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      ‘Stand your ground’: the US laws linked to rising deaths and racist violence

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      The shooting of a Black teenager who rang the wrong doorbell in Kansas City, Missouri, has renewed scrutiny of “stand your ground” and other self-defense laws, which have proliferated in the US and been used to justify the killings of Black Americans.Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old high school junior, was going to pick up his younger twin brothers from a friend’s house on Thursday when he approached an incorrect address. The white homeowner, 84-year-old Andrew Lester, came to the door and shot Yarl in the head, before shooting him a second time, according to authorities. Yarl suffered a traumatic brain injury, but survived and was recovering, his family said.The case sparked intense local protests and widespread outrage across the country after police released Lester from custody, saying investigators were considering whether his actions were protected by self-defense laws. Late Monday, however, prosecutors announced armed assault charges against Lester, who surrendered on Tuesday.It remains to be seen how Lester may defend himself in court. But the shooting, and another over the weekend in which a New York homeowner killed a woman who entered the wrong driveway, appeared to be part of a disturbing pattern in the US where, experts say, the dramatic expansion of self-defense laws has been linked to increased homicides and racist violence.“Black people are still suffering from laws in this country that are not moral and not just – and ‘stand your ground’, as it is applied to Black people, is one of them,” said the Rev Vernon Howard, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City.‘Authorizing violence’The first “stand your ground” law was adopted in 2005 in Florida after a homeowner fatally shot a man who had wandered on to his property. The shooter did not face charges, but the National Rifle Association argued he’d been treated unfairly while under investigation and pushed the passage of “stand your ground”, which solidified that people have the right to kill if they believe they’re faced with a grave threat, even if they could have retreated or de-escalated the confrontation.“Castle doctrine” laws in the US have long allowed people to kill intruders threatening their homes, but stand-your-ground policies extended that self-defense concept to the wider public sphere – with deadly consequences.By 2012, the year 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood watch captain, 24 states had versions of “stand your ground”. Now, 38 states have similar statutes or equivalent legal precedents, according to a 2022 Reveal investigation. That’s despite one poll showing a decline in public support for the laws.“The legacy of ‘stand your ground’ is this wild west mentality that everything can be resolved with guns,” said Thaddeus Hoffmeister, University of Dayton law professor.An analysis last year found “stand your ground” laws were linked to an 8% to 11% increase in homicide rates, or roughly 700 additional deaths each year. Florida’s “stand your ground” law has increased both justifiable and unlawful killings, with one study finding a 32% increase in firearm homicide rates; and another analysis showed that in 79% of cases, the assailant could have retreated to avoid confrontation. And research on “stand your ground” laws has found huge racial disparities, with white Americans much more likely to find success with self-defense claims, particularly when they kill Black people.“We have so much data showing these laws do not make us safer. And in fact, they authorize so much unnecessary violence that disproportionately harms Black and brown people,” said Caroline Light, Harvard senior lecturer and expert on “stand your ground” laws.Robert Spitzer, political science professor emeritus at the State University of New York, Cortland, noted that “stand your ground” laws discourage prosecution and impede investigations into homicides, which is why some law enforcement leaders oppose them: “The laws are written in a way that quite clearly provides for the prospect of legalized murder. And it actually encourages people to make sure their opponents are dead so that they cannot make a counter ‘stand your ground’ claim.”The laws have also contributed to an increasingly violent culture, added Kenneth Nunn, law professor emeritus at the University of Florida: “The presence of a ‘stand your ground’ law in the public’s mind generally means, all you have to say is, ‘I was in fear for my life’, and no charges will be brought, and I think a lot of police officers tend to believe that, too.”Missouri passed a “stand your ground” law in 2016. Decried by critics as “shoot first laws”, the state’s self-defense statutes say people can use deadly force and have no duty to retreat if they “reasonably believe” it was necessary to prevent death, or in any case in which a person enters or “attempts to unlawfully enter” someone’s home.Ari Freilich, state policy director for the Giffords Law Center, said the self-defense laws would not justify the shooting of Yarl: “There’s no state in the country where the existing laws are such that you can lawfully shoot someone for ringing the doorbell at the wrong house.” Still, he said, the case appeared to “fit the pattern we’ve seen over and over again of racist fear intersecting with really widespread unvetted firearm access, combining in our country to make gun violence the leading cause of death by far for young Black men”.‘Traumatized and infuriated’Residents of Kansas City – who protested over the weekend with signs saying “ringing a doorbell is not a crime” and the “shooter should do the time” – said they were relieved charges were filed, but that the shooting had escalated fears of racist violence.“Missouri and the Kansas City metropolitan area is one of the most unsafe places for Black people in America,” said Rev Howard, citing homicide rates, police brutality, mass incarceration and infant mortality rates. “I put this shooting within that context. This is par for the course. There’s a severe lack of protection for Black life and equal justice under the law.”He said he hopes laws like “stand your ground” are repealed, adding of the shooting, “We are not surprised, we are traumatized. We are infuriated. And we are determined to take steps to receive justice that is necessary here.”“This is a city that has deep racial tensions bubbling constantly,” added Theo Davis, a pastor at the Restore Community Church, who attended recent protests, noting recent incidents of racism in local high schools as well as times he’d been racially profiled by police and others.He said he was disappointed prosecutors did not file hate crime charges and was worried that decision would allow people to claim racism was not a factor. The local prosecuting attorney said there was a “racial component” to the shooting, but said hate crime statutes would carry a lesser penalty than the assault charge.Davis said he was also anxious about the suspect’s likely self-defense argument in court: “We’ve seen so many cases of ‘stand your ground’ laws benefiting white people in this country. It’s very scary, and I’m deeply concerned. Even though it seems like a slam-dunk case, we won’t hold our breath until we see a conviction.” More

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      One in five Americans has had family member killed by gun violence – study

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      One in five Americans has lost a family member to gun violence, an alarming survey published on Tuesday claims.The research came out one day after five people were killed by a gunman at a Louisville bank, at least the 15th mass shooting of the month, and 146th this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.The resource website defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are killed or wounded.The new study reflects the increasing commonality of gun-related incidents across the US. The survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 19% of Americans said they had a family member killed by a gun, including by suicide, and one in six said they had witnessed a shooting.Among respondents who are Black, the already shocking figure in both categories jumped to one in three.The fear of gun violence is also prevalent, the study found. In particular, an epidemic of school shootings, from Columbine high school in 1999 to last month’s murder of six – including three nine-year-old students – at the Covenant school in Nashville, appears to have left parents more concerned than others.Asked if they were worried “daily or almost daily” about a family member falling victim to gun violence, 24% of parents with children under 18 said they were, compared with 15% for the adult population at large.“Unfortunately when we allow guns everywhere, for anyone with no questions asked, nowhere is safe from this gun violence epidemic,” said the founder of the gun safety advocacy group Moms Demand Action, Shannon Watts, in response to the Nashville school shooting.“We cannot and will not accept this reality. Our lawmakers must take action to keep us safe.”The survey was conducted in the week before the 27 March shooting in Nashville and delved deeper into Americans’ experiences with guns as well as gun crime.More than one in five, 21%, said they had personally been threatened with a gun, and 17% said they had witnessed somebody being shot. Those who said they had been injured by a gunshot, or had fired a weapon in self-defense, totaled 4% in each category.The results also revealed, unsurprisingly, that gun violence affects racial minorities at a far higher rate.Black adults (34%) are about twice as likely as white (17%) or Hispanic (18%) adults to say that they have a family member who was killed by a gun. They are also more than twice as likely – 31% to 14% – as white adults to say they witnessed someone being shot, with Hispanic adults in between at 22%.Overall, the survey found a majority of US adults, 54%, have either personally been affected or had a family member affected by a gun-related incident, such as witnessing a shooting, being threatened by gun, or being injured or killed by a gun.Amid the recent rise in mass shootings in the US, almost all of which were committed using AR-15 style rifles, Joe Biden has repeated his call for Congress to pass an assault weapons ban, which was not included in a bipartisan gun reform package that the president signed into law last year.But Democrats, despite controlling the Senate, have been unable to make headway and in the last Congress lacked the two-thirds majority needed to approve the assault weapons ban approved by the House of Representatives.The Connecticut US senator Chris Murphy, who was elected after a gunman murdered 26 people – including 20 children – at his state’s Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012, has been among the most vocal Democrats criticizing the opposition party’s unwillingness to pass more substantial gun control.“It is beyond me why Republicans who claim to care about the health of our kids don’t seem to give a crap about our children who are being exposed to these epidemic, cataclysmic rates of gun violence,” Murphy said in an interview with Salon.“I don’t really think people understand how big a problem this is and how quickly it has come to overwhelm us.” More

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      Protests in Tennessee as Democrats face removal for gun control demonstration

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      Thousands of protesters flocked to the Tennessee state capitol on Thursday to support three Democratic lawmakers facing expulsion for their role in a gun control demonstration after the killings of three children and three adults at a Nashville elementary school last week.Crowds cheered and chanted outside the house chamber, so loud that they drowned out proceedings.Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson are the subjects of the expulsion vote. Last week, they approached the front of the chamber floor and chanted back and forth with gun control supporters who packed the gallery.On Thursday the three Democrats held hands as they walked on to the house floor. During the pledge of allegiance, Pearson raised his fist to the crowd.Their possible expulsion has once again thrust Tennessee into the national spotlight, underscoring not only the ability of the Republican supermajority to silence opponents but also its increasing willingness to do so. The move sends a chilling message just as lawmakers grapple with how to respond to the devastating shooting at the Covenant school.On Thursday, many protesters had traveled from Memphis and Knoxville, areas Pearson and Johnson represent, and stood in a line that wrapped around the building. Johnson urged those in the gallery to remain calm and not shout at lawmakers, to avoid getting removed.Protesters outside the chamber held up signs that said “School zones shouldn’t be war zones”; “Muskets didn’t fire 950 rounds per minute”, with a photo of George Washington; and “You can silence a gun … but not the voice of the people”.As the House began proceedings, a Democrat, Vincent Dixie, urged that colleagues “not get distracted”. He mentioned the funeral of Mike Hill, the custodian killed at the Covenant school, which took place earlier in the week.“I want us to keep in mind the sacrifice that he made to keep those kids safe,” Dixie said. “Each of us has power to make change.”Before the expulsion vote, House members were set to debate more than 20 bills, including a school safety proposal requiring public and private schools to submit building safety plans to the state.The bill did not address gun control, sparking criticisms from some Democrats that lawmakers were only addressing a symptom and not the cause of school shootings.Expulsions in the Tennessee general assembly are rare.In 2019, lawmakers faced pressure to expel the former Republican representative David Byrd, after he faced accusations of sexual misconduct dating to when he was a high school basketball coach three decades before.Republicans declined to take action, pointing out that he was re-elected as the allegations surfaced. Byrd retired last year.In 2022, the state senate expelled a Democrat, Katrina Robinson, after she was convicted of using about $3,400 in federal grant money on wedding expenses instead of her nursing school.Before that case, state lawmakers last ousted a house member in 2016, voting 70-2 to remove the Republican Jeremy Durham after an investigation detailed allegations of improper sexual contact with at least 22 women in four years in office.If Johnson, Jones or Pearson are expelled, the county commissions in their districts would get to pick replacements to serve until special elections could be held. The three Democrats would remain eligible to run in those contests. More

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      Joe Biden to unveil executive order to crackdown on law breaking gun sellers

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      Joe Biden will announce on Tuesday that he is ordering the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to crack down on gun sellers who break the law, “moving the US as close to universal background checks as possible”, the White House said.The president will speak in Monterey Park, California, meeting victims’ families and community members devastated by a mass shooting that claimed 11 lives and injured nine other people in January.Opinion polls show that a majority of both Democrats and Republicans support universal background checks that would reveal whether a person is a convicted criminal or domestic abuser before allowing them to buy a gun. But with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, there is little hope of Congress heeding Biden’s pleas to pass legislation.On a swing through California, the president will acknowledge this political reality and unveil an executive order to enforce existing laws against gun sellers who, knowingly or otherwise, currently fail to run the background checks they should.On a conference call with reporters, a senior administration official said last year’s bipartisan gun safety legislation – the most sweeping of its kind in three decades – “created an opening” for Biden to direct the attorney general to move the US as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation.He will ask Garland to clarify the statutory definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms, the official said. “Number one, to make it clear that those who are wilfully violating the law need to come into compliance with the law and, number two, to make it clear to people who may not realise that, under that statutory definition they are indeed in the business of selling firearms, they must become federally licensed firearm dealers and they must run background checks before gun sales.”The administration argues that this will mean fewer guns sold without background checks and therefore fewer guns ending up in the hands of criminals and domestic abusers. Garland will also devise a plan to stop gun dealers whose licenses have been revoked or surrendered from continuing to trade.There will be an effort to hold the gun industry accountable by naming and shaming federally licensed firearms dealers who are violating the law. Garland will release Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives records from the inspection of firearms dealers cited for breaking laws.The executive order also aims to boost public awareness of “red-flag” laws that allow individuals to petition a court to allow police to confiscate weapons from a person adjudged dangerous to themselves or others.These extreme risk protection orders have been enacted in 19 states and the District of Columbia but, the White House noted, are only effective if the public knows when and how to use them. Biden’s cabinet will be asked to work with law enforcement, healthcare providers, educators and other community leaders to ensure their effective use and to promote the safe storage of guns.The senior administration official insisted that, whatever the likely resistance from Republicans and certain localities, the president’s actions enjoy broad support. “These are not controversial solutions anywhere except for in Washington DC in Congress. The actions the president is proposing to move closer to universal background checks are just common sense.“Similarly, safe storage, extreme protection orders, these are things that have the support of the vast majority of Americans. The vast majority of Americans are looking for a leader in Washington who will take change and make their community safer and that is exactly what the president is doing here.”Biden, who has previously called gun violence in America “an epidemic” and “international embarrassment”, will further order efforts to counter a sharp rise in the loss or theft of firearms during shipping, enlist the Pentagon in improving public safety practices and encourage the Federal Trade Commission to issue a report analysing how gun makers market firearms to children, including through the use of military imagery.In addition, he will seek to improve federal support for gun violence survivors, victims and survivors’ families. The White House pointed out in a press release that, when a hurricane overwhelms a community, the Federal Emergency Management Agency steps in.But when a mass shooting does so, “no coordinated US government mechanism exists to meet short- and long-term needs, such as mental healthcare for grief and trauma, financial assistance (for example, when a family loses the sole breadwinner or when a small business is shut down due to a lengthy shooting investigation), and food (for example, when the Buffalo shooting closed down the only grocery store in the neighborhood)”. More

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      California gun laws can’t stop mass shootings without federal support

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      AnalysisCalifornia gun laws can’t stop mass shootings without federal supportJoan E GreveThe Golden State will struggle to stop mass shootings and protect citizens until uniform federal laws on firearms are signed The recent mass shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay have brought devastation, outrage and shock to Californians. As the state grieves the loss of 19 residents, one question continues to arise: how could this happen in the state with some of the strongest gun laws in the US?Victims named in mass shooting at Half Moon Bay mushroom farms in CaliforniaRead moreCalifornia’s gun laws include bans on the military-style assault weapons and large-capacity magazines that have been used in many mass shootings. It is one of just two states, along with New Jersey, to receive an “A” rating from the gun safety group Giffords, based on the strength of its firearm regulations.Gun rights proponents have cited the two shootings as evidence of the ineffectiveness of California’s laws, but groups like Giffords fiercely reject those arguments. California’s firearm mortality rate has declined dramatically in the years since tougher regulations were enacted, gun safety groups note.But in a nation where firearms outnumber people, the groups say, such horrific attacks will continue without a coordinated federal response to gun violence.“California is one state of 50,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice-president for law and policy at the gun safety group Everytown. “There’s just no question that strong, uniform federal laws are substantially better than a mixed bag of strong and weak state laws.”‘Gun violence across America requires stronger action’Research indicates that California’s many gun laws have proven quite effective in reducing the number of deaths caused by firearms. According to the gun safety group Brady, California’s rate of firearm mortality rate declined by 55% between 1993 and 2017, compared to a decrease of 14% across the rest of the US in the same time period. Advocates credit the decline to California’s gun regulations, a number of which went into effect in the early 1990s.“California has transformed itself in the past generation,” said Ari Freilich, state policy director at Giffords. “People came together time and again to strengthen gun safety laws [and] learn from tragedy.”California now has 107 gun laws on the books, more than any other US state. In addition to the bans on military-style assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, California has a ban on gun silencers. Like 18 other US states, California has a “red flag law” that allows authorities to seize guns owned by those deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. In situations of domestic violence or workplace harassment, California residents can petition a court for a restraining order to have firearms taken away from their partner or employee.The gun used in the Monterey Park shooting appears to fall under the state’s definition of an “assault weapon”, so it is unclear how the attacker was able to purchase the firearm in 1999, when California had already banned such weapons. The sale of large-capacity magazines like the one used in Monterey Park is now illegal in California, although that state ban may not have been in effect when the shooter purchased the magazine. Authorities have said that the semi-automatic weapon used in Half Moon Bay was legally purchased by the gunman.Unfortunately, a gun violence restraining order was not issued before the attacks in Monterey Park or Half Moon Bay. As Freilich said, an important piece of lawmakers’ work must be ensuring that citizens know their legal options so they can be prepared to respond if they suspect potential gun violence.“Sometimes it’s making sure the right judge files the right paperwork at the right time,” Freilich said. “That’s the kind of unglamorous work that will save a victim’s life.”In addition to the need for more education around existing laws, Giffords released a memo outlining further legislative steps that California can take to reduce gun violence. The proposals include creating a gun violence prevention and victim recovery fund and strengthening restrictions on the sale and marketing of ghost guns, which are untraceable firearms often assembled at home from kits bought online.Even if California legislators can enact those policies, the state still faces significant challenges. The conservative-leaning US supreme court has displayed its willingness to challenge state gun policies, ruling last year to strike down a New York law that placed strict regulations on carrying firearms in public.‘Tragedy upon tragedy’: why 39 US mass shootings already this year is just the startRead moreAnd the looser gun laws of neighboring states pose another challenge. Many California residents can easily travel to Arizona, where assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not banned.“In this country, a state’s gun laws are only as strong as its closest neighbor with weak gun laws,” Suplina said. “It’s important to remember just how easily weapons are bought and sold in neighboring states.”That reality underscores the urgent need to pass more gun regulations at the federal level, Suplina and his allies argue. Last week, Joe Biden once again called on Congress to swiftly pass a nationwide assault weapons ban that could help prevent mass shootings in the future.“Even as we await further details on these shootings,” Biden said, “we know the scourge of gun violence across America requires stronger action.”‘California has the strictest gun laws’Additional federal action on gun safety currently seems unlikely now that Republicans, who show little appetite for tackling the issue, have regained control of the House.The gun lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill have embraced a markedly different perspective on the lessons to be learned from the most recent tragedies.In the days after the shootings that rocked his home state of California, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy dismissed questions about the possibility of enacting more federal regulations to combat gun violence.“Having lived in California my entire life,” McCarthy said last week, “California has the strictest gun laws there are and apparently that did not work in this situation.”Suplina attacked such talking points, which often surface in the wake of mass shootings that occur in liberal-leaning states, as “straw man arguments”.“Advocates on the other side like to point to every aberration and say that that must mean that nothing is working, but we don’t do that in other areas,” Suplina said. “We don’t say that seatbelts don’t work because there’s an accident in the car that leads to a fatality.”Gun reformers feel history is on their side despite bleak outlook in CongressRead moreDespite widespread Republican opposition, Biden was able to sign one gun safety bill, the Bipartisan Safer Communities, into law last year. The bill expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers and invested in mental health and violence intervention programs, but advocates acknowledge that the law does not go far enough.Without a more robust, coordinated federal response to gun violence, every American state remains vulnerable to attacks, advocates say.“California has the strongest gun safety laws in the country overall and some of the weakest gun safety laws in the western world,” Freilich said. “A lot of folks wonder how this could happen in California. Well, there are more than a million guns that were legally bought and sold in California last year.”Tragedies like those in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay remind Americans of that painful truth, Suplina said. As California mourns another 19 lives taken by guns, this moment could serve as a call to arms for the many Americans seeking change.“When we go through calamities like California has recently, more people step up to do more at the local, state and federal level,” Suplina said. “There really aren’t any communities that are immune from gun violence in America. And more and more people are taking action to do something about it.”TopicsUS gun controlCaliforniaNew JerseyGun crimeUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      New Jersey councilmember shot and killed outside her home

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      New Jersey councilmember shot and killed outside her home‘She just wanted to make a better community for all our children’: colleagues mourn Eunice Dwumfour, 30, who was elected in 2021 A New Jersey borough councilmember was found shot to death in an SUV outside of her home, authorities said.Eunice Dwumfour, 30, was found at around 7.20pm on Wednesday, according to the Middlesex county prosecutor’s office. She had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene.Woman, 29, arrested for allegedly posing as high school student in New JerseyRead moreDwumfour, a Republican, was elected to her first three-year term in 2021, when she ousted a Democratic incumbent. Colleagues recalled her as a soft-spoken devout Christian who could maintain her composure in contentious situations.“She was a 30-year-old woman. To have this happen in such a tragic way, I mean, our hearts are just broken and everybody wants an answer,” said Karen Bailey Bebert, the local GOP chairwoman who served as her campaign manager. “So we’re waiting with bated breath.”Authorities have not made any arrests or said whether they believe the motive for the killing might be personal or political or a random act.In a 2021 campaign interview, Dwumfour described herself as a proud graduate of Newark public schools who earned a degree in women’s studies at William Paterson University while working part-time as an EMT.She said she moved to Parlin, a section of Sayreville, after graduating “because of the tremendous public safety work the community does”. That interest fueled her run for council, where she served as a liaison to the police department now helping to investigate her death.“She just wanted to make a better community for all our children,” said Bebert.Dwumfour, who had a school-age child, announced at a fall council meeting that she had recently gotten married, Bebert said. She was active in her church in Newark, she said.Dwumfour worked in information technology, according to her LinkedIn page, where she posted last month that she was looking for a new opportunity. Her résumé also said that she worked for six years with a religious nonprofit group.Her nextdoor neighbor Chyann Brown said she arrived home on Wednesday evening just as police were “flying in the complex”. She had no idea that Dwumfour, whom she described as kind and respectful, had been shot.“When I came to park my car, there were shell cases everywhere … I [saw] the car was still rolling down the street,” she said of Dwumfour’s vehicle.Brown said she had spoken with Dwumfour several times over the past year, but did not realize she was involved in local politics. “She’s a very nice woman. She’s always well-dressed,” she said. “I can’t believe she would be involved in such a tragic incident.”Several high-ranking state leaders, including the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, issued statements expressing their grief over her death. John Wisniewski, a former Democratic state assembly member from Sayreville, had spoken to her at a few council meetings.“Almost always her comments were about God, divine providence. She was a woman of faith,” Wisniewski said.Bebert described Dwumfour as an outgoing person who “always had that beautiful smile on her face that you see in her picture”.Sayreville, a borough of roughly 45,000 people, is about 30 miles (about 48.2km) south of Manhattan. At the scene on Thursday, another car in the parking lot had damage apparently sustained when Dwumfour’s car struck it.Bebert described Sayreville as a peaceful community and said Dwumfour lived in an attractive complex near an elementary school. She hopes to organize a vigil to celebrate what she called “a life cut too short by such a heinous criminal act”.“She was so young,” she said. “It’s just rippling through the town.”TopicsUS newsNew JerseyGun crimeUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      America continues to sacrifice its babies to the altar of guns | Jill Filipovic

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      America continues to sacrifice its babies to the altar of gunsJill FilipovicWhy does America allow civilians to amass weapons of war, but not to live free of a constant threat of random violence? Three days. Three mass shootings. One state. Nineteen dead.These numbers are stark enough that, in a sane society, they’d engender outrage and then change. But this is the United States, and when it comes to our tolerance of mass gun deaths, we are truly exceptional. Thanks to our feckless supreme court and the Republican party death cult, even the most progressive parts of the country have no real ability to crack down on guns and keep their residents safe. We are collectively stuck living in a dangerous, weapon-happy dystopia, all because reactionary, fearful conservatives want to cosplay as tough guys with deadly toys.In three days, 19 people were killed and many more injured in two back-to-back mass shootings of mostly Asian people in California, over a weekend that should have been a celebration of Lunar New Year. One shooter, a 72-year-old man, opened fire at a dance hall frequented by senior citizens in Monterey Park, killing 11 and wounding nine. Another, a 66-year-old man, killed seven at a farm near Half Moon Bay. And finally, in what is sadly representative of typical mass shootings in the United States, a shooter killed one and injured four in what newspapers are describing as a “gun battle” in Oakland.That tally doesn’t even count last week, when six people were murdered in what police say was a cartel-style execution and likely a gang-related killing. The dead include a 16-year-old girl and her 10-month-old baby.In the first three weeks of 2023, there have been 39 mass shootings in America. Gun violence is now the leading killer of American children.What is there to say about a society that sacrifices its babies at the altar of firearms? What kind of “freedom” allows civilians to amass weapons designed to exact maximal damage on the human body, but doesn’t give citizens the basic right to go to the movies, the shops, schools, places of worship and even their living rooms or front porches without facing down the pervasive threat of deadly and random violence? How do you reason with people who continue to claim, in the face of all evidence and the very fact that America is the only nation not at war that experiences this level of death and destruction from guns, that guns are not the problem?The truth is that most Americans, including many who vote Republican, are sick of living like this. A whopping 71% of Americans want to see stricter gun laws, and significant numbers live in fear: nearly half say it’s likely that they will personally be a victim of gun violence at some point.In some liberal states, including California, legislators have acted. California’s gun laws are still remarkably lax compared with the rest of the world – there is not, for example, the kind of licensing process for a gun that any teenager needs to go through in order to drive a car – but the state nevertheless is on the stricter end of the deranged American spectrum: California has red flag laws, which allow police to seize guns from people deemed threatening; a ban on assault-style weapons; and magazine limits. The state has also, of course, been repeatedly sued by gun enthusiasts who want unfettered access to any weapon of their choosing, and believe even these small regulations are unreasonable.But California is not an island, and American states do not have enforced borders between them. There’s nothing stopping someone from buying a gun in a more conservative state and bringing it into a liberal one. This is exactly what happens in many cities with the highest rates of gun violence. Chicago, for example, sits in a state with strict gun laws (Illinois), but right next door to one that is basically a weaponry free-for-all (Indiana). One study found that 60% of illegal guns found in Chicago came from outside Illinois, with one in five from Indiana.States are also increasingly limited in what they can do about gun violence, thanks to a supreme court that has in the last 15 years radically revised a century of jurisprudence on guns to read into the constitution a ridiculous and ahistorical interpretation of the second amendment. Over and over again, when states try to pass the kind of commonsense gun legislation that voters want, rightwing gun groups sue; too often, they win.The scourge of gun violence in America remains not because Americans are an inherently violent people or because there are too many “bad guys” running around. The scourge of gun violence in America remains because the Republican party insists that it remain – because the Republican party works overtime to ensure that deadly weapons proliferate, does close to nothing to prevent even small children from being gunned down at school, and insists on appointing federal judges who will allow unlicensed and untrained citizens to amass weapons of war.What can you call this other than a party that embraces and perpetuates a culture of death, and shrugs off the mass murder of even its youngest and most vulnerable? Can a society reasonably call itself civilized, let alone great or free or “pro-life”, when it voluntarily allows its children to be slaughtered and calls it liberty?Liberal states can certainly do more to decrease gun violence, including ramping up enforcement and, crucially, requiring a license to have a gun. Unfortunately, however, we are hamstrung by a minority of barbaric, cruel and gun-crazed countrymen, and the party that represents them. Until the Republican party and its core supporters decide that they’re tired of living in a country where grandmas get gunned down while dancing and kindergartners are murdered in their classrooms, we will all be forced to live in a nation that offers nothing more than thoughts and prayers as the bullets fly and the body count mounts.
      Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness
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      Police investigate shootings at New Mexico officials’ homes and offices

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      Police investigate shootings at New Mexico officials’ homes and officesAlbuquerque police say houses and workplaces of state and county politicians have been hit by gunfire over the last month New Mexico authorities are investigating at least five shootings apparently directed at the homes and offices of local elected officials, the Albuquerque police department said on Thursday.Fears over lax security in Republican-controlled House two years after Capitol attackRead moreThe shootings occurred over approximately the past month and were directed at two county commissioners, two state senators and New Mexico’s new attorney general, according to KQRE News.Detectives are investigating whether the shootings are related. Nobody was hurt but three homes were damaged.The investigation comes as the US marks two years since the January 6 insurrection, when a mob of Trump supporters swarmed the US Capitol attempting to violently prevent members of Congress from certifying the election of Joe Biden to the presidency.Security concerns for lawmakers have only intensified since then. The US Capitol police reported 9,625 threats and directions of interest – that is, actions or statements that cause concern – against members of Congress in 2021, in comparison with 3,939 in 2017.Despite these concerns, Republicans fresh off their narrow majority win in the 2022 midterms have removed metal detectors that were installed outside the House chamber following the 2021 attack.The first shooting in Albuquerque that forms part of the investigation was on 4 December, when an unknown person fired eight rounds at the residence of the county commissioner, Adriann Barboa, police said.On 11 December, “more than a dozen gunshot impacts were identified on walls and the house” of former county commissioner Debbie O’Malley, and approximately eight shots were fired at the home of state senator Linda Lopez on 3 January. On Thursday, one shooting appeared to target state senator Moe Maestas’s law office.TopicsNew MexicoGun crimeUS politicsnewsReuse this content More