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    ‘You have imprisoned our democracy’: inside Republicans’ domination of Tennessee

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    The murder of six people at a church school in an affluent, largely white enclave of Tennessee’s largest city one year ago sparked a mass protest movement for gun control by Nashville parents. The Republican-dominated legislature met that movement with some spending on school police officers as a gesture to the outrage, a law shielding gun and ammunition manufacturers from liability as a gesture to Tennessee’s powerful gun lobby and the expulsion of the two Black lawmakers as a gesture of warning to people causing too much trouble.Other antidemocratic displays over the last year would be just as outrageous, if people outside of Tennessee were still paying attention.The temporary expulsion of Representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones was only the first cautionary tale in a saga of retribution that has continued apace, activists say. Conservative domination – maintained by gerrymandered districts, disenfranchised voters and an increasing sense of political despair – insulates Tennessee Republicans from political consequences for unpopular decisions. Challenged in public by increasing activism on the left and apocalyptic rhetoric on the right, Tennessee Republicans stopped just chipping away at democratic norms and began hammering full-on like coalminers on Rocky Top.Republicans rode the Tea Party wave of 2010 into a dominant position in Tennessee. Bit by bit over the last 14 years, they have turned Tennessee into a one-party state. About 37% of Tennesseans vote for Democrats in national elections, but Republicans hold a 75-24 supermajority in the Tennessee house and a 27-6 supermajority in the state senate – enough to override a veto and propose constitutional changes. Tennessee fails Princeton’s report card on gerrymandering. Only seven state house seats are considered competitive. No state senate seats are competitive.The last Democrat to win a statewide office in Tennessee was Governor Phil Bredesen, who left office in January 2011. All five state supreme court justices are Republican appointees.Only one of Tennessee’s nine members of Congress is a Democrat: Steve Cohen of Memphis. In 2021, Republican legislators cracked Nashville’s longstanding fifth district – held continuously by a Democrat since 1875 – into three pieces. Jim Cooper, one of the last Blue Dog Democrats, was replaced in 2022 by Andy Ogles, a Freedom Caucus Republican who denies that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 election and was one of 19 lawmakers to initially break against Kevin McCarthy’s speakership in 2023.Historically, Tennessee Republicans had a tradition of bipartisanship and relative moderation typified by former senators Lamar Alexander or Bob Corker, said Dr Sekou Franklin, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University. That’s long gone now.“The leadership in the state is not the old guard,” Franklin said. “They’re an extreme version of conservatives who believe that they have broad sovereignty to govern, in many respects irrespective of what goes on in the national government.”Voter disenfranchisement drives some of this political advantage.About 9.2 % of the adult citizen population (and 21% of Black adults) in Tennessee are barred from voting because of a felony conviction.Tennessee has one of the strictest and most opaque rights restoration processes, said Blair Bowie, director of the Restore Your Vote initiative at the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington DC-based voting-rights advocacy group. In addition to having to pay all court costs and restitution and being current on child support payments, disenfranchised voters must obtain a certificate of restoration from a probation or parole officer, or a court clerk … if they know how to do it. “There’s no application,” Bowie said. “You end up with a system where even if someone meets the criteria, they couldn’t restore their voting rights because the process is broken.”The process became even more difficult last year. Now voting rights can only be restored after clemency granted by the governor’s office or citizenship rights restored by a circuit court judge.Then in January, the Tennessee secretary of state added one new criterion: a judge must also restore a disenfranchised citizen’s right to carry a gun in order to regain the right to vote.As thousands of people began to descend on the capitol after the Nashville shooting last year, conservative lawmakers really didn’t want to endure another round of rowdy protests. The Republican majority didn’t really want to be there at all, Pearson said.“The call, or the orders from the governor about what we could do to address the issues of gun violence, was very narrow,” he said, describing a special session called by Tennessee’s governor, Bill Lee, to address criminal justice issues for mental health, public safety and – potentially – a law to take guns away from someone ruled an extreme risk.So, on day one, Republicans changed the rules.“You couldn’t have a sign in a committee room. You hear me? A piece of paper is banned,” Pearson said. “You know what you can still have in a committee room? A gun.”View image in fullscreenGuns are prohibited in the capitol, but not in the committee buildings where hearings are held, a rule the Republican-led legislature did not change despite the presence of rifle-bearing second amendment activists and far-right Proud Boys confronting gun control supporters on the street.Outside the capitol, thousands of people, including traditionally Republican voters, attended rallies, said Maryam Abolfazli, a 45-year-old international development executive who founded the civic engagement non-profit Rise and Shine Tennessee after the shootings. Parents were aghast at a legal environment that made it impossible to disarm people with mental illness before they hurt someone.“Moms came to me to tell me that they’ve never attended anything like this in their life,” she said. “This issue and this moment mobilized people in a way that they had never been mobilized.”Polling by Vanderbilt University supports Abolfazli’s observations. Three-quarters of poll respondents – including majorities of “Maga” Republicans and NRA members – expressed support for laws requiring the safe storage of guns in vehicles.At a hearing in August, Tennessee highway patrol officers began dragging out women holding up signs that said “1 KID > ALL THE GUNS” at the order of the civil justice subcommittee chair, Lowell Russell. Abolfazli was one of them.The ACLU sued on first amendment grounds to block the rules on signs after the event. The parties dismissed the suit as moot after the end of the special session.The special session ended with laws to speed up background checks and to provide free gun locks. Lawmakers also appropriated $100m in one-time spending for community mental health agencies and other mental health services, and to provide more school resource officers. But “red flag” laws and other gun safety measures were off the table, despite polling, protests and prudence.The session ended cattywampus, with Pearson and the House speaker, Cameron Sexton, shoving into one another on the floor, a sign in Pearson’s hand: “Protect Kids Not Guns.”The jostling itself was a sign of things to come.Rafiah Muhammad–McCormick’s son, Rodney Armstrong, was shot and killed in 2020 in his backyard in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, during a pool party. The murder turned her into a political activist. She wanted to talk with a Republican lawmaker in the halls of the Tennessee legislature last year, she said. It did not go well.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I introduced myself as the mother of a gun violence victim. His immediate response was, ‘Well let me stop you right there: the gun did not kill your son.’ I wasn’t even talking on a gun deal. He stopped me immediately to correct me, as a mother who lost her child.”“I felt like I was punched in the face,” she added. “You’re so adamant about being right that they ignore what you’re saying.”Getting in front of legislators isn’t hard, she said. Getting them to listen is difficult.View image in fullscreenRepublicans abandoned the new sign rules at the start of the legislative session in January. Instead, they restricted visitors without tickets from sitting on the side of the house gallery where they can observe Democrats, Pearson said.Republicans also changed the rules for debate in the house. On paper, it allows for equal time for Republicans and Democrats, but in practice it allow the house speaker to ignore requests to be recognized and for Republicans to end debate as they see fit.“The speaker does not have to recognize the person whose hand’s raised first,” Pearson said. “He gets to choose whoever he wants. He can choose a Republican who’s going to end the day by calling the question.”Lawmakers took steps to block courts from reviewing their chamber rules. In February, the house passed a bill to remove jurisdiction from circuit, chancery and other lower state courts over cases involving house and senate rules . If enacted, it would require challenges to rules like the ban on signs to go to the Tennessee supreme court or a federal judge. The bill has, so far, failed to get out of a senate committee.The Tennessee house also passed a measure in February to make the expulsion of legislators permanent, despite concerns raised by the house legislative attorney that the bill was not constitutional.Pearson was stopped mid-comment from arguing against the bill. Jones was not permitted to speak about it at all.In a conversation leaked to the Tennessee Holler of a Tennessee Republican house caucus meeting recorded after the vote to expel the Tennessee Three last year, Republicans framed their opposition in apocalyptic terms.View image in fullscreen“Everyone should recognize that the Democrats are not our friends,” said Representative Jason Zachary. “They destroy the republic and the foundation of who we are, or we preserve it. That is the reality of where we are right now, and if these last three days have not proven that, you need to find a new job.”Other Republicans shared similar sentiments.“I think the problem I have is if we don’t stick together, if you don’t believe we’re at war for our republic, with all love and respect to you, you need a different job,” said Representative Scott Cepicky in the leaked video. “The left wants Tennessee so bad, because if they get us, the south-east falls, and it’s game over for the republic.”Those same Republicans are targeting perceived centers of progressive power in the interest of advancing conservative orthodoxy, even when that runs against public sentiment.Since the Covenant school shooting, Tennessee Republicans have passed laws to fund pro-life “crisis pregnancy centers”, to ban gender-affirming care for minors, to define male and female in state law in a way that makes it impossible to change gender on driver’s licenses or birth certificates, and to bar lawsuits against teachers who do not use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns. Federal courts have blocked new laws restricting drag shows.Republicans are increasingly targeting municipal government. In the wake of the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols in 2023, Memphis and other communities created police oversight boards with the power to investigate and punish misconduct. Last week, Lee signed legislation blocking those boards and any local ordinance that limits the ability of a law enforcement agency to take all necessary steps “to prevent and detect crime and apprehend criminal offenders”.Nashville’s 40-member metro council declined to host the 2024 Republican national convention after Republican lawmakers shattered its congressional district. Republicans responded with legislation to cut the council’s numbers in half, to take over its airport authority and to replace nearly half of the local sports authority with state-appointed members. All these moves have been blocked in court.Tennessee activists have increasingly focused on local politics, observers say.“We are seeing folks show up at the school board meetings,” Abolfazli said. Democratic voters will also cross party lines in races they can’t win to keep extremists out of office, she said. “We will pick the more moderate Republican to prevent book banning.”But at the state level, the net effect of conservative power plays has been to inculcate a sense of despair on the left. This diminishes political activism and voter participation, she said.“You have so many folks who, whatever they’re being fed about it, think their vote doesn’t count,” Abolfazli said. “Nothing changes. The picture is bleak. You have imprisoned our democracy, and we can’t get the shackles off, because of the gerrymandering, the lobbying and the extremist politics.” More

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      'Dead kids can't read': Democrat slams Republican on school shootings and book bans – video

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      Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, responded angrily to Marjorie Taylor Greene, after the far-right Georgia Republican advocated that teachers be armed.

      Amid national grief and anger over the Nashville elementary school shooting, in which three children and three adults were killed, members of Congress clashed in Washington and people protested in Tennessee More

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      Senator Chris Murphy: ‘victory after victory’ is coming for US gun control

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      Senator Chris Murphy: ‘victory after victory’ is coming for US gun controlA decade after the Sandy Hook shooting, the Democrat believes the US is ready to embrace change around firearms Senator Chris Murphy believes that the tide is finally turning in favor of the gun safety movement in America. 10 years since Sandy Hook – what’s changed? Politics Weekly America special – podcastRead moreEven as Murphy acknowledges that more work is needed to address gun violence, the prominent Connecticut Democrat maintains that a growing backlash to mass shootings has brought the country to the brink of a sea change – 10 years after the devastating Sandy Hook school shooting in his home state.“We’ve built a movement in this country in the last 10 years that today, I would argue, is more powerful than the gun lobby,” Murphy said in an interview for a special episode of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast.“I think we are now poised to rack up victory after victory for gun safety,” he said.That reinvigorated movement emerged in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting and grew as subsequent atrocities sparked new activist groups and campaigns. Murphy still vividly remembers where he was when he got the news on 14 December 2012, that a shooter had attacked Sandy Hook elementary school. He was on a train platform in Bridgeport, Connecticut, preparing to take his family to New York to see the holiday decorations, when his chief of staff gave him the first fragments of news.“At first I thought it was a workplace shooting,” Murphy said. “But then, shortly before the train arrived, [we] got the news that there were children involved.”Democrats issue fresh calls for assault weapons ban after shooting tragediesRead moreMurphy soon learned that 20 young children and six staff had been killed at the school.The tragedy stunned the country but spurred millions of Americans to demand changes to gun laws, with Murphy playing a central role in the efforts.Since Sandy Hook, each time another mass shooting occurred, Murphy has taken to the Senate floor to urge his colleagues to act.“What are we doing? Why are you here if not to solve a problem as existential as this?” Murphy demanded just this May, after a gunman killed 19 children and two educators at a school in Uvalde, Texas, and a racism-driven mass shooting occurred in Buffalo, New York, the same month.“I‘m here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues: find a path forward here,” Murphy said.Murphy’s pleas for action and growing public outrage and activism finally produced results, as the Senate this year passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). Joe Biden signed the bill in June, marking the first time in nearly 30 years that the US approved a new major federal gun law. The BSCA expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers and allocated funding for mental health and crisis intervention programs, among other initiatives.A number of policies demanded by gun safety advocates, including an assault weapons ban, did not make it into the BSCA. But Murphy and his allies point to the legislation, along with widespread public support for proposals like universal background checks, to argue that America is finally ready to make significant changes.The road ahead is still difficult. In just the few weeks since Murphy spoke to the Guardian, several more mass shootings occurred, from Colorado to Virginia.Murphy is the first to admit that it will take some time for the new federal law and other state policies to take effect, and more action is needed.“We haven’t seen the murder rates or the pace of mass shootings reduce. [But] once these laws start to get passed and put into place, I hope that we’re going to see some real returns,” Murphy said.Gun safety advocates insist that more regulations can result in fewer gun deaths. One study by the group Everytown for Gun Safety non-profit found a direct correlation between states with weaker gun laws and states with the highest levels of deaths caused by guns, including homicides, suicides and accidental killings.Divisions run deep in Uvalde after school shooting: ‘If you’re not trying you’re complicit’Read moreEven so, Republican lawmakers remain largely opposed to reforming federal gun policy. Fifteen Republican senators voted for the BSCA, ensuring enough support to overcome a filibuster. But more than two-thirds of Senate Republicans still opposed it. In the House, 193 Republicans voted against the BSCA, while just 14 of them joined Democrats in supporting it.Republicans’ broad opposition will make it extremely difficult to enact additional gun laws in the near future, especially after the party took control of the House in November’s midterm elections.Murphy concedes that Senate Democrats do not currently have the votes to pass an assault weapons ban.Still, he sees encouraging signs that more Republicans are willing to defy the National Rifle Association (NRA) on gun-related votes. For years, the NRA appeared to have an unshakable hold on the party, using its influence to block any gun bill. “Ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a gun safety bill to pass the Senate with NRA opposition,” Murphy said. “Now, a whole bunch of Republican senators know that the NRA does not even represent gun owners any longer. And thus, they’re not paying as much attention.”But even as the NRA’s influence on the public and the GOP has waned, the anti-gun violence movement has encountered new hurdles. Earlier this year, the conservative-leaning US supreme Court struck down a New York law that strictly regulated carrying firearms outside the home, jeopardizing similar state policies across the country.The gun death rate also hit a 30-year high last year, as research suggests that a growing number of Americans are carrying firearms on a daily basis. And as more states allow residents to openly carry, guns are becoming a common fixture at rightwing political protests.Murphy is hopeful, however. If the 10 years between 2012 and 2022 were defined by many disappointing losses for the movement, Murphy predicts more positive change ahead.“I think you will see steady progress,” he said. “It won’t be everything that I want. We won’t get a ban on assault weapons overnight, but we’ll make regular progress. And that, I think, is what will define the next decade.”TopicsUS gun controlUS school shootingsNewtown shootingPodcastsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      March for Our Lives: thousands rally for gun reform across US – video

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      Rallies to call for gun reform were held in Washington, New York, other US cities and around the world on Saturday, seeking to increase pressure on Congress to act after a spate of mass shootings. In Washington, the son of an 86-year-old victim in the Buffalo supermarket shooting said: ‘Stop the slaughter of our most precious commodity: people.’ The March for Our Lives rallies come less than a month after 19 children and two teachers were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas

      ‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protests
      New Yorkers join march for gun reform More

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      ‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protests

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      ‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protestsThe March for Our Lives rallies come after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York

      New Yorkers join march for gun reform
      01:59Rallies for gun reform were held in Washington, New York, other US cities and around the world on Saturday, seeking to increase pressure on Congress to act following a spate of mass shootings.‘Caring and giving’: funeral for Uvalde victim held amid gun law protestsRead moreIn Washington, the son of an 86-year-old victim in the Buffalo supermarket shooting said: “Enough is enough. We will not go quietly into the night.”The March for Our Lives rallies came less than a month after 10 people were killed in the racist attack in Buffalo, New York and 19 children and two teachers were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.Other mass shootings, widely defined as shootings in which four people or more excluding the shooter are hurt or killed, have also helped put the issue center-stage.March for Our Lives was formed in 2018 after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, in which 14 students and three adults were killed. Organisers estimated a million people, mostly young, joined protests then.The group helped force Republicans in Florida to enact reforms including raising the age to buy long guns, including AR-15-style rifles, from 18 to 21; enacting a three-day gap between purchase and access; allowing trained school staff to carry guns; and putting $400m into mental health services and school security.Florida lawmakers also approved a “red flag law” that can deny firearms to individuals believed to pose a danger to themselves or others.Organisers on Saturday were focusing on smaller marches at more locations. The DC protest was expected to draw 50,000. The 2018 march filled downtown Washington with more than 200,000 people.By noon on Saturday, thousands had gathered around the Washington Monument. Protestors held signs demanding justice for the victims of Uvalde and Buffalo. Speakers included activists, family members of those killed and shooting survivors.Garnell Whitfield, son of Ruth Whitfield, an 86-year-old killed in Buffalo, told the crowd he and his family were “still in a state of shock”. When she was killed, Ruth Whitfield was buying groceries after visiting her husband at a nursing home.Happening now: March for our Lives in Buffalo #MarchForOurLivesJune11 pic.twitter.com/QHPtmTzbor— Gabriel Elizondo (@elizondogabriel) June 11, 2022
      “We are being naive to think that it couldn’t happen to us,” Garnell Whitfield said. “Enough is enough. We will not go quietly into the night as victims. We hear a lot about prayer, and prayer is wonderful and we thank you for your prayers. But prayer is not a noun, it’s a verb. It’s an action. You pray, then you get up and you work.”The parents of Joaquin Oliver, a 17-year-old killed in the Parkland shooting, wore shirts bearing a picture of their son.“I was hoping to avoid attending a march like this ever again,” Manuel Oliver said, standing next to his wife, Patricia. “Our elected officials betrayed us and have avoided the responsibility to end gun violence.”The crowd heard from two founders of March for Our Lives, David Hogg and X Gonzalez, both Parkland survivors.“All Americans have a right to not be shot, a right to safety,” Hogg said. “Nowhere in the constitution is unrestricted access to weapons of war a guaranteed right.“We’ve seen the damage AR-15s do. When we look at the innocent children of Uvalde, tiny coffins horrify us. Tiny coffins filled with small, mutilated and decapitated bodies. That should fill us with rage and demands for change.”Hogg emphasized state and local gun legislation passed since 2018. He noted a red flag law that saw a court-ordered disarming of an individual who sent his mother a death threat. He encouraged the crowd to bring the issue of gun control to the polls.“If our government can’t do anything to stop 19 kids from being killed and slaughtered in their own school and decapitated, it’s time to change who is in government,” Hogg said.Gonzalez gave an impassioned rebuke to Congress.“I’ve spent these past four years doing my best to keep my rage in check. To keep my profanity at a minimum so everyone can understand and appreciate the arguments I’m trying to make, but I have reached my fucking limit. We are being murdered. Cursing will not rob us of our innocence.“You say that children are the future, and you never listen to what we say once we’re old enough to disagree with you, you decaying degenerates. You really want to protect children, pass some fucking gun laws.”Gonzalez said Congress had started treating mass shootings as a “fact of life”, like natural disasters. She criticized politicians for their relationships with gun lobbyists, saying: “We saw you cash those fucking checks. We as children did the heavy lifting for you. Act your age, not your shoe-size, Congress. You ought to be ashamed.”Yolanda King, who spoke at the 2018 March for Our Lives rally when she was nine, spoke of hope for action after Uvalde and Buffalo. Now 14, she evoked her grandfather, Martin Luther King Jr.“My grandfather was taken from the world by gun violence. Six years after his death, his mother, my great-grandmother, was killed in church during Sunday service. We have all been touched by tragedy, we have all been lifted up by hope.“Today we’re telling Congress, we’re telling the gun lobby and we’re telling the world this time is different. This time is different because we’ve had enough. We’ve had enough of having more guns than people here in America. Together, we can carve that stone of love and hope out of that mountain of death and despair. Together we can build a gun-free world for all people.Dozens of other rallies saw protesters call for stronger legislation. In Buffalo, hundreds protested outside the supermarket where the shooting happened. The group held a moment of silence and chanted “Not one more”.March for Our Lives has called for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks for gun purchases and a national licensing system.The US House has passed bills that would raise the age limit to buy semi-automatic weapons and establish a federal “red flag” law. But previous such initiatives have stalled or been watered down in the Senate. The new marches were to take place a day after senators left Washington without reaching agreement in guns talks.On Saturday, Joe Biden tweeted his support.“I join them by repeating my call to Congress: do something,” the president said, adding that Congress must ban assault weapons, strengthen background checks, pass red flag laws and repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity to liability.“We can’t fail the American people again,” the president wrote. More

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      US House passes gun control bill but it faces defeat in Senate

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      US House passes gun control bill but it faces defeat in SenateSweeping legislation would raise age limit for buying a semiautomatic rifle and put curbs on ammunition sales The US House of Representatives has passed a wide-ranging gun control bill in response to recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, but the proposals have almost no chance of being approved by the Senate and becoming law.The bill would raise the age limit for buying a semi-automatic rifle and prohibit the sale of ammunition magazines with a capacity of more than 15 rounds. The legislation passed by a mostly party-line vote of 223-204. It has almost no chance of becoming law as the Senate pursues negotiations focused on improving mental health programmes, bolstering school security and enhancing background checks. But the House bill does give Democratic lawmakers a chance to frame for voters in November where they stand on policies that polls show are widely supported. “We can’t save every life, but my God, shouldn’t we try? America we hear you and today in the House we are taking the action you are demanding,” said Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat. “Take note of who is with you and who is not.”The vote came after a House committee heard wrenching testimony from recent shooting victims and family members, including from an 11-year-old girl, Miah Cerrillo, who covered herself with a dead classmate’s blood to avoid being shot at Uvalde elementary school. 01:59The seemingly never-ending cycle of mass shootings in the US has rarely stirred Congress to act. But the shooting of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde has revived efforts in a way that has lawmakers from both parties talking about the need to respond. “It’s sickening, it’s sickening that our children are forced to live in this constant fear,” said the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.Pelosi said the House vote would “make history by making progress”. But i is unclear where the House measure will go after Wednesday’s vote, given that Republicans were adamant in their opposition. “The answer is not to destroy the second amendment, but that is exactly where the Democrats want to go,“ said the Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio. The work to find common ground is mostly taking place in the Senate, where support from 10 Republicans will be needed to get a bill signed into law. Nearly a dozen Democratic and Republican senators met privately for an hour on Wednesday in hope of reaching a framework for compromise legislation by the end of the week. Participants said more conversations were needed about a plan that is expected to propose modest steps. In a measure of the political peril that efforts to curb guns pose for Republicans, five of the six lead Senate GOP negotiators do not face re-election until 2026. They are senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The sixth, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, is retiring in January. It is also notable that none of the six is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.While Cornyn has said the talks are serious, he has not joined the chorus of Democrats saying the outlines of a deal could be reached by the end of this week. He told reporters on Wednesday that he considered having an agreement before Congress begins a recess in late June to be “an aspirational goal”. The House bill stitches together a variety of proposals Democrats had introduced before the recent shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde. The suspects in the shootings at Uvalde elementary school and the Buffalo supermarket were both 18, authorities say, when they bought the semiautomatic weapons used in the attacks. The bill would increase the minimum age to buy such weapons to 21. “A person under 21 cannot buy a Budweiser. We should not let a person under 21 buy an AR-15 weapon of war,“ said Ted Lieu, a California Democrat. Republicans have noted that a US appeals court ruling last month found California’s ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 was unconstitutional. “This is unconstitutional and it’s immoral. Why is it immoral? Because we’re telling 18, 19 and 20-year-olds to register for the draft. You can go die for your country. We expect you to defend us, but we’re not going to give you the tools to defend yourself and your family,” said Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The House bill also includes incentives designed to increase the use of safe gun storage devices and creates penalties for violating safe storage requirements, providing for a fine and imprisonment of up to five years if a gun is not properly stored and is subsequently used by a minor to injure or kill themselves or another individual. It also builds on executive actions banning fast-action “bump stock” devices and “ghost guns” that are assembled without serial numbers. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, hailed the House bill, tweeting: “We continue to work hard with both parties to save lives and stand up for families.” Five Republicans voted for the bill: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Chris Jacobs of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Fred Upton of Michigan. Only Fitzpatrick is seeking re-election. On the Democratic side, Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon were the only no votes. Schrader lost his re-election attempt in the Democratic primary. Golden faces a competitive election in November. The House is also expected to approve a bill on Thursday that would allow families, police and others to ask federal courts to order the removal of firearms from people who are believed to be at extreme risk of harming themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently have such “red flag laws”. Under the House bill, a judge could issue an order to temporarily remove and store the firearms until a hearing can be held no longer than two weeks later to determine whether the firearms should be returned or kept for a specific period.TopicsUS gun controlHouse of RepresentativesUS school shootingsTexas school shootingUS politicsBuffalo shootingUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Lexi’s voice demands action’: family of Uvalde victims beg Congress to address gun violence

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      ‘Lexi’s voice demands action’: family of Uvalde victims beg Congress to address gun violenceKimberly Rubio wept as she described the harrowing events of 24 May and asked for strengthened gun laws from Congress 01:59Kimberly and Felix Rubio went twice to Robb Elementary school on the morning of 24 May, first to attend an end-of-year awards ceremony for their youngest son and then to attend one for their daughter, Lexi, who was in the fourth grade.They beamed with pride as Lexi was honored with the “good citizen” award and recognized for earning straight As. To celebrate, they promised to take her for ice cream later that night.“In the reel that keeps scrolling across my memories, she turns her head and smiles back at us to acknowledge my promise,” Kimberly Rubio told a House oversight committee via video link on Wednesday. “And then we left.”Uvalde survivor, 11, tells House hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood Read moreThrough tears she continued: “I left my daughter at that school and that decision will haunt me for the rest of my life.”Felix Rubio sat silently next to his wife, eyes downcast as she described the harrowing events that followed: their desperate, hours-long search for their children. Relief when a teacher said their son was safe, and the moment they realized Lexi, their “intelligent, compassionate and athletic” daughter who dreamed of attending law school would not live to graduate the fourth grade.“That opportunity was taken from her; she was taken from us,” her mother said.Lexi Rubio was among the 19 students and two teachers killed when a gunman armed with an assault-style rifle stormed a pair of adjoining classrooms and opened fire. She was 10.“We don’t want you to think of Lexi as just a number,” Kimberly Rubio said. “So today we stand for Lexi, and her voice demands action.”The oversight committee hearing on gun violence was scheduled in the wake of successive mass shootings in recent weeks that have claimed the lives of dozens of Americans in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas, and elsewhere. The committee heard from a pediatrician, a police commissioner, the mayor of New York and experts on the issue of gun violence, who almost uniformly echoed the Rubios’ call for action.But perhaps the most heart-rending testimony came from 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader at Robb elementary school. In a pre-taped video, Miah, wearing a shirt that said “live by the sun” with sunflowers, recounted how the gunman appeared in their classroom as they scrambled to hide behind desks and the rows of backpacks. He told her teacher “goodnight” before shooting her in the head, she said.The gunman then shot her classmates and then her friend who was huddling next to her. “I thought he would come back to the room, so I grabbed blood and put it all over me,” she said.Roy Guerrero, the sole pediatrician in Uvalde, said the horror of tending to the small bodies “pulverized” by bullets fired by an AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon, embedded memories he said “no prayer could ever relieve”.Guerrero said he could save children from broken bones and bacterial infections, but only Congress could save them from the scourge of gun violence.“Making sure that our children are safe from guns, that’s the job of politicians and leaders,” he said, adding: “We are bleeding out and you are not there.”The Rubios pleaded with Congress to change gun laws and prevent more communities from experiencing the overwhelming tragedy that has consumed Uvalde, where Lexi’s classmates are still being buried.Kimberly Rubio asked Congress to raise the age to 21 for purchases of military-style assault rifles, like the one that killed Lexi, as well as for strengthening background checks on gun buyers and repealing the immunity that shields gun manufacturers from being held liable.As lawmakers chase an elusive deal on gun control, Kimberly Rubio urged a consensus: “At this moment, we ask for progress.”Appearing on Capitol Hill, Miah’s father, Miguel Cerrillo, said something had to change. In brief, tearful testimony, he told the committee that the shooting had changed his daughter.“I came because I could’ve lost my baby girl,” he said. “She’s not the same little girl that I used to play with and run with … because she was Daddy’s little girl.”“I wish something would change,” he concluded, breaking down in tears. Congresswoman Rashida Talib led him out of the hearing room by hand.The still-raw display of emotions underscored the depths of America’s gun violence crisis. But it also emphasized the gaping partisan divide that simmered and then flared on the floor of the House ahead of what was expected to be a party-line vote on a suite of gun reform measures.“It is my hope that all my colleagues will listen with an open heart as gun violence survivors and loved ones recount one of the darkest days of their lives,” said congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat of New York and the chair of the oversight committee. “This hearing is ultimately about saving lives, and I hope it will galvanize my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass legislation to do just that.”The committee also heard from Zeneta Everhart, who recounted in graphic detail how close she came to losing her son, Zaire Goodman, who was shot in the neck during a racist mass shooting at the Tops Friendly supermarket in Buffalo where he worked. Thirteen people were shot in the assault, 10 fatally.“Let me paint a picture for you: my son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back and another on his left leg. Caused by an exploding bullet from an AR-15,” she said. “As I clean those wounds I can feel pieces of that bullet in his back.”“I want you to picture that exact scenario for one of your children,” she said. “This should not be your story or mine.”Everhart said it was naive to say, as so many do in the wake of senseless acts of violence, that the attacks do not represent “who we are as a nation”. Speaking as the descendant of enslaved Americans, she said the racist violence that erupted in a Buffalo supermarket last month had ugly roots in the nation’s founding.“Hear me clearly,” she said. “This is exactly who we are.”The committee also heard from Lucretia Hughes, a conservative activist invited to testify by Republicans. In fervent remarks to the committee, she said her son was killed in 2016 by a convicted felon who had illegally obtained a firearm. Gun control laws, which she described as “steeped in racism”, did little to save her son, she said.“Y’all are delusional if you think it’s going to keep us safe,” Hughes said of the calls for new firearms restrictions. Citing the widely-criticized response by law enforcement officers in Uvalde, she added: “We must prepare to be our own first responders.”But children and teachers shouldn’t have to bear that responsibility, Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, told the committee. The number of students who will never get to “live into their brilliance” is unconscionable, and yet it fails to capture the totality of the long-lasting physical and emotional damage wrought by these attacks, she said.“Students across our country are writing goodbye notes and wills – just in case,” she exclaimed. “Unfortunately their fear is perfectly rational.”In the video to the committee, Miah Cerrillo was asked if she feels safe at school.Miah shook her head no.“Why not?”“Cause,” she said slowly, fidgeting as children often do, “I don’t want it to happen again.”“You think it’s going to happen again?”Miah nods her head. Yes, she thinks it will.Kimberly Rubio also fears it will happen again. But she hopes, in honor of her daughter, that it can happen less, that, perhaps, with new laws and new restrictions, there will be fewer mothers in the future whose children go to school and never come home.“Somewhere out there, there’s a mom listening to our testimony and thinking, ‘I can’t even imagine their pain,’ not knowing that our reality will one day be hers,” she said. “Unless we act now.”TopicsUS school shootingsTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Uvalde survivor, 11, tells House hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood

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      Uvalde survivor, 11, tells House hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood Miah Cerrillo recounts at gun violence hearing how she watched as her teacher and friends were shot and acted quickly to save herself01:59An 11-year-old survivor of the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas testified before the House oversight committee on Wednesday, as lawmakers continued to try to reach a compromise on gun control legislation after a series of devastating mass shootings.‘It all happened too fast’: injured Uvalde teacher recounts school shootingRead moreThe House hearing came two weeks after an 18-year-old opened fire at Robb elementary school, killing 19 children and two teachers, and three weeks after 10 people were killed at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader at the Uvalde school, recounted how she watched as her teacher and friends were shot and acted quickly to save herself. Miah covered herself in a friend’s blood and played dead until she was able to reach her teacher’s phone and call police.In her recorded testimony, Miah said she no longer felt safe at school.“Because I don’t want it to happen again,” she said.The slow police response to the Uvalde shooting has been the focus of intense scrutiny and criticism.Miah was joined by other families affected by gun violence, including Felix and Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter Lexi died in Uvalde, and Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire Goodman was injured in Buffalo. Ten people were killed there, in a supermarket by another gunman with an AR-15-style rifle.“We don’t want you to think of Lexi as just a number,” Rubio told the committee. “She was intelligent, compassionate and athletic. So today we stand for Lexi, and as her voice we demand action.”Gun control experts and New York mayor Eric Adams also testified at the hearing on the need to restrict access to firearms and, by extension, reduce violent crime.“It is high noon in America, time for every one of us to decide where we stand on the issue of gun violence,” Adams said. “I am here today to ask every one of you, and everyone in this Congress, to stand with me to end gun violence and protect the lives of all Americans.”But the emotional and searing testimony did not stop Republicans on the committee rehashing talking points about why they oppose gun restrictions.“Kneejerk reactions to impose gun control policies that seek to curtail our constitutional right to bear arms are not the answer,” said James Comer, the Republican ranking member.The Democratic chair of the committee, Carolyn Maloney, criticized Republican efforts to deflect attention from the need to reform gun laws.“They have blamed violent video games. They have blamed family values. They have even blamed open doors. They have blamed everything but guns,” Maloney said. “But we know the United States does not have a monopoly on mental illness, video games or any other excuse. What America does have is widespread access to guns.”The House was working on Wednesday to pass gun control proposals which would raise the age requirement to buy semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21 and enact a federal extreme risk protection order for gun access, known as a “red-flag” law.The House has already passed bills to expand background checks for firearm purchases and increase the time gun sellers must wait for checks to be completed.But all those bills are unlikely to pass the 50-50 Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass most legislation. A bipartisan group of senators has been negotiating over a potential compromise on gun control, but any legislation that can make it through the Senate will probably be far narrower than proposals approved by the House.Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, indicated on Tuesday that Democrats’ proposal to raise the age requirement for purchasing semi-automatic weapons was unlikely to be included in the Senate bill.“That can be in the discussion, but right now we’re trying to work on things where we have agreement,” Tillis told CNN. “We’ve got a lot of people in the discussion. We’ve got to get 60 votes.”Despite such disputes, senators have voiced confidence that they can craft a compromise bill. Members of the group met again Wednesday, and John Cornyn, a Republican of Texas, expressed hope that they would soon strike an agreement.“I think it’s reasonable to expect in the next couple weeks, maybe this work period, that that would be – I’m just speaking for myself – an aspirational goal,” Cornyn said. “But obviously, we have 100 senators who are free agents, and they can do anything they want on whatever timetable.”02:08The families whose lives have been forever altered by gun violence came to the House on Wednesday with specific demands.Everhart asked for more schools to teach Black history so children would understand the violent history of white supremacy, given that the Buffalo shooter voiced support for racist conspiracy theories.Rubio also called on lawmakers to ban assault rifles, raise the age requirement to purchase semi-automatic weapons and enact a national “red flag” law.“We understand that for some reason, to some people – to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns – that guns are more important than children. So at this moment, we ask for progress,” Rubio said.“Somewhere out there, there’s a mom listening to our testimony thinking, ‘I can’t even imagine their pain’ – not knowing that our reality will one day be hers unless we act now.”TopicsUS school shootingsTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More