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      Texas school shooting: gunman posted plans on Facebook prior to attack – latest updates

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      Texas governor Greg Abbott said at a press conference moments ago that the shooter posted on Facebook three times before his attack.In the first, posted 30 minutes before going to the school, he said he would shoot his grandmother. The second said, “I shot my grandmother.” And the third, posted about 15 minutes before the attack, said: “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.” Abbott also said the shooter’s grandmother had called the police before he shot her. Texas Gov Abbott says the Uvalde shooter posted 3 times on Facebook ~30 minutes before going to the school. The first was, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother.” Second was, “I shot my grandmother.” The third–roughly 15 min before–was, “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.”— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) May 25, 2022
      The retired police officer who was shot and killed while trying to stop the gunman in the racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket on May 14 was awarded the department’s medal of honor at his funeral on Wednesday, as the country processed another massacre at Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two adults, the Associated Press reports.Buffalo police commissioner Joseph Gramaglia also posthumously promoted Aaron Salter to lieutenant, saying his actions — firing multiple times at the shooter, striking his body armor — bought precious time that allowed others in the store to escape..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} “Aaron bravely fought evil that day,” Gramaglia said at The Chapel in Getzville, where law enforcement officers from US and Canadian departments Buffalo being on the US northern border] filled a dozen rows.Services were also held for Pearl Young, a 77-year-old grandmother, great-grandmother and substitute teacher who was devoted to her church.Salter and Young were among the 10 Black people killed when a white gunman wearing body armor and a helmet-mounted camera targeted shoppers and workers at Tops Friendly Market, in a predominantly Black neighborhood, on a Saturday afternoon. Three others were injured in the attack, which federal authorities are investigating as a hate crime.The 18-year-old suspect has been charged with murder and is being held without bail. The gunman in Uvalde, Texas, was also 18 and was shot dead by law enforcement.Salter, 55, of Lockport, was working as a security guard at the store in his retirement, a natural move for the community-minded officer with a loud laugh that “would shock your senses” and who chewed bubble gum just as loudly, said retired deputy police commissioner Kimberly Beaty, who worked with Salter..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Aaron didn’t come to work to be entertainment, he came to do his job, but we enjoyed watching him do it.”Salter retired from the department in 2018 after nearly 30 years. At least one of his bullets struck the suspect’s armor-plated vest but didn’t pierce it, police said.The Buffalo shooting killed 10 Black people from the neighborhood.‘I’m not afraid’: after Buffalo racist attack, Black residents remain unbowed by terrorRead moreHow far government can go in controlling access to firearms has been one of the most divisive issues in the United States, Reuters writes.It pits those who say restricting the availability of guns will save lives against those who maintain that guns themselves are not the root cause of mass shootings and that the right to bear arms is protected by the US Constitution.US president Joe Biden urged the US Senate to quickly confirm Steven Dettelbach, his nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), whose mission includes enforcing US gun laws.”Where’s the backbone? Where’s the courage to stand up to a very powerful lobby?”— President Biden hits at the gun lobby and urges the Senate to confirm his ATF nominee Steve Dettelbach. pic.twitter.com/KW9TlkobY1— The Recount (@therecount) May 25, 2022
      Dettelbach appeared at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.During testimony earlier today Biden’s pick for @ATFHQ Steven Dettelbach told lawmakers “violent crime is increasing. Firearms violence and mass shootings are increasing. Hate crimes and religious violence are increasing as is violent extremism.” pic.twitter.com/z83poe69A0— Beatrice-Elizabeth Peterson (@MissBeaE) May 25, 2022
      Joe Biden sought to reform federal and local policing with a broad executive order on Wednesday, the second anniversary of the death of George Floyd, while goading a seemingly immovable Congress to act on police and gun reform, Reuters writes.The order directs all federal agencies to revise their use-of-force policies, creates a national registry of officers fired for misconduct and will use grants to encourage state and local police to restrict the use of chokeholds and neck restraints..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s a measure of what we can do together to heal the very soul of this nation, to address the profound fear trauma, exhaustion particularly Black Americans have experienced for generations,” the US president said. He had not signed it earlier, he said, because he was hoping Congress would pass a police reform law named after Floyd. The bill collapsed in the US Senate last September under Republican opposition.The White House police order restricts the use of no-knock entries to a limited set of circumstances, such as when an announced entry would pose an imminent threat of physical violence.Joe Biden is speaking at the White House about gun safety, around 24 hours after the appalling shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.The US president noted that since he spoke at the White House last night, shortly after he arrived back from his trip to Asia, the death toll in the shooting had risen – now standing at 19 children and two teachers.“I’m sick and tired of what is going on,” Biden said of the latest mass murder, just nine days after another 18-year-old opened fire on members of the public in the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in a racist attack that killed 10 Black people.Biden visited Buffalo after the shooting there and announced moments ago that he and first lady Jill Biden would travel to Uvalde “in the coming days” to offer what comfort they can to “a community in shock and grief and trauma.”“As a nation I think we all must be there for them, everyone,” he said. “And we must ask, when in God’s name will we do what needs to be done to, not completely stop, but fundamentally change the amount of carnage that goes on in this country. To state the obvious, I’m sick and tired, I’m just sick and tired of what is going on, what continues to go on,” he added.Biden said he had spent his career, as chairman of the judiciary committee when he was in the US Senate “and as vice president working for common sense gun reforms.”He said certain such reforms would have a significant impact on the number of deaths across the US but would “have no negative impact on the second amendment”, the long and fiercely-debated US constitutional right to “bear arms”.“The second amendment is not absolute, when it was passed you [1789] couldn’t own a cannon, you couldn’t own certain types weapons, there have always been limitations. These actions we have taken before have saved lives and they can do it again.“The idea that an 18-year-old can walk into a store and buy weapons of war designed and marketed to kill is just wrong,” he said.Why can’t America do anything to stop mass shootings?Read moreThe alleged shooters in both the Buffalo and Uvalde killings were 18-year-olds who used US military-style assault rifles, readily available in gun stores. The suspect in the Buffalo killings is in custody, charged with murder. The suspect in Uvalde was shot dead by law enforcement inside the classroom of the elementary school where he was firing at children and their teachers.“It just violates common sense, even the manufacture of them, of that weapon,” he said.“You know, where is the backbone? Where is your courage to stand up to a very powerful lobby,” he said.Presumably, the president is referring to the US Congress, where Republicans repeatedly block legislation mandating greater gun controls (and many bills that Biden wants to advance in other areas have been held up by the fact that he has no more than a wafer-thin majority in that chamber, not enough to overcome the filibuster that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation_.Republicans offer thoughts and prayers – but not gun control to stop the killingsRead moreJoe Biden and Kamala Harris are holding an event at the White House to talk about policing, on the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer. But of course the school mass shooting is very present and vice-president Kamala Harris is talking first before she introduces the president. She echoed Biden’s remarks last night, saying: “We must have the courage to pass reasonable gun safety laws.”“We must work together to create an America where everyone feels safe in their communituy, where children feel safe in their schools,” Harris said.Now she has turned to the issue of police killings, addressing herself to the public but also the families of not just George Floyd who are at the White House today, but also Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police gunfire in Louisville, Kentucky, on 13 May 2020, just days before Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis.Lawmakers are floating the idea of introducing red flag laws as a means of bolstering gun control. House majority leader Steny Hoyer said that he is planning to bring a bill, initially bought forth by Lucy McBath, a representative from Georgia whose 17-year-old son was killed by gun violence, that would establish a national red flag law. Congress must do more to #EndGunViolence. During the first week of the June work period, I will bring @RepLucyMcBath’s bill to the Floor to establish a national “Red Flag” law to prevent those who pose a threat to themselves or others from being able to legally possess a firearm.— Steny Hoyer (@LeaderHoyer) May 25, 2022
      Under red flag laws, courts will have the right to take away guns from people who are deemed a threat to themselves or others. Some Republicans seem to be open to the idea of a red flag law. In 2019, Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal introduced a red flag measure that failed to get the necessary votes. Susan Collins, a Republican senator for Maine, said that she discussed potential legislation with Democrat Chris Murphy, according to Axios. Republicans offer thoughts and prayers – but not gun control to stop the killingsAs the cycle of American gun violence took its latest turn on Tuesday, with at least 19 children and two teachers brutally murdered at an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, Texas, the response from the Republican right came from an all too familiar playbook.Thoughts and prayers, obfuscation and inaction.Shortly after the shooting, Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who for well over a decade has led his party in vehemently blocking a raft of federal gun control measures, decried the “disgusting violence” in Uvalde and said: “The entire country is praying for the children, families, teachers, and staff and the first responders on the scene.”But prayers aside, there remains little to no hope of commonsense gun control measures making their way into federal law, despite support from the majority of American voters.Within hours of the bloodshed on Tuesday, many of the national Republican Party’s most outspoken voices on gun ownership recited talking points now rote in the aftermath of mass shootings.Texas senator Ted Cruz, who also sent prayers to the community in Uvalde, castigated Democrats and members of the media during a brief interview with CNN. “Inevitably when there’s a murder of this kind you see politicians try to politicize it,” he said. “You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime.”His remarks were almost identical in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting in Florida back in 2018, which claimed the lives of 17 students and teachers. Despite a grassroots protest movement, in which hundreds of thousands of school children descended on Washington in a March for Our Lives, no federal legislation was passed. Jury selection in the death penalty trial of the Parkland shooter continues this week, a further marker of the trauma these mass shootings leave behind.Meanwhile, Cruz is set to speak at the National Rifle Association leadership summit on Friday, in Houston, just 280 miles from Uvalde, alongside Donald Trump and Texas governor Greg Abbott.Other senior Texas Republicans, who have presided over a series of measures aimed at loosening restrictions on firearm ownership in the state, reiterated calls to arm teachers, despite the fact the shooter engaged a number of armed officers as he successfully stormed the school building.“We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things,” Texas attorney general Ken Paxton told Fox News on Tuesday. “We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. That, in my opinion, is the best answer.”Republicans offer thoughts and prayers – but not gun control to stop the killingsRead moreSatirical news site the Onion has made all headlines on its front page read: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”. The website first used the headline when writing about the mass shooting at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas in 2017, where 61 people were killed. .@TheOnion homepage right now consists entirely of their “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” stories they’ve published countless times pic.twitter.com/l1fAIemies— Marina Fang (@marinafang) May 25, 2022
      The NRA just released a statement on its conference this weekend that confirms it will still be held this weekend in Houston.“We recognize this was the act of a lone, deranged criminal. As we gather in Houston, we will reflect on these events, pray for the victims, recognize our patriotic members and pledge to redouble our commitment to make our schools secure,” the statement reads. Statement from the @NRA regarding this week’s annual meeting in Houston. As of now, Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz are still scheduled to attend the event. @HoustonPubMedia pic.twitter.com/dMYFz8mIrD— Lucio Vasquez (@luciov120) May 25, 2022
      Lawmakers are responding to the Uvalde shooting on Capitol Hill today. Joe Manchin told reporters that the Senate should pass a bipartisan gun control bill, but said that passing gun legislation would not be an impetus for getting rid of the filibuster. With the filibuster, Democrats would need at least 60 votes to pass legislation. On getting rid of the filibuster, Manchin said it amounts to “throwing out the one tool that we have that gets us, that keeps us working — at least talking together. Without that we have nothing. You get no checks and balance.”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 25, 2022
      Meanwhile Republican Marco Rubio of Florida is digging into his argument that background checks for gun purchases are ineffective. “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes, whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it,” he told CNN. Asked Rubio why not ban AR-15s, and he said: “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes, whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it.” Also contends more background checks won’t fix problem pic.twitter.com/crfprWZSyQ— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 25, 2022
      The Uvalde shooting was the 27th school shooting this year, according to a tracker maintained by news organization Education Week. The tracker reports 67 people killed or injured in a school shooting, including 27 people who were killed. The shootings took place in states across the country, ranging from Washington state to Massachusetts.At his press conference this afternoon, Greg Abbott said he is “living moment to moment right now” in response to whether he would cancel his appearance at NRA’s conference in Houston this weekend. Gov. Abbott won’t say if he will still speak at NRA meeting in Houston Friday. “I’m living moment to moment right now.”— Rick Klein (@rickklein) May 25, 2022
      Twenty minutes into Greg Abbott’s press conference addressing the Uvalde shooting, Beto O’Rourke, went up to the stage and told Abbott “you are doing nothing”. O’Rourke could be heard telling Abbott that the shooting was “predictable” because of his inaction and mentioned the 2019 shooting in El Paso where 23 people were killed in a Walmart store. “This is on you until you choose to do something,” O’Rourke said. “Sir, you are out of line,” Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin can be heard shouting at O’Rourke trying to get him to leave the auditorium.”This is on you until you choose to do something”: Beto O’Rourke confronts Gov. Abbott at briefing on Texas elementary school shooting. https://t.co/RdYLvfum24 pic.twitter.com/bqbQXTPm6O— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 25, 2022
      O’Rourke is running against Abbott in November for the gubernatorial seat. He was most recently a House representative before his brief run for president in 2020.Texas governor Greg Abbott said at a press conference moments ago that the shooter posted on Facebook three times before his attack.In the first, posted 30 minutes before going to the school, he said he would shoot his grandmother. The second said, “I shot my grandmother.” And the third, posted about 15 minutes before the attack, said: “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.” Abbott also said the shooter’s grandmother had called the police before he shot her. Texas Gov Abbott says the Uvalde shooter posted 3 times on Facebook ~30 minutes before going to the school. The first was, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother.” Second was, “I shot my grandmother.” The third–roughly 15 min before–was, “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.”— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) May 25, 2022
      On Monday, the day before the shooting, Uvdale carried out its annual tradition of having its graduating high school seniors greet the elementary school students, including those who were killed on Tuesday. Here’s a clip of the celebration:Seniors visit Robb Elementary ⁦@Uvalde_CISD⁩ pic.twitter.com/EVI0IyLanx— rharris (@UHSProud) May 23, 2022 More

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      The Guardian view on US gun violence: another desperate day | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on US gun violence: another desperate dayEditorialFirearm sales and deaths have soared in the last two years. All killings – not just mass shootings – must be addressed To see the smiling faces of the children murdered at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, is unbearable. The killing of at least 19 pupils and two teachers is not, as it should be, unthinkable. It comes a decade after 20 children and six staff members were shot dead at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, and only 10 days after the racist murder of 10 mostly black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.Gun sales have risen sharply since the pandemic began, although the US already had more guns than citizens, far ahead of any other country. The murder rate has soared by nearly 30%. Firearms are the leading cause of death for America’s children, claiming the lives of more than 1,500 under-18s last year. Mass shootings account for at most 3% of gun violence deaths; many occur in ones or twos, and largely in disadvantaged neighbourhoods of colour. Unlike Tuesday’s tragedy, these victims go mostly unremarked, even when they are school age. Yet they, too, are irreplaceable to those who loved them.Attempts to curb mass shootings, for example through banning assault weapons, are therefore both necessary and wholly inadequate. Yet lawmakers have struggled to enact and defend even these. Many believed that Sandy Hook had to prove a turning point. The passionate efforts of bereaved parents, vilified and attacked as they grieved, have led to a gunmaker being found liable for a mass shooting in the US for the first time. But the most wide-reaching change resulting from school shootings has been that millions of children now go through drills – traumatising those who will, thankfully, never encounter a shooter.On Tuesday, Joe Biden asked – as so many have – why the US is “willing to live with this carnage”. Support for tighter gun controls has dropped in recent years, though most still want them, and backing usually rises after mass shootings. Texan Republican leaders have prided themselves on expanding gun rights. Governor Greg Abbott, along with state senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, is due to speak at the NRA’s meeting in Houston this weekend. The Republican grip on the country’s institutions, skewing the executive, the legislature and the judiciary rightward, is another problem. A conservative, pro-gun supreme court will rule shortly on a New York law restricting who can carry guns in public, potentially imperilling restrictions elsewhere.Local gun violence prevention programmes work: the Biden administration is right to have dramatically increased funding, but more must be done. It is also essential that misogyny is addressed: most mass shooters have a history of expressing hatred of women and attacking female family members, and most women shot by their partners have previously been abused by them.It is hard to feel any optimism when persistent campaigning by survivors and bereaved families has failed to shift the nation. The question is not merely what might save children like those at Uvalde, but whether anything will be done to save Americans more broadly if even these deaths do not force the US to address gun violence seriously. These deaths were not unthinkable. Inaction, in the face of them, must be.TopicsTexas school shootingOpinionUS gun controlUS domestic policyUS economyUS politicsTexaseditorialsReuse this content More

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      Why can’t America do anything to stop mass shootings?

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      Why can’t America do anything to stop mass shootings?Despite hundreds of mass shootings in the US every year, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass major gun-control legislation Joe Biden’s condolences to the community of Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb elementary school on Tuesday, also came with a demand for action.“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday evening. “It’s time to turn this pain into action. For every parent, for every citizen in this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: it’s time to act.”But despite hundreds of mass shootings unfolding in America every year, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass major gun-control legislation. The hurdles to enacting stricter gun laws in the US are numerous and significant, but activists say they will not give up until change is made.How often are mass shootings happening in the US?This year, 213 mass shootings, defined as incidents in which at least four people were shot or killed, have already occurred in America, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In 2021, 692 mass shootings were recorded, in comparison to 610 over the course of 2020.The US has already seen other devastating examples of mass shootings this month. Less than two weeks before the shooting in Uvalde, a gunman opened fire at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. He fatally shot 10 people, most of them African American.What policies have been proposed to address mass shootings?Gun control advocates have outlined an extensive and specific plan to lower the number of deaths caused by firearms in the US. Those policies include mandating background checks for all gun purchases, including those overseen by unlicensed sellers online or at gun shows, and enforcing a waiting period after someone buys a firearm.Advocates have also called for expanding the restrictions on people who can legally acquire guns. They say abusive dating partners, those convicted of hate crimes and people with mental illness who pose a safety risk, among others, should be barred from buying firearms. Some have proposed prohibiting gun purchases by people under 21, which may have prevented the 18-year-old shooter in Uvalde from acquiring his weapons.Some states have already enacted stricter gun laws, but federal legislation would strengthen restrictions nationwide.Do Americans support stricter gun laws?There is broad support in the US for certain policies championed by gun-control advocates. According to a Morning Consult/Politico survey taken last year, 84% of American voters support universal background checks for gun purchases.But opinions are more varied when Americans are asked about their thoughts on stricter gun laws in general. A November poll conducted by Gallup found that 52% of Americans support stricter gun control, which marked the lowest rating on the question since 2014. Support for a ban on handguns also hit a new low in 2021, with just 19% of Americans telling Gallup that they would be in favor of such a policy.Some of that hesitation may stem from the fact that tens of millions of Americans own guns themselves. Four in 10 Americans live in a household with a gun, while 30% say they personally own one, according to a 2021 survey by Pew Research Center.Has Congress tried to enact stricter gun laws before?Yes, Democrats in Congress have repeatedly pushed to strengthen gun laws that could help lower the number of mass shootings in America. Most notably, Congress tried to pass a compromise bill to expand background checks in 2013, months after the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. That bill failed to overcome a Senate filibuster, as most Republicans and a handful of Democrats opposed the legislation.After the bill was defeated, then President Barack Obama delivered a fiery speech blaming the failure on the National Rifle Association, which vehemently opposed the legislation and vowed to campaign against any senator supporting it.“Instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill,” Obama said at the time. “But we can do more if Congress gets its act together.”What is the path forward for enacting gun-control legislation?The Democratic-controlled House has already passed bills to expand background checks to all firearm sales or transfers and close the so-called “Charleston loophole”. That loophole, which would increase the amount of time that licensed gun sellers must wait to receive a completed background check before transferring a gun to an unlicensed buyer, allowed a white shooter to target a historically Black church in Charleston in 2015.But those House-passed bills currently have very little chance of passing in the evenly divided Senate. Republican senators are likely to filibuster any proposed gun-control legislation, and Democrats do not have the 60 votes necessary to advance those bills. The Democratic senator Joe Manchin also made it clear on Tuesday that he would not support amending the filibuster to pass a gun-control bill, meaning Democrats do not have the votes to create a carveout to the rule.Acknowledging this reality, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on Wednesday that it was unlikely the upper chamber would soon vote on the House-passed bills. “I believe that accountability votes are important,” Schumer said, “But sadly, this isn’t a case of the American people not knowing where their senators stand. They know.”That doesn’t mean Democrats are giving up on their efforts to strengthen gun laws. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who represents the Sandy Hook community and has fiercely criticized congressional inaction on gun control, said voters have a chance in November to oust Republicans who oppose reform.“I’m going to try all day today to try to find some compromise, but this is ultimately up to voters,” Murphy told CNN on Wednesday. “If [candidates] support the current law, if they don’t support reform [instead], then don’t send them back to Congress.”TopicsUS gun controlTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingUS politicsRepublicansUS CongressJoe BidenexplainersReuse this content More

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      US gun violence over weekend puts focus on easy access to weapons

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      US gun violence over weekend puts focus on easy access to weapons Violence includes Buffalo shooting that left 10 people dead, as well as two dead in Houston, one in Los Angeles and five in ChicagoAmerica on Monday was picking up the pieces from a weekend of gun violence that – outside the cost of lives – has refocused the country’s leadership on the toxic interplay of political ideology and easy access to handguns and battlefield weapons.Scrutiny of Republicans who embrace ‘great replacement theory’ after Buffalo massacreRead moreIn the most recent case, two people were killed Sunday and at least three others hospitalized after a shooting at a large Houston, Texas, flea market. In California, also on Sunday, at least one person died and five were wounded – including four listed in critical condition – after a shooting at a church with a predominantly Taiwanese congregation in Orange county, south of Los Angeles.In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot enacted a weekend curfew for unaccompanied minors at a city park after a 16-year-old boy was killed there. At least 33 people were shot, five fatally, in weekend violence across the city, police said.The shootings, each horrific in their own way, punctuated the weekend’s main horror: an 18-year-old espousing white supremacist ideology who went to an African American neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday and – in less than two minutes – gunned down 13 people at a grocery, killing 10.That shooting – one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent memory – has renewed scrutiny on internet-promulgated hate speech, access to assault-style guns and body armor, and the inability of law enforcement authorities, elected politicians, religious leaders and the commercial sector to stop such violence from recurring.In the Buffalo shooting at Tops Friendly grocery, white suspect Payton Gendron is accused of specifically targeting a Black neighborhood and taking aim at Black victims – shoppers, grocery workers and a security guard.He had purportedly made threatening comments that brought police to his high school last spring, raising questions about whether authorities botched an opportunity to short-circuit Saturday’s killings.Gendron was never charged with a crime, and investigators had no further contact with him after his release from a hospital where he was mentally evaluated for about 36 hours.Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said the threat Gendron had made was “general” in nature and unrelated to race. “Nobody called in,” he said. “Nobody called any complaints.”New York is one of several states that, in recent years, have enacted “red flag” laws which are intended to prevent mass shootings, but they rely on a legal petition to temporarily seize people’s firearms, or prevent them from buying guns.Federal authorities, led by the FBI which is investigating the attack as a hate crime, have said they are working to confirm the authenticity of a racist 180-page document, purportedly written by Gendron, that laid out a plan to terrorize nonwhite, non-Christian people.Buffalo shooting: what we know about the victims so farRead moreIn a Twitch livestream video of the attack, Gendron allegedly trains his gun on a white person behind a checkout counter before apologizing and moving on.A purported screenshot of the video circulating online showed the N-word scrawled in white, along with the number “14”, which is an apparent reference to this 14-word white supremacist phrase: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”Gendron, the Buffalo police commissioner Gramaglia said, planned to continue his assault in the surrounding neighborhood. But he was apprehended outside the grocery after removing his body armor and setting down his Bushmaster rifle with an extended 70-round magazine.“This individual came here with the express purpose of taking as many Black lives as he possibly could,” the Buffalo mayor, Byron Brown, said Sunday.Representing families of the massacre victims, renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump told reporters at a news conference Monday that cable news pundits who have spoken fawningly of the same extremist ideology embraced by the alleged shooter should be held accountable.The manifesto attributed to Gendron talks about the racist theory that Democrats are pushing open immigration policies to “replace” Republican voters with people of color and retain control of the country’s levers of power.Crump called pundits airing the ideology on mainstream news channels as “accomplices”.“Even though they might not have pulled the trigger, they loaded the gun,” he said.Released, recorded radio transmissions between emergency services showed the speed of the Buffalo massacre and how little time authorities had to intervene. Police had Gendron in custody within six minutes of being alerted to the attack, yet 10 people were still killed.“Radio, send as many cars as you possibly can,” a responding officer says at about 2.33pm. Less than 30 seconds later, firefighters radioed in that there were at least three people down on the ground and that police “have him” about 20 ft from where they were. At 2.36pm, police reported they had arrested the suspect and confiscated a gun.But the shooting has brought, as many times before, questions about what authorities can do to confront individuals espousing violently racist intentions before they act on them. And it has brought pressure on social media platforms to flag content posted on their sites.Before the 2018 massacre of 17 students at a high school in Parkland, Florida, and the killings of more than two dozen people at a Texas church in 2017, authorities had received information indicating the assailant’s violent intent or history.On Sunday, New York governor Kathy Hochul promised action on hate speech that she said spreads “like a virus”. President Biden is expected in Buffalo on Tuesday to meet with victims’ families. Those slain included an 86-year-old woman who had just visited her husband in a nursing home, a man buying a cake for his grandson, and a church deacon helping people get home with their shopping.As political figures visited the area over the weekend, some said it was urgent to separate the bonds between gun ownership and religious faith or extremist ideologies.But for many in the targeted Buffalo community, Gendron’s intent wasn’t the salient problem – it was how the shooting was rooted in US social history.“The present is the past – same thing,” community activist Marietta Malcolm said. “Don’t think like this is an isolated incident, or act like we haven’t had 300 years of it. Every time people say racism doesn’t exist, somebody does something to prove that it does.”TopicsUS gun controlBuffalo shootingUS politicsRacenewsReuse this content More

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      Suspect arrested in Sacramento shooting that left six dead

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      Suspect arrested in Sacramento shooting that left six deadPolice say they have received more than 100 videos or photos from the scene and have executed three search warrants Police in the California state capital have made an arrest in connection with Sunday’s mass shooting that left six people dead and at least a dozen others injured. In the hours after the bloodshed, police say they have received more than 100 videos or photos from the scene and executed search warrants on three homes.They identified a 26-year-old man as one of the individuals arrested in connection to the shooting, in a press release. He has been charged with assault and illegal firearm possession offenses.01:19On Monday, authorities identified the six people killed in the shooting, after at least two shooters opened fire in a crowd as bar patrons filled the streets at closing time on the outskirts of the city’s entertainment district.The Sacramento county coroner identified three women who were killed as Johntaya Alexander, 21; Melinda Davis, 57; and Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21.The three male victims were identified as Sergio Harris, 38; Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; and DeVazia Turner, 29.The sound of rapid-fire gunshots at about 2am sent people running in terror. Twelve people were wounded in the neighborhood anchored by the Golden One Arena, which hosts concerts and the Sacramento Kings.“My child is out there on that ground, you know? This don’t make any sense and there’s other people’s children that’s out there on the ground. And they won’t tell us nothing, and it’s heartbreaking,” Pamela Harris, Sergio’s mother, told Sacramento’s local Fox affiliate on Sunday, shortly before police confirmed that her son had been killed. “It’s heartbreaking to see what’s going on out here and they’re not telling us anything.”Since Harris was identified, dozens of people have posted to his Facebook page to express their shock and disbelief at the sudden loss. He was killed alongside his cousin DeVazia Turner, whose father told the same news outlet that the two were out that night to enjoy themselves. “He was out just having fun with his friends,” Turner said. “There’s just nothing to say. I’m just here. I’m grief, that’s all – grief.”A friend of Melinda Davis said she was a “very sassy lady” who lived on the streets of Sacramento near the shooting site. ‘Slow violence that drives death’: a California port city’s struggle with pollution and shootingsRead moreShawn Peter, a guide with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership told the Sacramento Bee he’d known Davis for 15 years. She had been homeless and lived in the area on and off for a decade. “Melinda was a very eccentric individual, a very sassy lady,” he told the newspaper. “This was her world, 24/7.”Officials had helped her find housing before the pandemic began but she had returned to the downtown business district in recent months, Peter said. A small bouquet of purple roses with a note saying “Melinda Rest In Peace” was left on the street.The gunfire erupted just after a fight broke out on a street lined with an upscale hotel, nightclubs and bars and police said they were investigating whether the altercation was connected to the shooting. Video from witnesses posted on social media showed rapid gunfire for at least 45 seconds as people screamed and ran for cover, the Associated Press reported.Small memorials with candles, balloons and flowers were placed Monday morning near the crime scene. One balloon had a message on it saying in part: “You will forever be in our hearts and thoughts. Nothing will ever be the same.”Police say they had recovered more than 100 shell casings at the scene and had located several cars and buildings with bullet holes in them.This mass shooting comes less than six weeks after a man shot himself after killing his three daughters – ages nine, 10 and 13 – and a man who was supervising a visit between the girls and their father at a Sacramento-area church. He was banned from owning a gun because of a domestic violence restraining order but was able to skirt the prohibition by getting a ghost gun, a firearm that is ordered in parts and can be assembled in a few hours with the help of a YouTube tutorial. They lack serial numbers and can be bought without a background check, making them nearly impossible to trace through traditional means.Several mass shootings have taken place in northern California in recent years and have fueled calls for stricter gun legislation at the federal level.Joe Biden has long been a champion of what many refer to as “commonsense” legislation such as universal background checks and has made ghost gun abatement part of his administration’s public safety approach.“Today, America once again mourns for another community devastated by gun violence,” Biden said on Sunday. “But we must do more than mourn; we must act.”California has more than 100 gun laws on the books that determine who can sell ammunition, where guns can be purchased, and the number of rounds any single firearm can hold. And cities including San Francisco, San Diego and Oakland have banned ghost guns and lodged lawsuits against manufacturers of parts. Still, California lawmakers are continuing to create legislation, including a measure modeled after Texas’s abortion ban, that they hope will keep unregistered or illegally purchased guns out of people’s hands, cars and homes.But the longtime partisan stalemate and lack of a permanent head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) are making it more difficult for Biden to put his campaign promises into practice and leave gun regulation mainly to states.On Monday, Senator Dianne Feinstein joined the chorus of officials calling on Congress to pass new gun legislation. “Of course, this isn’t an isolated event. It’s the latest in an epidemic of gun violence that continues to plague our country,” Feinstein said in a statement.“Enough is enough. We can no longer ignore gun violence in our communities. Congress knows what steps must be taken to stop these mass shootings, we just have to act.”TopicsCaliforniaGun crimeUS gun controlJoe BidenUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Washington joins nine other states in restricting gun magazine capacity size

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      Washington joins nine other states in restricting gun magazine capacity sizeA package of bills signed by Jay Inslee tighten the state’s gun laws, including adding restrictions to a law prohibiting ghost guns The Washington governor Jay Inslee signed a package of bills Wednesday tightening the state’s gun laws, including a measure that bans the manufacture, distribution and sale of firearm magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.Washington joins nine other states, including California and New Jersey, that restrict magazine capacity size.“We are not willing to accept gun violence as a normal part of life in the state of Washington,” said Inslee, a Democrat, at a news conference where he was surrounded by lawmakers and other supporters of the new laws.The capitol was closed to the public for several hours before and after the bill signing. A spokesperson for the Washington state patrol said that there was no specific threat, but that the temporary closure was a “prudent precaution”.A father used a ghost gun to kill his three daughters. It’s a sign of a growing crisisRead moreWashington’s measure, which takes effect 1 July, does not prohibit the possession of such magazines. It also includes exceptions to magazine limits for law enforcement and corrections officers, members of the armed forces, Washington’s national guard and licensed firearms dealers who sell to those institutions.Violations would be a gross misdemeanor, which in Washington is punishable by up to 364 days in county jail, a maximum fine of up to $5,000, or both.The measure was requested by Democratic attorney general Bob Ferguson, who said he was motivated to push for the bill after a 2016 shooting at a party in Mukilteo in which a 30-round magazine was used, killing three teens and seriously injuring another.“It’s individuals who are directly impacted by gun violence. When they speak, politicians respond,” Ferguson said.The new law also makes selling a prohibited magazine or offering one for distribution or sale a violation of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act, which allows the attorney general’s office to take action on alleged violations of the act to get restitution and civil penalties.In a statement issued after the bill signing, the Sacramento, California-based Firearms Policy Coalition said that it plans to lead a lawsuit over the new law, saying that it “condemns this latest act of state aggression and will not allow this law to go unchallenged”. The group said it was looking for Washington residents who could be potential plaintiffs in the planned action.Ferguson said that he was confident that the ban was constitutional and that his office could successfully defend any potential litigation. He pointed to appellate history with other states with bans, including California, where the ninth circuit court of appeals overturned a ruling by two of its judges and upheld California’s law in November.Inslee also signed a measure that prohibits people from knowingly bringing weapons either openly carried or carried with a concealed pistol license to ballot counting sites and on-campus school board meetings. The new law also bans openly carried firearms at local government meetings and election-related facilities such as county election offices, off-campus school board meetings and local government meetings, though people who have concealed pistol licenses would be allowed to carry their concealed weapon in those locations.Firearms are already prohibited at several designated places statewide, including restricted areas of jails, courtrooms, taverns and commercial airports. And last year, lawmakers approved a ban on openly carrying guns and other weapons at the Washington state capitol, part of the capitol campus and public protests statewide.“No one should be prevented from accessing their government due to fear of armed intimidation,” said representative Tana Senn, the bill’s sponsor.Law enforcement is exempt from the restrictions, as are any security personnel hired at a location.California scrambles to ban ‘ghost guns’ as untraceable weapons’ popularity soarsRead moreViolation of the law would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and fines of up to $1,000. Second or subsequent violations would be a gross misdemeanor.Additionally, any person convicted would have their concealed pistol license revoked for three years.Under the measure, a person must knowingly be in violation of the law in order for the criminal penalty to apply.A third measure signed by Inslee on Wednesday adds further restrictions to the law on the manufacture, sale, or possession of so-called ghost guns by prohibiting people from possessing components to build an untraceable firearm, as well as possessing any firearms built after 2019 that don’t have serial numbers. Hobbyists will be able to continue making guns at home, but under the new law they must use components with serial numbers.TopicsWashington stateUS gun controlUS politicsGun crimenewsReuse this content More

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      Sandy Hook review: anatomy of an American tragedy – and the obscenity of social media

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      Sandy Hook review: anatomy of an American tragedy – and the obscenity of social media Elizabeth Williamson’s book on the 2012 elementary school shooting is a near-unbearable, necessary indictment of Facebook, YouTube and the conspiracy theories they spreadEven in a country now completely inured to the horrors of mass shootings, the massacre at Sandy Hook remains lodged in the minds of everyone old enough to remember it. Ten years ago, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fired 154 rounds from an AR-15-style rifle in less than five minutes. Twenty extremely young children and six adults were killed.Sandy Hook’s tragic legacy: seven years on, a loving father is the latest victimRead moreIt was the worst elementary school shooting in American history.Elizabeth Williamson’s new book is about that “American Tragedy”, but more importantly it is about “the Battle for Truth” that followed. In excruciating detail, Williamson describes the unimaginable double tragedy every Sandy Hook parent has had to endure: the murder of their child, followed by years and years of an army of online monsters accusing them of inventing this unimaginable horror.Alex Jones of Infowars is the best-known villain of this ghastly narrative. His Facebook pages and YouTube channels convinced millions of fools the massacre was either some kind of government plot to encourage a push for gun control or, even more obscenely, that it was all carried out by actors and no one was killed at all.While a single deranged shooter was responsible for the original tragedy, Williamson makes clear she believes Facebook and Google (the owner of YouTube) deserve most of the blame for the subsequent horror the relatives of victims have endured.As Congressman Ro Khanna reported in his new book, Dignity in a Digital Age, an internal Facebook document estimated that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendations”.Those recommendations are the result of the infernal algorithms which are at the heart of the business models of Facebook and YouTube and are probably more responsible for the breakdown in civil society in the US and the world than anything else invented.“We thought the internet would give us this accelerated society of science and information,” says Lenny Pozner, whose son Noah was one of the Sandy Hook victims. But “really, we’ve gone back to flat earth”.It horrified Pozner “to see the image of his son, smiling in his bomber jacket, passed round by an online mob attacking Noah as a fake, a body double, a boy who never lived”. Relentless algorithms pushed those “human lies to the top” on an internet which has become an “all-powerful booster of outrage and denial”.Noah’s mother, Veronique De la Rosa, was another victim of Jones’s persistent, outrageous lies.“It’s like you’ve entered the ninth circle of hell,” she tells Williamson. “Never even in your wildest, most fear-fueled fantasies would you have guessed you’d find yourself having to fight not only through your grief, which you know is at times paralyzing, but to even prove that your son existed.”Lenny Pozner regularly saw his dead son described as an “alleged victim”, but it took years before Facebook and YouTube and Twitter took substantial action to quiet the insane conspiracies their own algorithms had done so much to reinforce.Facebook allowed a Sandy Hook Hoax group and dozens of others to operate virtually uninterrupted for two years. Hundreds of videos on YouTube, owned by Google, wallowed in the hoax, drawing thousands who made threats against the families.“Facebook and Twitter are monsters,” says Pozner. “Out-of-control beasts run like mom-and-pop shops.”Facebook “focuses on growth, to the exclusion of most everything else”, Williamson writes. The algorithms are designed to keep all of us on the platform as long as possible, and they operate “with relentless, sometimes murderous neutrality, rewarding whatever horrible behavior and false or inflammatory content captures and retains users”.In 2018, an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg by Pozner and De La Rosa, published in the Guardian, accused the Facebook chief of “allowing your platform to continue to be used as an instrument to disseminate hate”.Two days later, Facebook finally suspended Jones’s personal page but “took no action against Infowars’ account, which had 1.7 million followers”. YouTube removed four videos from Infowars’ channel and banned Jones from live-streaming for all of 90 days.An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg from the parents of a Sandy Hook victimRead moreHarry Farid heads the school of Information at the University of California Berkeley. He describes the perfect storm which is threatening democracy and civility everywhere: “You have bad people and trolls and people trying to make money by taking advantage of horrible things … you have social media websites who are not only welcoming and permissive of it but are promoting it, and then you have us, the unsuspecting public.”Williamson makes the important and usually forgotten point that nothing in the first amendment gives anyone the right to use a social media platform. All it says on this subject is that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”As Farid points out, platforms have an absolute right to ban all forms of content “without running afoul of the constitution” – which is why Donald Trump had no judicial recourse when he was banned from Facebook and Twitter after the Capitol riot.But most of the time, Farid says, the platforms just look the other way: “Because they’re making so much goddamned money.”Last fall, the California Democrat Adam Schiff told the Guardian the blockbuster testimony of the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen would finally be enough to spur Congress to regulate the worst excesses of the big platforms. So far, their lobbyists have prevented such action. On Saturday, the Guardian asked Schiff if he still believed Congress might act in this session. “There is still a chance,” he wrote in an e-mail, adding that “the degree of Russian propaganda on social media attempting to justify their bloody invasion of Ukraine” might finally provide the “impetus” needed for change.
      Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for the Truth is published in the US by Dutton Books
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      Congress steps up fight to get guns out of domestic abusers’ hands

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      Congress steps up fight to get guns out of domestic abusers’ handsThe reauthorization of the Violence Against Women act gives authorities new powers to crack down on domestic abusers with illegal guns Editor’s note: This story was produced by the non-profit newsroom Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. Get email alerts on its investigations.State and local prosecutors and law enforcement across the US will have sweeping new powers to crack down on domestic abusers with illegal guns under a bipartisan deal approved by Congress.The measures, included in a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act – part of a $1.5tn spending bill passed Thursday night – come after an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting that was published in the Guardian and showed that domestic violence gun homicides leaped 58% over the last decade. Many of those victims were killed by abusers whose criminal histories prohibited them from possessing guns, Reveal found.A father used a ghost gun to kill his three daughters. It’s a sign of a growing crisisRead moreJoe Biden, who sponsored the first Violence Against Women Act almost 30 years ago, is expected to quickly sign the bill. The package includes domestic programs, military spending and $13.6bn in aid for Ukraine.Federal law bars felons and some people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from possessing firearms. But state and local law enforcement authorities, who handle most domestic violence cases, can’t enforce those federal laws and federal prosecutors haven’t prioritized them, so even egregious violations of gun bans often go unpunished. In addition, because federal law and most state statutes don’t address how to retrieve weapons from people who aren’t legally permitted to have them, gun bans are largely enforced on an honor system that relies on abusers to disarm themselves.Advocates and gun policy experts said Reveal’s reporting spurred lawmakers to break a partisan logjam.“The reporting definitely lit a fire for members of Congress to act on this issue,” said Marissa Edmund, senior policy analyst for gun violence prevention at the Center for American Progress.The investigation, which chronicled scores of people killed in domestic violence-related gun homicides in recent years, showed lawmakers “that these are lives that are lost and the pain of that loss extends to their families and communities and knowing that it was preventable. This is a huge win for survivors and advocates to close loopholes that allow some domestic abusers to access firearms.”“We’re closing gaps that exist between state and local and federal law enforcement,” Edmund added. “There will be more coordination on the state and federal level so abusers won’t have access to those firearms. It will save hundreds of lives.”The Violence Against Women Act has been reauthorized several times since it was first enacted in 1994, but the most recent update had been stalled in Congress since 2019. The new bill includes the highest funding level ever to support programs for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. It also includes broad provisions that address some of the law enforcement failures that Reveal highlighted in its reporting.One new provision empowers the US Department of Justice to appoint state, local, territorial and tribal prosecutors to serve as special assistant US attorneys to prosecute violations of federal firearms laws. Another aims to expand the reach of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the chief federal agency charged with enforcing the nation’s gun laws, by allowing the attorney general to deputize local and state law enforcement officers to act as ATF agents to investigate abusers who break federal firearms laws.To determine where those special prosecutors and law enforcement officers should focus, the legislation directs the justice department to identify at least 75 jurisdictions across the country where gun-related domestic violence is soaring and local authorities lack the resources to respond. The justice department will also establish contacts in every US attorney’s office and ATF field office to handle requests for assistance from state and local police about intimate partner violence cases involving suspects believed to have guns illegally.The updated act also instructs federal authorities to notify local law enforcement when felons and domestic abusers attempt to buy a gun illegally.The federal government doesn’t track the number of abusers who kill their intimate partners with illegal guns. As part of its investigation, Reveal tracked down at least 110 people across the US who were shot to death from 2017 through 2020 by abusers barred from possessing firearms, providing an unprecedented accounting of such killings. The pandemic has been an especially lethal period for abuse victims. Gun homicides involving intimate partners rose a stunning 25% in 2020 compared with the previous year, to the highest level in almost three decades.TopicsUS gun controlGuns and liesDomestic violenceGun crimeWomenBiden administrationUS CongressUS politicsReuse this content More