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      ‘To some, guns are more important than children’: families testify at House hearing – as it happened

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      The House oversight committee has opened its hearing dubbed “the urgent need to address the gun violence epidemic,” which is likely to be a gut-wrenching look into the recent spate of mass shootings nationwide.Among those testifying is Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grade student who survived the shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the parents of Lexi Rubio, who was killed in the massacre, local pediatrician Roy Guerrero and Zeneta Everhart, whose son was shot in the massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Republican lawmakers, who make up a minority in the chamber, have invited Lucretia Hughes of Women for Gun Rights’s DC Project.You can watch along here.The US politics blog is ending a very busy day in the capital, which saw new developments in one of the many investigations facing former president Donald Trump, difficult-to-stomach testimony in Congress on gun violence and the arrest of a man who was allegedly plotting to kill a supreme court justice.Here’s a recap:
      Trump along with his son Donald Trump Jr and daughter Ivanka Trump will testify under oath on 15 July in New York attorney general Letitia James’s long-running inquiry into the former president’s business practices.
      The top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, is calling on Capitol Hill for more security for supreme court justices, after an armed man was arrested near justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home on the outskirts of Washington DC. Joe Biden condemned the actions of the individual, who the court said told police he wanted to kill the judge.
      The House oversight committee held a hearing dubbed “the urgent Need to address the gun violence epidemic”. Lawmakers heard gut-wrenching testimony from a survivor of the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, as well as the relatives of people killed and injured there and in Buffalo, New York. But the partisan divide over gun control appeared as wide as ever.
      The supreme court ruled in favor of a border agent in a case from the US-Canada frontier involving an inn that allegedly is a stopover when some people cross into Canada unlawfully.
      The blog returns tomorrow, when lawmakers will continue to negotiate over gun control legislation and the January 6 committee holds its first hearing. See you then.Donald Trump will testify under oath on 15 July in New York attorney general Letitia James’s investigation into his business practices, according to a court filing released on Wednesday.JUST IN: Donald Trump will testify under oath on July 15 alongside Don Jr. and Ivanka Trump, according to new doc from @NewYorkStateAG pic.twitter.com/BkZGNRcC6D— Frank G. Runyeon (@frankrunyeon) June 8, 2022
      His daughter Ivanka Trump and son Donald Trump Jr will also testify.The testimony is the latest development in the three-year investigation into the former president’s dealings after he failed in an attempt last month to stop her investigation and ended up paying a $110,000 fine.James has said investigators have found “significant evidence” of wrongdoing in the inquiry, which has homed in on whether the Trump Organization misstated the values of its real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax deductions.The attorney general previously said her investigation discovered evidence suggesting that for more than a decade, the company’s financial statements “relied on misleading asset valuations and other misrepresentations to secure economic benefits”.Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has not been accused of committing a crime. He has called the investigation a “witch-hunt”.Trump loses bid to thwart New York inquiry into his business practicesRead moreThe gun violence hearing in the House is continuing and the California Democrat Jackie Speier, who in 1978 was shot during a visit to the Jonestown settlement in an attack that killed the congressman she was accompanying, got a turn to question witnesses.Speier asked Joseph Gramaglia, the Buffalo police commissioner, to describe what weapons like an AR-15 can do to a body.“I’ve been to numerous shootings throughout my career that were the result of high-powered rifles, assault rifles, and the cavernous holes that they leave in bodies. Decapitation is a pretty good explanation for it,” Gramaglia replied. “Some people couldn’t be buried with an open casket. The damage was absolutely devastating.”Referencing her experience in Jonestown, Speier said, “I’m a victim of gun violence. I know what it does to a body. And I cannot believe my colleagues don’t recognize that prohibiting the sale of an assault weapon until the age of 21 isn’t going to save lives.”She rejected the idea put forth by Republicans that fortifying schools was one way to stop the shootings.“We all know what the solution to this problem is. It’s comprehensive gun reform in this country. We know what it is. We are not supposed to be holding our students and our teachers responsible,” Speier said.Joe Biden has condemned a man who said he planned to kill supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh, amid heightened tensions around the court as it prepares to rule on abortion and gun rights, among other controversial topics.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president “condemns the actions [of] this individual in the strongest terms,” Reuters reported. “Any threats of violence or attempts to intimidate justices have no place in our society.”A man identified in court documents as Nicholas John Roske was arrested early Wednesday morning near the conservative justice’s Maryland home. According to the complaint charging Roske with attempting to kill a supreme court justice, he first got out of a taxicab near Kavanaugh’s house, then walked away and called 911, saying he was having suicidal thoughts and planned to killed a justice of the high court. Police arrested him and found a Glock 17 pistol, pepper spray, zip ties and other items in a backpack and suitcase.Armed man arrested near Brett Kavanaugh’s home over threats to judgeRead moreThe US regards Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the true interim president of his country, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said moments ago aboard Air Force One, more than three years after Guaidó declared himself the true victor in a disputed election over Nicolás Maduro and tried to topple the man in control of the troubled South American nation.US president Joe Biden plans to speak with Guaido at some point during this week’s Summit of the Americas meeting that the US is hosting in California for leaders from the hemisphere, Sullivan said.Biden, aides, staff and media are on board Air Force One now, en route Washington, DC, to Los Angeles, and Sullivan and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre are gaggling – with Sullivan on right now, answering accompanying journalists’ questions.Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba were not invited to the summit, prompting a boycott by Mexico, in a debacle for Biden.Brazilian autocratic president Jair Bolsonaro will attend and Biden is expected to discuss “open, transparent and democratic elections” with him, Sullivan said.And the climate and the health of the Amazon rainforest will be on the agenda, Sullivan said.There is much hope in journalism circles that Bolsonaro can be pressed at the summit to address the topics of illegal logging and drug trafficking in vast, supposedly-protected tracts of the Amazon region and the danger to those who strive against such destructive law-making – including freelance journalist and Guardian regular Dom Phillips and his traveling companion, indigenous culture expert Bruno Araújo Pereira, missing in the region since Sunday.‘Every second counts’: wife of British journalist missing in Amazon urges actionRead moreIt’s been an extremely busy day in Washington and there is more to come. The House oversight committee hearing on the “urgent need to address gun violence” in the US, following very recent mass shootings, is now on lunch recess.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is now “gaggling” on Air Force One, as Joe Biden heads to Los Angeles to host the Summit of the Americas. It’s a bumpy ride for those aboard the presidential plane (literally but, presumably, always metaphorically).Here’s where things stand:
      Senate minority leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell is calling on Capitol Hill for more security for supreme court justices, following the reports this morning that an armed man was arrested near supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home on the outskirts of Washington DC. The court said the man told police he wanted to kill the judge.
      The supreme court ruled in favor of a border agent in a case from the US-Canadian border involving an inn that allegedly is a stopover when some people cross into Canada unlawfully.
      The House oversight committee opened its hearing dubbed “the urgent need to address the gun violence epidemic”, which became a gut-wrenching look into the recent spate of mass shootings nationwide.
      Back at the House oversight committee, Democratic and Republican lawmakers are taking turns questioning the witnesses, creating a split-screen view of the two parties’ attitudes on gun control.Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins recalls a childhood in which “we had guns everywhere” and wonders why there weren’t mass shootings back then.“I asked you all what happened to that country,” Higgins said. “A country where guns were everywhere and virtually not regulated at all, where millions of Americans, 14 million Americans came back … after world war II with incredible skills of war and weapons of war as you call them everywhere, but we didn’t have mass shootings.”Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, drew a line between increasing firearm sales and gunmakers’ profits, declaring, “This is about blood money.”“There’s also this discussion about anything but, again, but that these are about violent people, but yet we aren’t doing anything about addressing the actual root causes of misogyny, where two-thirds of mass shootings are connected to domestic violence, or the emergence of white supremacy, radicalization, mass incarceration and poverty and the connections between that and mass shootings in our communities,” Ocasio-Cortez said.Ahead of the start of the January 6 hearings tomorrow, the committee’s chair, Bennie Thompson, told NPR in an interview that democracy came close to ending in the United States that day..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Thompson says he’s calling it as he sees it on the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack that was intended to keep Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election results. And he says he’s gained a new education about the danger the country faced that day, which he aims to share through the hearings.
      For Thompson, preserving democracy today means telling the full story of the attack on the Capitol and ensuring its moment in history is one that Americans never forget. “
      I have learned a lot about how perilously close we came on January 6 to losing this democracy as a lot of us have come to know and love it.”My colleague Hugo Lowell’s story published earlier today outlined how the first hearing will go, which will take place during the prime-time TV hour at 8 pm eastern..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} At the start of the hearing, the panel’s chairman Bennie Thompson and vice-chair Liz Cheney will make a series of opening arguments before outlining a general roadmap of how each of the six Watergate-style hearings are expected to unfold.
      For the second hour, Thompson and Cheney will hand control of the hearing to Tim Heaphy, the chief investigative counsel for the select committee, who will lead the questioning of two witnesses and walk through the key moments of the Capitol attack.
      The select committee is expected to start the questioning with testimony from Nick Quested, a British documentary film-maker who was embedded with the far-right Proud Boys group in the days and weeks leading up to January 6 and caught their activities on camera.Inaugural January 6 hearing to track activities of Proud Boys during Capitol attackRead moreThe justice department has named a nine-person panel to review the police response to the Uvalde shooting, the Associated Press reports..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In a statement, the Justice Department said it was committed to “moving as expeditiously as possible in the development of the report.” Officials said the team would conduct a complete reconstruction of the shooting; review all relevant documents, including policies, photos and videos; conduct a visit to the school; and interview an array of witnesses and families of the victims, along with police, school and government officials.A FBI unit chief will take part in the inquiry, as will the former police chief of Sacramento, the sheriff of Orange county, Florida, and a deputy chief whose tenure included Virginia Tech. Similar investigations followed the 2015 extremist attack in San Bernardino, California and the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando.The police response to the Uvalde shooting has been criticized after officers waited before confronting the gunman. State officials have acknowledged that hesitating was “the wrong decision,” and scrutiny has focused on Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, the police chief who was recently sworn onto the city council.Senate minority leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell is calling on Capitol Hill for more security for supreme court justices, following the reports this morning that an armed man was arrested near supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home on the outskirts of Washington DC.This morning’s disturbing reports are exactly why the Senate unanimously passed a Supreme Court security bill weeks ago. But House Democrats have inexplicably blocked it. House Democrats need to stop their blockade and pass this uncontroversial bill today. pic.twitter.com/wd8UB5RDvm— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) June 8, 2022
      McConnell said on the floor of the Senate: “This is where we are, Mr President, if these reports are correct, an assassination attempt against a sitting justice, or something close to it. This is exactly the kind of event that many feared the terrible breach of the court’s rules and norms would fuel [with the leak last month of the draft opinion that the conservative majority wants to overturn constitutional abortion rights afforded by the 1973 Roe V Wade ruling].“This is exactly that kind of event that many worried the unhinged, reckless, apocalyptic rhetoric from prominent figures towards the court going back many months and especially in recent weeks could make more likely.”He said that was why the Senate passed legislation shortly after the early May leak, to enhance police protection for sitting justices and their families.“This is common sense, non-controversial legislation that passed unanimously in this chamber, but House Democrats have spent weeks blocking. That needs to change right now.”Lawmakers on the House oversight committee are now questioning the witnesses, in a conversation that is overall a little more strident than the Senate’s similar hearing yesterday. Before questioning began, lawmakers heard from Amy Swearer of The Heritage Foundation, who was invited by the Republican minority and provided the conservative rebuttal to the officials and advocates who spoke before her.“An unspeakably horrific event, like Uvalde or Buffalo happens. Reflexively, almost compulsively, come calls for Congress to pass a whole host of gun control measures largely targeting peaceable, law abiding citizens,” Swearer said. “Should anyone dare question the constitutionality, practicality or even the effectiveness of any of these policies, their opposition is immediately framed as callous obstructionism. And their legitimate concerns are brushed aside as and I quote, bullshit.”She downplayed the effectiveness of legislation against expanded capacity magazines, and called for more armed guards at school, improvements to building security, mental health care and to “promote responsible gun ownership without simultaneously imposing financial burdens on gun owners or hindering their ability to immediately respond to violent threats.”Buffalo’s police commissioner, Joseph Gramaglia, took aim at the concept promoted by gun rights advocates that expanding firearms access could stop mass shootings.“It is often said that a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun,” Gramaglia told the House. However, retired Buffalo police officer Aaron Salter Jr., who was working as a security guard at the Tops Market and was killed in the shooting, “Was no match for what he went up against a legal AR-15 with multiple high capacity magazines.”Noting that such mass shootings make up a minority of overall gun crime, the commissioner warned of new gun technologies that could make the problem worse.“The grim reality is that shootings have become a daily occurrence in American cities. Emerging trends like ghost guns and guns modified with switches continue to pose a challenge for law enforcement,” Gramaglia said.“Congress must update our laws to account for these new threats and carnage that has accompanied them. It will be nearly impossible to address the gun violence epidemic without first addressing the underlying violent crime problem.”Warning that it is “high noon in America,” New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, told lawmakers in the House: “The clock is ticking, every day, every minute towards another hour of death.”The New York City Police Department is overwhelmed by illegal guns, he said, despite confiscating 3,000 this year alone. Adams called for more federal aid for states and cities, the confirmation of Biden’s nominee to lead the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and for Congress to expand background check and pass other gun control legislation.“I stand with President Joe Biden in calling on Congress to act now to regulate or ban assault weapons in this country. Even if we only raise the age required to buy one of these weapons, lives will be saved,” the mayor said. “We must build a society where our youth are on a path to fulfillment, not a road to ruin.”The US Supreme Court says an armed man has been arrested near associate justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home after making threats against him, the Associated Press writes.The Washington Post was first with the story, reporting that a California man in his mid-twenties, with at least one weapon in his possession and tools used in burglaries, was apprehended near the judge’s home in Maryland and had told law enforcement that he wanted to kill Kavanaugh, and citing people familiar with the investigation. It happened at about 1.50am ET today.The Post further reports that:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Two people familiar with the investigation said the initial evidence indicates the man was angry about the leaked draft of an opinion by the Supreme Court signaling the court is preparing to overturn Roe. v. Wade, the 49-year-old decision that guaranteed a person’s constitutional right to have an abortion. He was also angry over a recent spate of mass shootings, those people said. Following the leak last month of that draft opinion – with the final opinion awaited with enormous tension across the US this month – protesters appeared near the homes of conservative members of the supreme court bench.These included Samuel Alito, who wrote the draft opinion that was leaked and slammed the Roe decision, and two of the justices nominated by Donald Trump that represented a strong swing to the right on the nine-member bench – Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.Those previous protests were entirely peaceful, though technically probably illegal, and there had apparently been no arrests.Here’s what Lauren Burke reported for the Guardian at the time:Protesters rally outside US supreme court justices’ homes ahead of pro-choice marchesRead moreAfter a brief recess, the House hearing has now moved on to testimony from elected officials, representatives from advocacy groups and other, but it wrapped up its first half with more gut-wrenching testimony from parents affected by gun violence.Kimberly Rubio described how she found out that her daughter Lexi was among those killed in Uvalde, and outlined specific policies she thinks could prevent such attacks. “We understand that for some reason, to some people, to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns, the guns are more important than children,” Rubio said. “So at this moment, we ask for progress. We seek to raise the age to purchase these weapons from 18 to 21 years of age, we seek red flag laws, stronger background checks. We also want to repeal gun manufacturers liability, immunity.”Lucretia Hughes of Women for Gun Rights’s DC Project told lawmakers how her 19-year-old son was shot and killed while playing dominoes, but unlike the witnesses before her, she did not call for more restrictions on firearms. Rather, she saw weapons as an important tool for self-defense and linked gun control laws to racism.“Something has to change. Thoughts and prayers and calls for more gun control isn’t enough. How about letting me defend myself from evil? You don’t think that I’m capable and trustworthy to handle a firearm? You don’t think that the second amendment doesn’t apply to people that look like me?” said Hughes, who is Black. “Who and you who would call for more gun controls are the same ones that are calling to defund the police? Who is supposed to protect us? We must prepare to be our own first responders to protect ourselves and our loved ones.” More

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      I’m a Black gun owner. I have mixed feelings about gun control | Akin Olla

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      I’m a Black gun owner. I have mixed feelings about gun controlAkin OllaI don’t have much faith that the state will protect me from violence – and I know that gun control laws have historically been used to target Black people, socialists and people who challenge the status quo The mass murder of elementary school students in Uvalde, Texas, and a white supremacist attack on Black residents of Buffalo, New York, have reignited the American gun control debate. Both atrocities have left me feeling more broken than I thought possible. As a Black, leftwing gun owner, however, I’m also struck by a feeling of unease.I believe in many forms of gun control, but the conversation about guns on the left often lacks complexity as we scramble for a simple answer to an extremely complicated problem. I don’t have much faith that the government will protect me or other minority Americans from the kind of violence that the police ostensibly exist to combat, and I know that gun control laws have historically been used to target Black people, particularly Black socialists like myself.I’m also not convinced that most current gun control proposals will even solve the problem. Consider the country’s deadliest school shooting, the Virginia Tech murders of 2007. The perpetrator passed his background check and used weapons that most gun control bans wouldn’t affect. A waiting period might have delayed his attack but his level of premeditation implies it was nearly inevitable. I feel sorrow for what happened. Yet I feel that as a society we tend to fight over specific gun control policies – some effective, some not – while ignoring the violent nature of the country we live in and the culture that drives almost exclusively men to commit mass murder.I never thought I’d be a gun owner. I’m not particularly fond of guns. If anything, they terrify me. I’ve generally hoped my charming personality and acumen at fisticuffs would be enough to deter would-be aggressors; it wasn’t until the terror that I experienced during the George Floyd uprising that I, like many Black Americans, was moved to become a first-time gun owner.I’d participated in protests and witnessed the sheer brutality of the Philadelphia police as they attacked my partner, threatened an elderly woman, and enveloped the entirety of my neighborhood in teargas. I watched Black parents flee their homes, gagging, eyes red, small children in tow. When I and others working as medical volunteers tried to evacuate the injured and elderly, we were met with pepper spray, rubber bullets, and batons. On the other side of the city, police officers let white vigilantes with baseball bats patrol the streets. None of this buttressed my belief that the police existed to protect me from violence.Around this time I, like other socialist organizers, received written threats. After a series of them, as well as a direct, in-person threat to my life made in front of my home, I buckled and decided I needed a weapon, and soon. Even without the specific threats, I was wrestling with a sense that society was on the brink. It may sound paranoid now, but to be Black in the midst of the George Floyd uprising and the tail end of the Trump presidency was a time to be paranoid. Guns and ammunition were sold out across the country. More than 5 million new gun owners purchased weapons in 2020, a more than 100% increase from the previous year. After a background check and a few days for the order to be processed, I picked up a gun from a store located in a man’s home in a dreamlike suburban cul-de-sac.America is steeped in violence. And the roots of that violence go deep | Moustafa BayoumiRead moreDespite owning a gun, I do think gun control is overdue and necessary. But I also can’t ignore the history of American gun control. Much of the modern debate around gun control began in the 1960s, after the state of California – with support, ironically enough, from the NRA – pushed through legislation in response to the Black Panther party and other armed militant groups. We must ensure that any new gun control laws do not disproportionately limit minority communities’ ability to own arms for reasons of legitimate self-defense, which may be impossible given that most laws in a country as steeped in racism as ours will inevitably be exploited to oppress the already oppressed.There are moments in US history when the right to own weapons made the difference between life and death for communities of color, such as the armed resistance against the Ku Klux Klan by the Lumbee Tribe in 1958. And despite the common perception of the civil rights movement, many activists kept guns in their homes or were protected by those who did. There was a time when Dr Martin Luther King Jr was described as having an arsenal in his home.To honestly address mass shootings, we must be willing to have difficult conversations about the complexity of all of this, and also accept that some solutions will involve restructuring our society. We have to accept that gun control may mean some people that reasonably fear for their lives will be left at the whim of fascists and police. We have to accept that mass shootings will absolutely still occur. We have to accept and analyze the reality that one of the most common denominators among shooters is their hate for women – as the Texas shooter, who shot his grandmother before carrying out his school massacre, sadly reminded us.And we have to realize the racist nature of this country and its violent roots. The founder of Uvalde, Texas, was shot and killed in 1867, probably not too far from where the elementary school shooting occurred. His alleged offense was opposing southern secession and supporting the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. His blood stains that town just as the blood of millions of Indigenous people and enslaved Africans stains the entirety of the United States.Gun control may be a good start to saving lives, but this country must be made new, and the lives of women, little children, and Black families made valuable. Until then, I sit uneasy.
      Akin Olla is a contributing opinion writer at the Guardian
      TopicsUS gun controlOpinionUS politicsGun crimeUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)Texas school shootingBuffalo shootingcommentReuse this content More

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      Nearly half of Republicans think US has to live with mass shootings, poll finds

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      Nearly half of Republicans think US has to live with mass shootings, poll findsCBS and YouGov poll returned familiar results, including 62% support for a nationwide ban on semi-automatic rifles Nearly half of Republican voters think the US just has to live with mass shootings, according to a poll released in the aftermath of the Texas elementary school murders last month and as politicians in Washington negotiate for gun reform.Bipartisan US lawmakers ramp up gun control talks amid crisis of violence – liveRead moreThe CBS and YouGov poll returned familiar results, including 62% support for a nationwide ban on semi-automatic rifles, the kind of gun used in Uvalde, Texas.Nineteen young children and two adults were killed at Robb elementary school on 24 May by an 18-year-old who bought his weapon legally.But clear national support for a ban on such rifles or changes to purchasing ages and background checks is not mirrored in Congress. Most Republicans, supported financially by the powerful gun lobby, remain implacably opposed to most gun reform.In an effort fueled by horror at events in Uvalde, senators led by Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut elected after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting killed 26 in 2012, and John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, have expressed optimism that some changes may be possible.Such efforts are largely focused on “red flag” laws designed to stop gun purchases by people deemed a potential danger to others or themselves.In the CBS/YouGov poll, support for such laws ran at 72%. Support for federal background checks on all gun purchases ran at 81%.Joe Biden has called for an assault weapons ban, or at least raising the minimum age for purchases of such weapons. In the new poll, 77% said the minimum age for buying an assault rifle should be higher than 18: 32% said it should be 21 and 45% opted for 25.Asked if mass shootings were “unfortunately something we have to accept as part of a free society” or “something we can prevent and stop if we really tried”, 72% of respondents said such shootings could be stopped.Among Democrats, 85% of respondents said mass shootings could be stopped if US politicians would only try. Among independents, the figure was 73%.But 44% of Republicans said mass shootings should be accepted as part of a free society.Following strict messaging guidelines, Republican politicians repeatedly say mental health and security issues are to blame for mass shootings, not access to guns.In the new poll, respondents were also asked: “Regardless of how you feel about the issue, how likely do you think it is that Congress will pass any laws in the next few months that will make significant changes to gun policy?”Only 7% thought it was “very likely” Congress would finally act, while a combined 69% thought it was “not very” or “not at all” likely.Some state governments have moved to introduce reforms. In New York City on Monday, the state of New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, signed a package of laws including licensing measures for assault rifles and a minimum purchase age of 21, expanded red flag provisions and a ban on sales of body armour.Hochul told reporters: “It just keeps happening. Shots ring out, flags come down and nothing ever changes – except here in New York.”Hochul’s state, however, is home to another politician whose fate starkly shows what can happen to Republicans who express openness to gun reform.On Friday, the New York congressman Chris Jacobs abandoned his bid for re-election, after stoking fury by expressing support for a federal assault weapons ban.Jacobs represents suburbs of Buffalo, the city in which 10 people were shot dead at a supermarket on 14 May in what authorities say was a racially motivated attack.Mass shootings, widely defined as shootings in which four people excluding the gunman are hurt or killed, have continued since Buffalo and Uvalde.‘They had no empathy’: for gun violence survivors, police response can be retraumatizingRead moreLast week, at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a gunman killed two doctors, a receptionist and a patient.According to the non-profit Gun Violence Archive, the following weekend saw mass shootings in Philadelphia, Chattanooga, South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, New York and Michigan. Fifteen people were killed and more than 60 wounded.The archive says there have been 246 mass shootings in the US in 2022, considerably more than one a day.On Sunday, Murphy discussed his push for reform. He told CNN: “The possibility of success is better than ever before. But I think the consequences of failure for our entire democracy are more significant than ever.”TopicsUS politicsRepublicansTexas school shootingGun crimenewsReuse this content More

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      Chris Jacobs withdraws reelection bid amid GOP fire on his gun control stance

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      Chris Jacobs withdraws reelection bid amid GOP fire on his gun control stanceRepublican congressman said he would support measures limiting access to highly lethal firearms used in recent mass shootings A Republican New York congressman who recently voiced support of gun control legislation announced on Friday that he will no longer seek reelection after receiving backlash over his stance.Chris Jacobs’ support of such legislation – which came in the wake of deadly mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store and Uvalde, Texas, elementary school – had prompted his conservative and GOP colleagues to withdraw their support.Jacobs, who was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in 2020 and recently introduced legislation to protect bankrupt gun owners’ rights, did not back any policy that would dramatically impact gun ownership. Rather, Jacobs expressed his favor for several measures that would limit access to the particularly lethal weaponry used in recent mass killings.Grim body count unlikely to be enough for Republicans to act on gun reformRead more“A ban on something like an AR-15, I would vote for,” Jacobs said on 27 May. “So I want to be clear, I would vote for it.”“Individuals cannot buy beer, they cannot get cigarettes [until] 21,” Jacobs said. “I think it’s perfectly reasonable that the age limit, at least for these highly lethal, high capacity semi automatic weapons, should be 21.”Jacobs said that he planned on introducing legislation that would limit access to body armor and would name the bill after Aaron Salter, a retired police officer who was killed in the mass shooting at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo on 14 May, reported Ashley Rowe, an anchor with 7 Eyewitness News. Salter worked as a security guard at the supermarket and opened fire on the shooter in an attempt to stop him, but the gunman was wearing body armor and killed 10.In explaining his support of such measures, Jacobs told the Buffalo News: “Being a father and having young children and visualizing what those parents are going through and, I guess, being able to feel it more personally certainly has had an impact as well.”Jacobs’ comments on gun legislation stood in stark contrast to his GOP counterparts, who have often blamed mass shootings on mental illness and suggested that school safety hinged on armed security. Some conservatives and Republicans effectively framed Jacobs as a traitor to his party due to his comments.“This is not the person we endorsed. We did not endorse this Chris Jacobs … he’s actually to the left of [US House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi on this,” said Gerard Kassar, New York’s Conservative party state chair, to the New York Post on Thursday.The Erie county, New York, Conservative chairman, Ralph Lorigo, described Jacobs’ position as “very disappointing” and said “we can’t support him in this district”, according to Rochesterfirst.com.“‘Republican @RepJacobs already caved to the gun-grabbers whose proposals won’t do a single thing to protect our families & children from criminals & murderers,” Donald Trump Jr said on Twitter. “He knows this but he can’t resist getting a few glowing headlines from the mainstream media.”Jacobs insisted he did not decide to withdraw from the race over backlash, saying: “I didn’t feel any heat on this issue. No one called me about the assault weapon ban.”“This is purely a personal contemplation, prayer, and talking to people, that I felt this was the right thing to do,” he said. “And the time was now to do it.”Jacobs’ announcement came one day after Joe Biden made an impassioned plea for an assault weapons ban and prohibition on high-capacity magazines.Reactions to the president’s speech largely followed party lines, with Democrats supporting his proposals and Republicans slamming them as unduly politicized.Movement on gun control legislation at the state and federal levels suggests the prospect of mixed results rather than unified policy. While Maine Republican senator Susan Collins recently said that a bipartisan group of senators made significant progress in negotiating gun law reforms, GOP opposition in the senate could easily stymie these efforts.States have taken different approaches in addressing gun violence. New York’s legislature on Thursday passed a set of bills that barred most civilians from purchasing body armor and upped the age requirement for buying a semiautomatic rifle to 21, the New York Times reported.In Texas, Republican governor Greg Abbott asked his lieutenant and a high-level state legislator “to each convene a special legislative committee”. Abbott insisted “we must reassess the twin issues of school safety and mass violence,” but Texas has historically eased firearms restrictions following mass shootings.TopicsUS gun controlNew YorkRepublicansUS politicsBuffalo shootingTexas school shootingReuse this content More

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      Ron DeSantis blocks funds for Tampa Bay Rays after team’s gun safety tweets

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      Ron DeSantis blocks funds for Tampa Bay Rays after team’s gun safety tweetsFlorida governor defends vetoing funds for training facilityRays had joined Yankees in tweeting about gun safety The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has defended his veto of $35m in funding for a potential spring training site for the Tampa Bay Rays, after the Major League Baseball team used social media to raise awareness about gun violence after mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.“I don’t support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums,” DeSantis said on Friday, when asked about the veto of the sports complex funding. “Companies are free to engage or not engage with whatever discourse they want, but clearly it’s inappropriate to be doing tax dollars for professional sports stadiums. It’s also inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”On 26 May, in the wake of what they called “devastating events that took place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation”, the Rays said they would donate $50,000 to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and use their social media channels to offer facts about gun violence. The New York Yankees also used social media to address the shootings, during a game between the two teams last week.On Friday, citing an unnamed source, CNN reported that DeSantis’s decision to block the funding was influenced in part by the Rays’ tweets about the shootings.pic.twitter.com/9DpyuwEzJo— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 26, 2022
      In Uvalde, an 18-year-old gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school. The shooting happened days after a gunman shot and killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo.“In lieu of game coverage and in collaboration with the Tampa Bay Rays, we will be using our channels to offer facts about the impacts of gun violence,” the Yankees said in a statement.“The devastating events that have taken place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation are tragedies that are intolerable.”The Rays said shootings “cannot become normal”.Throughout their game last Thursday, both teams posted facts about gun violence on their social media pages, with links to sources and helpline numbers. Neither team posted the result of the game.Following the Uvalde shooting, Steve Kerr, coach of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, refused to talk about basketball at a pre-game news conference, instead calling for stricter gun control legislation.02:55DeSantis has made culture war issues including gun control a calling card in his rise to prominence as a possible Republican candidate for president.On another front on Friday, DeSantis announced that the Special Olympics had dropped a coronavirus vaccine mandate for its forthcoming games in Orlando, after he moved to fine the organization $27.5m for violating a state law against such rules.The Special Olympics competition in Florida is scheduled to run from 5 to 12 June.At a news conference in Orlando, DeSantis said: “In Florida, we want all of them to be able to compete. We do not think it’s fair or just to be marginalizing some of these athletes based on a decision that has no bearing on their ability to compete with honor or integrity.”The Florida health department notified the Special Olympics of the fine in a letter on Thursday that said the organization would be fined $27.5m for 5,500 violations of state law, for requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination for attendees or participants.Florida law bars businesses from requiring documentation of a Covid-19 vaccination. DeSantis has strongly opposed vaccine mandates and other virus policies endorsed by the federal government.In a statement on its website, the Special Olympics said people who were registered but unable to participate because of the mandate could now attend.TopicsMLBTampa Bay RaysNew York YankeesBaseballUS sportsRon DeSantisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Until the US senate is accountable to America, we’ll never get gun control | Osita Nwanevu

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      Until the US Senate is accountable to America, we’ll never get gun controlOsita NwanevuDemocrats are heading into this year’s elections without having tried even basic steps to balance the chamber, including ending the filibuster or admitting liberal Washington DC as a state What more can be said about mass shootings in America? We who find ourselves outraged anew by each fresh massacre have settled into a routine⁠. There’s now a canon of essays and satirical pieces to share on social media; in conversations online and off, we offer familiar rebuttals to familiar Republican diversions and deflections. Democratic politicians, for their part, have just about perfected their own boilerplate language⁠. “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden asked in his Tuesday speech on the Uvalde shooting. “When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?”Eighteen-year-old Americans can’t drink. Why can they buy assault rifles? | Ross BarkanRead moreFor the first time since the Sandy Hook shooting a decade ago, the Democratic party has the power to do what needs to be done. It controls the White House. It controls the House of Representatives. And it controls the Senate, where a bipartisan group of senators has talked in recent days about measures ⁠– from universal background checks to incentives for states to allow the confiscation of guns from threatening individuals ⁠– that probably would not have a prayer if Republicans were in the majority. But they still might not even now. While we will not have a clear sense of where everyone stands until the Senate returns from a fortuitously timed holiday, gun control legislation faces the same basic obstacles that have hobbled the rest of the Democratic party’s agenda ⁠– the filibuster and the rhetoric of consensus.As many weary Democratic voters are now well aware, it effectively takes 60 votes in the US Senate, not the simple majority that Democrats hold, to break a filibuster and pass non-fiscal measures. And while rage at Republicans, the NRA and the gun lobby remains well justified, it is moderate Democrats who support keeping the filibuster ⁠– Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and Democratic colleagues who might privately back their position ⁠– who are preventing the party from simply advancing gun control legislation on its own. Instead, they will need the support of at least 10 Republicans ⁠– a daunting hurdle Manchin and Sinema have defended on the grounds that major policy changes should win broad bipartisan support.“It makes no sense why we can’t do commonsense things to try to prevent some of this from happening,” Manchin told reporters this week. “The filibuster is the only thing that prevents us from total insanity.”As Manchin knows personally, the filibuster is actually the only thing preventing the Senate from passing the commonsensical reforms he putatively supports. In 2013, he and the Republican Senator Pat Toomey co-authored a bill expanding background checks to gun shows and gun sales over the internet. The majority of the chamber supported it ⁠– 54 votes, including four Republicans. But it needed 60 to overcome the filibuster. It died ⁠– a failure that gives lie to the canard that the filibuster actually facilitates bipartisanship. With an extremely modest bipartisan compromise on the table, the Senate instead passed nothing.That same fate may await the bill Senate negotiators are piecing together now; there’s a plot in the graveyard alongside Biden’s other legislative priorities already waiting for it. And if it fails, the design of the Senate itself will bear most of the blame. The reality Democrats are loth to admit is that if the NRA and the whole gun lobby sank into hell tomorrow, the chamber would still disproportionately empower voters in the most sparsely populated and conservative states in the country ⁠– the voters most likely to vehemently oppose not only regulations on gun ownership, but most of the major policies that Democrats, backed by majorities of the American public, hope to pass. And while significantly altering or eliminating the Senate obviously will not be in the cards anytime soon, Democrats are heading into this year’s midterms and the potential loss of at least one chamber of Congress without having taken more basic steps to balance the chamber, including the elimination of the filibuster or the admission of liberal Washington DC as a state.Instead, they have left the American public chained to a fantasy ⁠– the idea that the surest and most defensible route to meaningful change is bipartisan action, no matter how intransigent the Republican party proves itself to be. That’s a delusion pushed not only by moderate politicians who have an interest in constraining the Democratic party’s capacity to pass left-of-center policies, but by the mainstream press, which mourns these shootings with calls for the parties to set aside their differences and “come together” on the issue.But there will not be a grand coming-together on guns. The modest reforms on the table, even if passed, would do little to change the outcome of a culture war one side has already won. For all the ranting and raving we have heard from the right in the last few months about the cultural power liberals wield, the values of rural and exurban conservatives plainly govern the country here. It matters not a whit what liberals in cities like Buffalo or Pittsburgh think about living in a country where people are gunned down in stores and synagogues with legal assault weapons. An inescapable reality has been imposed upon them ⁠– there are more firearms than people in the United States.If recent history is any guide, the conversations we are having now about improving the situation at the margins will be drowned out and defeated by noise and nonsense in a matter of days. Arming schoolteachers, outfitting the nearly 100,000 public schools in this country with the kind of trip wires and traps you might see in the next Mission Impossible film ⁠– this is the blather of degenerates who know they have already succeeded, who know they have no need for arguments that might convince most Americans. The status quo they defend is being upheld by the deference of Democrats now in a position to upend it.
      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsTexas school shootingOpinionUS politicsDemocratsUS gun controlGun crimeUS SenateRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      ‘We have to do something’: calls mount for Texas gun control laws after latest deadly attack

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      ‘We have to do something’: calls mount for Texas gun control laws after latest deadly attackAs data indicates state leads the US in mass shooting deaths, Democrats – and some Republicans – demand legislative action Texas leaders are under growing pressure to increase gun control measures in the face of data indicating the state leads the US in mass shooting deaths, while Republicans have steadily eased restrictions on weapons and cut mental health spending.As the funerals of the 19 children and two teachers begin on Tuesday in the tiny, devastated southern Texas city of Uvalde, a week after a shooting at the elementary school, state Democrats – and some Republicans – are demanding a special legislative action.Right-leaning Republican governor Greg Abbott has been asked to convene a special legislative session to weigh legislation, with state senate Democrats calling for increasing the age for buying any gun to 21.They also want to mandate background checks for all gun sales, and regulate civilian ownership of high capacity magazines, the Austin ABC affiliate KVUE reported.They are also calling for “red flag” legislation that would permit the temporary removal of guns from persons who present an “imminent danger to themselves and others” and are urging a law to require a “cooling off” period when buying a gun.“We have to do something, man,” Democratic state senator Roland Gutierrez, whose district covers Uvalde, said to Abbott at a press conference. “Your own colleagues are telling me, calling me, and telling me an 18-year-old shouldn’t have a gun.”The gunman who took a military-style assault rifle and a backpack of ammunition into Robb elementary school last Tuesday and shot his victims in two adjoining classrooms was a local 18-year-old, Salvador Ramos.He reportedly had posted violent threats and boasted about guns on social media, and was shot dead by federal agents after local police waited for more than an hour in the hallway in what state authorities said was “the wrong decision”.“We’ve asked for gun control changes. I’m asking you now to bring us back [for a special legislative session] in three weeks … this is enough, call us back, man,” Gutierrez said.Several Texas Republicans are now also putting pressure on Abbott to act after the shootings in Uvalde. “Governor Abbott should call us into special sessions until we do SOMETHING The FBI or DPS [Texas department of public safety] BELIEVE will lessen the chance of the next Uvalde Tragedy,” Republican state senator Kel Seliger said in a tweet.“We should hope and pray every day, but DO something,” Seliger added, without presenting any specific proposals, the Dallas Morning News noted.Republican representative Jeff Leach tweeted his call for a special session, saying: “Texas lawmakers have work to do. Conversations to engage in. Deliberations & debates to have. Important decisions to make.”Abbott has sole authority to summon lawmakers before the next legislative session starts in January 2023. He has said all options are on the table. But Texas has responded to the many mass shootings to afflict the state in the last 15 years by loosening not tightening restrictions on the use of guns.And data from Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun regulation advocacy, indicate that 201 people have been killed in mass shootings in Texas since 2009, significantly more than any other state.California has suffered 162 such deaths, while Florida, the third most populous state, with 22 million people compared with 29.7m in Texas and 39.6m in California, has counted 135 such deaths, according to Everytown, which defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are killed, excluding the shooter.It was not immediately clear whether Uvalde was included in the Texas toll. Texas also leads the US in school shootings, according to US News & World Report.The Texas Tribune reported that state lawmakers relaxed gun laws during the last two legislative sessions, including the approval of permit-less carrying of firearms in 2021. Such easing of gun laws was approved less than two years after the Odessa and the El Paso mass shootings left 30 people dead.Some rightwing Texas Republicans last week called for more guns.“We know from past experience that the most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus,” US Senator Ted Cruz told MSNBC.Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who faces felony fraud charges, voiced similar sentiments and predicted more mass shootings.“People that are shooting people, that are killing kids, they’re not following murder laws. They’re not going to follow gun laws,” Paxton said on the far-right network Newsmax. “I’d much rather have law-abiding citizens armed, trained so they can respond when something like this happens because it’s not going to be the last time.”Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is running for governor and heckled Abbott at a press conference last week, tweeted about some of Texas’ recent mass shootings, saying: “Abbott should have acted after Sutherland Springs, after Santa Fe, after Midland-Odessa, after El Paso. He refused. Let’s vote him out and get to work saving lives.”He also slammed the weakening of gun restrictions and made a mark during his failed bid for the Democratic 2020 presidential nomination by advocating a ban on assault weapons for the general public.38,000 Texans had their license to carry denied, revoked, or suspended over the last five years because law enforcement deemed them too dangerous to carry a loaded gun in public.But thanks to Greg Abbott’s new law, they don’t need a license to carry anymore.— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) May 29, 2022
      Abbott, meanwhile, placed the blame for the Uvalde carnage squarely on mental health concerns, at his first press conference after the attack.But mental health advocates told ABC News that Abbott has neglected mental healthcare, saying that he moved money out of Texas agencies charged with providing services. CNN also reported on such budget cuts.“We as a state, we as a society need to do a better job with mental health. Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge. Period. We as a government need to find a way to target that mental health challenge and to do something about it,” Abbott said last Wednesday, the day after the shooting in Uvalde.Debbie Plotnick, executive vice president for state and federal advocacy at the nonprofit Mental Health America (MHA), told ABC that mental health was a regular scapegoat. “Hate is not a mental illness … having a mental health condition does not make someone violent,” she said.This spring, Abbott switched $210m away from the state agency that oversees public mental healthcare, towards funding a controversial security program at the US-Mexico border.TopicsTexas school shootingUS gun controlTexasUS politicsUS crimeUS school shootingsGun crimenewsReuse this content More

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      Timeline of how Texas school shooting unfolded

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      Timeline of how Texas school shooting unfoldedMassacre in Uvalde began on Tuesday 24 May with a single shot The mass shooting at Robb elementary school in the small city of Uvalde, south Texas, began on Tuesday 24 May with a single shot.An 18-year-old local man, who just a few weeks before had reached the age where he could legally buy a military-style assault rifle, sent ominous social media messages pre-dawn, including telling someone he was going to shoot his grandmother.Around 11am, a neighbor of the grandmother heard a shot and saw Salvador Ramos run out of the front door of his grandparents’ home to a pickup truck.He seemed panicked and struggled to get the Ford going, the neighbor, Gilbert Gallegos, said, then drove off in a spray of gravel.Moments later, the grandmother, Celia Martinez Gonzales, 66, who is known as Sally, came out covered in blood after being shot in the face, crying out. She has survived and remained in the hospital on Monday.By 11.28am the gunman had reached Robb elementary, half a mile away, and crashed the pickup in a ditch, authorities said.At that moment, video shows a teacher entering the school through a door that the teacher had emerged from and propped open moments earlier.That door was usually closed and locked, according to the school security protocol, but was ajar.The gunman had an assault rifle and a backpack crammed with ammunition, and shot at two men who emerged from the funeral home right across the street from the school.Some of the 21 people he ultimately killed, including 19 children and two teachers, are now in caskets in that same funeral home, waiting to be laid to rest in a town devastated by shock, grief – and also anger at police failings now being reviewed by the federal government and at inaction on gun safety laws by state and federal politicians.He hopped over a fence and approached the school – still shooting – as panicked people nearby called the police.Authorities initially said Ramos exchanged fire with a school police officer before entering the building, but they later said the officer was not actually on campus and “sped” back upon hearing of the incident.But the officer initially headed for the wrong man, confronting someone who turned out to be a teacher, after passing Ramos, who crouched behind a vehicle.The gunman slipped through the open door and into adjoining fourth-grade classrooms packed with nine, 10 and 11-year-olds, overseen by two teachers, at 11.33am, authorities said.The Associated Press chronicled the incident based on law enforcement reports, records and interviews with Uvalde residents.The shooter rapidly fired more than 100 rounds then moved into the adjacent room, where witnesses heard screams, more gunfire and morbid music being blared by Ramos.Two minutes after he entered the school, three police officers followed and were quickly joined by four more.Authorities said Ramos exchanged fire from the classroom with the officers in the hallway and two of them suffered “grazing wounds”.After shots started ringing out, a cafeteria worker who had just finished serving chicken tacos to 75 third-graders said a woman shouted into the lunchroom: “Code black. This is not a drill!”The employees didn’t know what “code black” meant but closed blinds, locked the doors and escorted children behind a stage, said the worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid publicity.In the nearly half-hour after the first officers went inside, as many as 19 piled into the hallway, authorities said.Meanwhile, children and teachers elsewhere in the building were trying to escape, some climbing out of windows.Parent Javier Cazares had raced to Robb elementary, his daughter Jacklyn’s school, when he’d heard there was a shooting, leaving his truck running with the door open as he ran into the school yard. He is a gun owner but, in his rush, didn’t have it with him.He saw about five officers helping people evacuate and about 20 minutes after arriving said he spotted officers coming with heavy shields for the first time.In the chaos, he felt that time was simultaneously “going so fast and it was going so slow”.But he added: “From what I saw, things could have been a lot different.”One onlooker recalled a woman yelling at officers: “Go in there! Go in there!”At 12.03pm, a girl called 911 and whispered that she was inside the classroom with the gunman.Minutes later, the Uvalde school district posted on Facebook that all campuses were going into lockdown but that “the students and staff are safe in the buildings. The buildings are secure.”The girl called 911 twice more, talking of multiple dead but also children still alive. There was sporadic gunfire, the authorities have said.A further 34 minutes passed before Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents arrived, entered the classroom and killed Ramos, approximately 80 minutes after he’d entered the school.The long wait in the hallway was “the wrong decision” Steven McCraw, head of the Texas department of public safety, said on Friday after days of conflicting information.Cazares and relatives later spent three desperate hours at a hospital before being told Jacklyn, 10, had died.A supporter of the right to bear arms afforded by the second amendment to the US constitution, Cazares said there should be stricter gun laws and selling the type of gun used in the carnage to an 18-year-old was “kind of ridiculous”.TopicsTexas school shootingUS politicsnewsReuse this content More