country." 

Contributing to organizations like Everytown for Gun Safety, Giffords, Brady United and Sandy Hook Promise is one way all of us can help in these efforts to pass gun safety and control legislation at the national level and, while the current political impasse continues, at the local level.

Mark Follman's analysis of five devastating massacres that occurred in 2022 concludes that 

"Two types of gun regulations hold significant promise for helping reduce mass shootings in America. One is raising the age requirement for gun buyers from 18 to 21. Another is expanding the use of extreme risk protection orders, a policy known as red flag laws, for temporarily disarming individuals deemed through a civil court process to pose a danger to themselves or others." [sidebar]

Note: *The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as one with a "minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident."


"We know the minimum that we need to do"

Extract from WITW post "PLEASE STOP- it is time to put an end to America's gun violence" (April 17, 2021)

Six years after Parkland, six hours after Kansas City

POSTED FEBRUARY 15, 2024

This afternoon, the celebration honoring the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory turned to tragedy.  Gun shots were fired as the parade ended, resulting in one dead and 22 wounded.  It was the 17th mass shooting this year and a reminder of the uniquely American gun violence problem.

One of my earliest posts on this website was a reaction to the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting of Valentine's Day 2018. "Florida H.S. Shooting Was 18th School Shooting and 30th Mass Shooting in 2018" laid out the case against assault weapons, the gun lobby, and the grossly misinterpreted Second Amendment.  Unfortunately, nothing much has changed in six years.  School shootings are still happening. Assault weapons are still bought and sold freely.  Gun Rights zealots have joined the lobbyists in making legislators into spineless cowards.  And the Supreme Court is still in the control of constitutional originalists, who understand neither the meaning of "well regulated militia" nor the difference between arms from the 1780s and arms in the 2020s.

Since Parkland, there have been over 900 shootings in K-12 school settings. Thirty-two were indiscriminate attacks apparently driven by the intent to kill as many people as possible, including mass casualty events at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022 and at Oxford High School, in Oxford, Michigan, in November 2021.

In 2020 alone, the United States imported or manufactured 2.8 million AR-15 and AK-style rifles.  In 2004, Congress had allowed the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 to lapse.  Although Republicans then controlled all branches of government and an extension was not a "done deal", the Democrats let the 1994 ban expire without mounting a significant effort to preserve its most consequential gun control achievement in decades.   Reopening the floodgates had its consequences.  An analysis in The Conversation showed the average number of yearly deaths attributed to mass shootings was 25 in the years following the expiration of the ban, compared with 5.3 during the 10-year tenure of the ban and 7.2 in the years leading up to the prohibition on assault weapons.  

The NRA is still one of the biggest spending, most powerful lobbying groups infecting our electoral system.  Its various PAC's spent over $28 million dollars in the 2020 election cycle.  All but $6,699 went to elect Republicans or to defeat Democrats.  In the 2022 election cycle, the NRA spent near $16 million with all but $33,091 going to defeat Democrats or elect Republicans.  

And if you are of the opinion that the NRA is "too liberal", you could find a home in the fast-growing Gun Owners of America (GOA), described by The Guardian as a  "zealous gun rights group, even more uncompromising than the once formidable National Rifle Association...The GOA’s anti-gun control posture was underscored by its opposition to a bipartisan compromise gun control bill in 2022 that closed some gun law loopholes, including for prospective buyers under 21, and implemented gun violence prevention policies, becoming the first gun control bill enacted since 1994.  The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act garnered just 29 Republican votes in Congress.  In 2023, the GOA sent an alert to its members warning of pending legislative threats suggested those votes were 'cowardly'." That's one of the most interesting misuses of the "cowardly" I have ever seen.

As for the radical interpretation of the Second Amendment, Kurt Anderson notes [link below left] that for almost two centuries there was no controversy surrounding it.  It was what it said. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  The discourse began to change in the late 1970s when "the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby more generally went out of its mind, to be blunt, and decided to be absolutists, that there would be no regulation of guns and we would fight any regulation of guns, and, moreover that was all driven by a fantasy that the Federal Government was about to confiscate all of our guns that every individual had."  For the next 20 or so years, though, the courts continued to interpret the Second Amendment as it had been interpreted for the previous 200 years. 

Then in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller, the conservative majority on the John Roberts Supreme Court ruled that it was not well-regulated militias but individuals who had the right to bear arms.  John Paul Stevens, one of the dissenting justices called it "unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench." He continued, "The text of the Second Amendment unambiguously explains its purpose: 'A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' When it was adopted, the country was concerned that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several states."

The John Roberts Supreme Court, which would notably go on to weaken voting rights in a series of disastrous decisions, was not yet done with its radical interpretation of the Second Amendment.  

Building on District of Columbia v Heller,  their 2010 ruling in McDonald v. Chicago extended this individual right to state and local levels, effectively limiting the power of states and municipalities to restrict gun ownership.  

Then in its 2022 New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision, the Court’s Republican appointees placed an extraordinarily high burden on any lawyer tasked with defending any gun law. Under Bruen, a gun law is typically unconstitutional unless similar laws existed in the framing era.  

Which leads us to a case argued before the Supreme Court in November.  The specific question in United States v. Rahimi is whether a federal law that makes it a crime to possess a firearm violates the Second Amendment if a court has determined the individual is a threat to their “intimate partner,” their child, or their partner’s child.  There were no bans on gun ownership by domestic abusers in 1791.  Fortunately, reason and basic human decency seemed to prevail at the oral arguments about whether domestic abusers should be armed. [link below right]

Can we do anything to end America's gun violence epidemic, its mass shootings, its destruction of lives and communities? Yes, we can.  We know what we need to do.  We need to find the political will to do so.  Another WITW post "PLEASE STOP - it is time to put an end to America's gun violence" from April 2021 offers some suggestions.