The ‘freedom’ that’s killing Alabama

  Imagine three out of every 10 Americans owned a grizzly bear.

  Not as pets. As protection.

  We’d share sidewalks with grim-faced men leading their bears by a leash. Stores would have signs reminding patrons not to bring bears inside. Those that didn’t would have many frightened customers trying to evade the enormous beast blocking the aisles.

Alabama legislators elevate guns over children. Again.

  The leading cause of preventable death for Alabama children is guns.

  Let me say that again in active voice.

  Guns kill Alabama kids more than anything else we can prevent.

  And we refuse to act.

Guns and our endless lockdown

  We had just stepped into the makeup store when people began running. You could see them through the entrance, in groups of five and six, passing by every second, racing from the mall walkways into a nearby Nordstrom.

  I couldn’t tell what was happening. Was the mall closing? Was there some flash sale taking place?

  Then the metal gate crashed over the Nordstrom entrance. Then the employees in our store ordered everyone to stay put as they pulled gates across the front of the entrance.

American gun culture is based on frontier mythology – but ignores how common gun restrictions were in the Old West

  In the wake of the Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings, 70% of Republicans said it is more important to protect gun rights than to control gun violence, while 92% of Democrats and 54% of independents expressed the opposite view. Just weeks after those mass shootings, Republicans and gun rights advocates hailed the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated New York state’s gun permit law and declared that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense.

  Mayor Eric Adams, expressing his opposition to the ruling, suggested that the court’s decision would turn New York City into the “Wild West.” Contrary to the imagery of the Wild West, however, many towns in the real Old West had restrictions on the carrying of guns that were, I would suggest, stricter than the one just invalidated by the Supreme Court.

How the NRA evolved from backing a 1934 ban on machine guns to blocking nearly all firearm restrictions today

  The mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York supermarket and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days apart, are stirring the now-familiar national debate over guns seen after the tragic 2012 and 2018 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida.

  Inevitably, if also understandably, many Americans are blaming the National Rifle Association for thwarting stronger gun laws that might have prevented these two recent tragedies and many others. And despite the proximity in time and location to the Texas shooting, the NRA is proceeding with its plans to hold its annual convention in Houston on May 27-29, 2022. The featured speakers include former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican.

Most school shooters get their guns from home – and during the pandemic, the number of firearms in households with teenagers went up

  Four days before a 15-year-old sophomore killed four students and wounded others at a high school shooting in Michigan, his father purchased the firearm used in the attack.

  That the teenager used a weapon from home during the Nov. 30 attack is not unusual. Most school shooters obtain the firearm from home. And the number of guns within reach of high school-age teenagers has increased during the pandemic – highlighting the importance of locking firearms and keeping them unloaded in the home.

A new lawsuit illustrates the problem of U.S. guns in Mexico

  Last month, the Mexican government filed a lawsuit against major U.S. arms manufacturers and distributors in a U.S. federal court, suing the companies for damages caused by the illegal flow of their guns into Mexico. The lawsuit not only looks for compensation—with some damages estimated at $10 billion—but also to change the commercial practices of U.S. gun companies that facilitate the flow of guns. Regardless of how the lawsuit ends—considering existing U.S. laws offer gun companies broad immunity from civil litigation—it is important to acknowledge the huge impacts of the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico. It is equally important to address disinformation surrounding this flow and recognize that America can and should do more to stop it.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1778 - Big guns, big problems

  Big guns, big problems. Guns are pervasive in America. More pervasive than any other country in the world. And more are being sold and bought each day. Big guns, big problems.

  There is a place for guns in America: to protect our homes; to protect our persons; to protect our loved ones; to engage in sport; to engage in war; etc. There is a place for guns. However, all guns do not have the same place in America.

Why the Second Amendment protects a ‘well-regulated militia’ but not a private citizen militia

  When a federal judge in California struck down the state’s 32-year-old ban on assault weapons in early June 2021, he added a volatile new issue to the gun-rights debate.

  The ruling, by U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez, does not take effect immediately, because California has 30 days to appeal the rejection of its assault weapons ban. Most coverage has focused on Benitez’s provocative analogy between an AR-15 and a Swiss army knife. But the case raises troubling questions about the meaning and proper role of “militias” under the Second Amendment.

What are ‘ghost guns,’ a target of Biden’s anti-crime effort?

  It’s not expensive or difficult to produce large numbers of untraceable firearms in the United States. Whether for private use, sale on the criminal market, or arming violent extremists, it’s actually startlingly cheap and easy to mass-produce firearms that police can’t track – what are often called “ghost guns.”

  For just over US$2,000, I can buy a machine – not much bigger than a desktop laser printer – that will do the trick. If I’m feeling handy, I can get it done with just simple power tools.

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines must be banned

  Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines have repeatedly been used to commit some of the worst mass shootings in modern U.S. history, and they contribute to the daily toll of gun violence in communities around the country. They are weapons of war that have no place in civilian society. Congress must enact a federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to keep these dangerous weapons out of U.S. communities.

Background checks violate property rights

  In the early 1990s, I accompanied a friend and his 12-year-old son to a local gun show. My friend wished to purchase a .22 caliber rifle with which to teach his son to shoot safely and effectively. After much browsing, he found one at a reasonable price, one that suited both his needs and those of his son. The seller, a federally licensed firearms dealer, handed my friend an ATF Form 4473 to fill out. When my friend asked him why he had to fill out the form, the dealer answered that he could not purchase the weapon without doing so.

  At this point, I inserted myself into the conversation. I told the dealer that the restriction was not on my friend, who was free to purchase firearms without filling out anything, but upon him. As a dealer, he had accepted a license from the federal government to engage in the business of buying and selling firearms and was thus subject to the terms of that license. One of the terms was that he could not sell them to anyone who didn’t fill out the ATF Form 4473. In addition, the dealer has to keep the form on file for inspection by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF). The same is true for the background check; it is imposed on the dealer as a condition of his license.

The most important gun violence prevention agency you’ve never heard of

  The national conversation about gun violence in the United States is generally focused on the need to enact new laws or strengthen existing ones to help prevent the mass casualty shootings that occur stunningly often, as well as the daily occurrences of gun violence that plague communities around the country but never make the news. This focus on the gaps in U.S. gun laws makes sense: Glaring loopholes in the United States’ laws have made the country an outlier among high-income nations when it comes to lives taken by gunfire. But the debate about gun violence should not overlook another key role that the federal government has to play beyond enacting new laws: enforcing existing laws and regulating the gun industry. This crucial work makes up the core of the mission of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Gun violence expert explains the link between inequality and gun deaths

  Support for gun safety laws is at an all-time high. More Americans than ever supported new laws to reduce gun violence—including nearly 70 percent of adults and half of all Republicans. But gun safety measures, while critical, are only the tip of the iceberg in addressing gun violence in the country.

  In both the United States and globally, gun violence is strongly correlated with both poverty and inequality. A recent World Bank study found that inequality helped predict the difference in murder rates between states in the United States—as well as between countries. Suicides, which make up the majority of gun deaths in the country, skyrocket in times of economic distress. The Great Recession alone was linked to more than 10,000 suicides, according to one study.

How a mass shooting made my town an advocate for gun safety

  My rough, unscientific estimate is that we are about three-quarters of the way through the national grieving process for Las Vegas. Americans are pretty familiar with the rhythmic mourning of mass shootings: Widespread shock, political chest-beating, internet rage, and then silence. Then our wounds start to heal and the nation moves on, leaving the thousands of people who were injured or lost someone they loved to recover on their own. Those individual broken hearts will keep bleeding for years—many, like mine, will burst open again every time there’s another shooting.

  My mind still flashes back to my hometown every time news of a shooting breaks even though Tomasz was killed almost five years ago. It was early on Christmas Eve in 2012 when a man set his family home on fire and shot the firefighters who responded to the blaze from a berm across the street. He used the same model of assault rifle that was used in the Sandy Hook massacre two weeks earlier.

Myth vs. Fact: Debunking the gun lobby’s favorite talking points

  The gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), pursues a number of different policies in state legislatures across the country and in Congress, including eliminating permit requirements for concealed carry; expanding locations where guns may be carried; weakening regulation of the gun industry; and overriding duly enacted state laws that limit gun carrying. While each of these policies have different elements, all are united by a core set of dangerous and misleading arguments perpetuated by the NRA that more guns in more hands will lead to increased personal and community safety.

America Under Fire: An analysis of gun violence in the United States and the link to weak gun laws

  One of the key questions in the gun debate is whether strong gun laws—such as requiring background checks for all gun sales; limiting who may carry guns and where they may carry them; and providing increased oversight of the gun industry—are effective at reducing gun violence. This is not an easy question to answer, as there are myriad factors that may contribute to the rate of gun violence in any community. In addition to easy access to guns facilitated and enabled by weak gun laws, there are an interconnected web of social and economic issues that can have an impact on rates of violence in a community, such as persistent poverty, lack of employment and educational opportunities, and a breakdown in the police-community relationship that imperils community safety.

Sam Fulwood III: Americans must understand that a bullet has all of our names on it

  By any measure of civil rationality, the plague of gun violence in America is out of control. Almost daily and across the nation, the body count of people wounded or killed rises like the mercury in a thermometer under a summer sun. Every weekend, for example, news reporters in Chicago and Washington, D.C., track shootings and deaths in what has become a morbidly routine tally.

  These daily accounts read like a police blotter—all cool details and dry facts. The stories are devoid of the emotional wallop that surely fills the hearts of the family and friends who knew and loved the victims. There is little humanity shared in the description of the lives crippled or ended by a bullet.

9 Reasons why progress on stronger gun laws is within reach

  In the weeks that followed the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, this past December, advocates for stronger gun laws focused their efforts on a proposal to require background checks for most gun sales between unlicensed buyers and sellers to prevent criminals and other dangerous people from easily buying guns with no questions asked. Three weeks ago, however, the Senate came six votes short of the 60 votes required to advance this legislation, known as the Manchin-Toomey amendment, that would have expanded gun background checks to all gun shows, online purchases, and advertised sales.

Sally Steenland: Advocates continue efforts to prevent gun violence

  It’s time to bring back public shaming. I’m not saying that we should throw people in the stocks and humiliate them in the public square, but we should force the senators who voted last week against sensible measures to reduce gun violence to answer for their vote.

  It’s long past time to amplify how cowardly and antidemocratic their votes were—how irresponsible to their office, insulting to those killed and injured by gun violence, and craven to a cadre of gun-industry lobbyists, whose extreme opposition to common-sense gun laws contrasts with the 88 percent of gun owners in this country who support universal background checks.