Everytown for Gun Safety

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    Justice Dept. to Cut Gun-Sale Inspectors by Two-Thirds as It Moves to Downsize A.T.F.

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    The move is part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the government’s already crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals, according to budget documents.The move, part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, comes as the department considers merging the A.T.F. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. It follows a rollback of Biden-era regulations aimed at stemming the spread of deadly homemade firearms, along with other gun control measures.The department plans to eliminate 541 of the estimated 800 investigators responsible for determining whether federal dealers are following federal law and regulations intended to keep guns away from traffickers, straw purchasers, criminals and those found to have severe mental illness, according to a budget summary quietly circulated last week.Department officials estimated the reductions would reduce “A.T.F.’s capacity to regulate the firearms and explosives industries by approximately 40 percent” in the fiscal year starting in November — even though the staff cuts represent two-thirds of the inspection work force. The cuts are needed to meet the White House demand that A.T.F. cut nearly a third from its budget of $1.6 billion.News of the plan came as a shock to a work force already reeling from months of disruption. Several frontline agency staff members, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said the cuts would lead to hundreds of layoffs and effectively end the A.T.F.’s role as a serious regulator of gun sales, if they are not reversed by the White House or Congress.“These are devastating cuts to law enforcement funding and would undermine A.T.F.’s ability to keep communities safe from gun violence,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit advocacy group founded by the former mayor of New York Michael R. Bloomberg. “This budget would be a win for unscrupulous gun dealers and a terrible setback for A.T.F.’s state and local law enforcement partners.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As School Threats Proliferate, More Than 700 Students Are

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      Earlier this month, a detective knocked on Shavon Harvey’s door, in suburban Ohio, to ask about her son. The son had sent a Snapchat message from her phone to his friends, saying there would be shootings at several schools nearby.She rushed to the police station, where her son was already in custody, but the police did not release him. He was charged with inducing panic, a second-degree felony, and officials kept him in detention for 10 nights.He is 10.Ms. Harvey’s son is far from the only child arrested this month after similar behavior. And he’s not even the youngest.In the three weeks since two teachers and two students were killed at Apalachee High School in the deadliest school shooting in Georgia’s history, more than 700 children and teenagers, including at least one fourth grader, have been arrested and accused of making violent threats against schools in at least 45 states, according to a New York Times review of news reports, law enforcement statements and court records. Almost 10 percent were 12 or younger.Shavon Harvey said her son had told his fifth-grade friends on Snapchat that there would be a shooting in his district. The police held him in custody for over a week.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe arrests come as the police and schools confront an onslaught of threats of violence, gunfire and bombings. The reports have terrified students and their parents, caused attendance to plunge and forced the temporary closure of dozens of campuses. Some schools have canceled homecoming parades, middle school dances and Friday night football games.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Everytown for Gun Safety to Train Volunteers to Run for Office

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      The gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety plans to spend $3 million to recruit and train its volunteers to run for office, with a goal of having 200 enter races in the next election cycle.The program is the latest step in a yearslong effort by groups that support stricter gun laws to become politically competitive with the National Rifle Association, which has kept a powerful hold on American politics as mass shootings have multiplied.That dynamic has begun to shift, with the N.R.A. losing influence among moderate Democrats and more gun restrictions being passed by state legislatures. But even proposals with broad bipartisan support among voters, like universal background checks and red-flag laws, have languished in Congress.Everytown’s new program, called Demand a Seat, will begin this fall and will involve training in the nuts and bolts of running a campaign, as well as instruction from advocates-turned-legislators such as Representative Lucy McBath, Democrat of Georgia. It is aimed at members of Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, two arms of Everytown, which is backed by Michael R. Bloomberg.“Our volunteers have fought for those people sitting at the table to listen to them, and some wouldn’t, so now our volunteers and gun violence survivors will fight to fill those seats,” said Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action. According to Everytown, more than 100 of its volunteers ran for office last year and 43 won.The group said that more than 50 former volunteers have been elected to state legislatures, 18 to city or county councils, eight to school boards and two to Congress: Ms. McBath and Marie Newman, Democrat of Illinois.Ms. McBath, who was first elected in 2018, said in an interview on Monday that as an advocate with Moms Demand Action she had learned about organizing people, giving speeches and talking about policy with different audiences. But, she said, “I had no idea how to run a campaign.”“I’d never run for office before,” said Ms. McBath, who got involved with Moms Demand Action after her son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot. “I got a little bit of help from people around me and went to a boot-camp training over a weekend, but I wish I had this kind of structure in place, an ongoing structure I could tie into the entire time.”State Representative Jo Ella Hoye, a Democrat, was elected to the Kansas Legislature in November after leading Moms Demand Action’s Kansas chapter for about three years. She said she had staffed her campaign mostly with fellow volunteers, who made more than 10,000 phone calls for her.“You have this light bulb moment: I used this database for our organizing, and that’s what I’m going to use for our campaign. We take training on messaging and social media,” Ms. Hoye said. “Formalizing it is just going to make that light bulb click a little sooner.”She and Ms. McBath will advise the program’s participants, as will, among others, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, a Democrat; former Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, a Democrat; and former Representative David Jolly of Florida, who was a Republican while in office but has since left the party. More