Nashville attack renews calls for assault weapons ban – data shows there were fewer mass shooting deaths during an earlier 10-year prohibition

  The shooting deaths of three children and three adults inside a Nashville school has put further pressure on Congress to look at imposing a ban on so-called assault weapons. Such a prohibition would be designed to cover the types of guns that the suspect legally purchased and used during the March 27, 2023 attack.

  Speaking after the incident, President Joe Biden issued his latest plea to lawmakers to act. “Why in God’s name do we allow these weapons of war on our streets and at our schools?” he asked.

  A prohibition has been in place before. As Biden has previously noted, bipartisan support in Congress helped push through a federal assault weapons ban in 1994 as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.

Five years after Parkland, school shootings haven’t stopped, and kill more people

  In the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018, many Americans hoped that, finally, something would be done to address the problem of gun violence in the nation’s schools.

  Despite the outpouring of grief and calls for action that followed the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, school shootings continue to occur with alarming frequency. While progress has been made in some areas, such as increased funding for school security and mental health resources, there is still much work to be done to ensure the safety and well-being of students and educators in schools across the country.

Did the assault weapons ban of 1994 bring down mass shootings? Here’s what the data tells us

  A spate of high-profile mass shootings in the U.S. has sparked calls for Congress to look at imposing a ban on so-called assault weapons – covering the types of guns used in both the recent Buffalo grocery attack and that on an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

  Such a prohibition has been in place before. As President Joe Biden noted in his June 2, 2022 speech addressing gun violence, almost three decades ago, bipartisan support in Congress helped push through a federal assault weapons ban in 1994 as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.

5 ways to reduce school shootings

  After the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, psychology professor Paul Boxer and his colleagues reviewed research to see what could be learned from what they refer to as the “science of violence prevention.” In the wake of the May 24, 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Boxer has revisited that research anew – and other research conducted since then – for insights on what can be done to reduce the risk of school shootings in the future. Here he offers five policy changes – based on his findings – that can be implemented to achieve that end.

1) Dramatically limit access to guns

  Gun regulation matters.

  When my colleagues and I looked at gun regulations on a state-by-state basis, we found that more restrictive gun laws are associated with lower rates of homicides by guns.

What we know about mass school shootings in the US – and the gunmen who carry them out

  When the Columbine High School massacre took place in 1999. it was seen as a watershed moment in the United States – the worst mass shooting at a school in the country’s history.

  Now, it ranks fourth. The three school shootings to surpass its death toll of 13 – 12 students, one teacher – have all taken place within the last decade: 2012’s Sandy Hook Elementary attack, in which a gunman killed 26 children and school staff; the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which claimed the lives of 17 people; and now the Robb Elementary School assault in Uvalde, Texas, where on May 24, 2022, at least 19 children and two adults were murdered.

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.

Craig Ford: Every school should have a school resource officer

  Now that school has started back, a lot of attention has been given to the issue of school safety and security.

  Concerns over school safety and, particularly, the possibility of a mass shooting are nothing new. Though the Columbine massacre that happened nearly 20 years ago was not the first school shooting, it became the first in a wave of shootings that has plagued this country right up to the shootings in Parkland, Florida and Santa Fe just a few months ago.

  That’s why most school systems throughout Alabama used the summer months to improve school safety by tapping into funds that the Alabama Legislature unearmarked earlier this year.

Craig Ford: How we can make our schools safer

  Education is the most important service our government provides, and one of the top issues impacting education is school safety.

  Unfortunately, it seems like every conversation about school safety always turns into a debate about guns, and nothing ever gets done.

  But there are a lot of things we can – and should – be doing to make our schools safer without even getting into the gun issue. In fact, mass shootings are only one threat to our schools. Kidnappings, sexual assaults, fights and bomb threats are also concerns, and none of those have anything to do with guns.

Are high schools teaching students to devalue free speech?

  It seems like every few months we’re treated to the results of a new survey that has something dismaying to report about how young people approach free speech. Last fall, the Brookings Institute reported that college students have a number of misconceptions about how the First Amendment works — a significant percentage believes that it doesn’t protect hate speech and that it requires that an offensive speaker at a public university be matched with another speaker with an opposing view. A recent survey conducted by Gallup and the Knight Foundation found that 37 percent of college students think that shouting down an offensive campus speaker is acceptable; even more troubling, another 10 percent said that violence is also an acceptable tactic for silencing an offensive speaker.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1605: It is so painful, it hurts deep down inside

  Sometimes I have to speak. Sometimes I have to write. I am not anxious to speak. I write every week, but I am not anxious to write. But sometimes I have to write. This is one of those times I have to write. It is so painful, it hurts deep down inside.

  It was a mass murder at a school. Seventeen school children and school personnel died. Another seventeen were shot and injured but did not die. That’s 34 persons shot in one mass shooting, one mass murder.

Teen activists aren't new.... Celebrating them is

  Last week began with the sixth anniversary of Trayvon Martin's death. It ended with a march commemorating the 53rd anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the day voting rights activists were beaten by lawmen on Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge.

  By any measure, it was a week steeped in not only the history of racial inequality in America but also in our rich history of activism.

  Nowhere is that more evident than at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where students have riveted the country with their pleas for gun reform after the horrific Valentine’s Day shooting that left 17 students and teachers dead.

Taylor’s Top 4: Alabama Legislative Review for Week 7

  Didn't last week seem to fly by?

  If you want to receive daily news hits from across the state and nation straight to your inbox each morning, click here to subscribe to the Alabama Policy Institute’s Daily Clips.

1. General fund budget for 2019 has passed the Alabama Senate.

  Last week, the senate passed a budget for the 2019 General Fund (GF) by a 26-2 vote. If this budget passes, it will be the biggest GF budget in a decade. This budget includes  $755 for Medicaid and grants an additional $51 million to the Department of Corrections next year. Check out this run-down of funding increases and reactions from lawmakers in this piece by J. Pepper Bryars with Yellowhammer News. During the debate over the budget on the senate floor, Sen. Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) proposed an amendment that would add money to fund a facility that provides vocational training for inmates, similar to the Alabama Therapeutic Education Facility located in Columbiana. The senate approved that amendment 24-6. Another amendment was offered by Sen. Trip Pittman (R-Montrose), chair of the General Fund budget committee, which increased funding to the Alabama Department of Transportation by $4.5 million. The $2 billion budget passed by a vote of 26-2 and will go to the house.

Five ways the Trump budget undermines gun violence prevention and school safety efforts

  In his address to the nation the day after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and teachers and injured another 14, President Donald Trump vowed to take action, stating that he would soon hold meetings with governors and attorneys general in which “making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority.” He continued, “It is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference. We must actually make that difference.” However, the president’s actions have already spoken louder than these hollow words. Just two days before the shooting, his administration released its fiscal year 2019 budget, which proposed cutting funding to crucial programs that help prevent gun violence and ensure school safety.

Keeping America’s schools safe from gun violence

  Current federal law helps ensure that schools remain safe places of learning for students, faculty, and other personnel by limiting the ability of individuals to carry loaded, concealed guns on K-12 school grounds. This law—the Gun-Free School Zones Act, or GFSZA—was enacted with overwhelming bipartisan support more than 20 years ago and should remain in place to help keep our school communities safe from gun violence.