Are AR-15’s weapons of war? Here’s what a former Fort Benning commander had to say

Ledger Enquirer

Are AR-15’s weapons of war? Here’s what a former Fort Benning commander had to say

Mona Moore – June 4, 2022

A former Fort Benning commander took a stand in the country’s ongoing debate on gun control with a thread of tweets posted Thursday evening.

“Let me state unequivocally — For all intents and purposes, the AR-15 and rifles like it are weapons of war,” retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton wrote on Twitter.

The retired major general went on to write the AR-15 was the civilian version of the M16, a close relation to the M4 rifles currently used by the military.

“It is a very deadly weapon with the same basic functionality that our troops use to kill the enemy,” Eaton wrote.

Eaton broke down the differences between the M16, M4 and AR-15 in the thread of seven tweets. He said those opposed to assault weapon bans were playing with semantics, when they claimed any meaningful difference existed between military weapons and AR-15 rifles.

“…The AR-15 is ACCURATELY CALLED a ‘weapon of war.’ … Don’t take the bait when anti-gun-safety folks argue about it,” he wrote. “They know it’s true. Now you do too.”

The tweets came on the heels of one of the country’s deadliest weeks in recent history. In the days since the Uvalde, Texas shooting, 20 mass shootings have claimed the lives of 17 people and injured 88 others, according to Gun Violence Archive. The researchers defined a mass shooting as any shooting with four or more victims shot, either injured or killed.

Uvalde, Texas: Can this be a beginning of real change to our gun nightmare?

Written by one of the Uvalde victims mothers:

June 1, 2022


“The chicken soup in her thermos stayed hot all day while her body grew cold. She never had a chance to eat the baloney and cheese sandwich. I got up 10 minutes early to cut the crust off a sandwich that will never be eaten.

Should I call and cancel her dental appointment next Wednesday? Will the office automatically know? Should I still take her brother to the appointment since I already took the day off work?  Last time Carlos had one cavity and Amerie asked him what having a cavity feels like. She will never experience having a cavity.  She will never experience having a cavity filled. The cavities in her body now are from bullets, and they can never be filled.

What if she had asked to use the bathroom in the hall a few minutes prior to the gunman entering the room, locking the door, and slaughtering all inside? Was she one of the first kids in the room to die or one of the last?  These are the things they don’t tell us. Which of her friends did she see die before her?  Hannah?  Emily? Both? Did their blood and brains splatter across her Girl Scout uniform?  She just earned a Fire Safety patch. What if it got ruined? There are no patches for school shootings.

Was she practicing writing GIRAFFE the moment he walked in her classroom, barricaded the door and opened fire? She keeps forgetting the silent “e” at the end. We studied this past weekend, and now she doesn’t need to take the spelling test on Friday. None of them will take the spelling test on Friday. There will be no spelling test on Friday. Because there is no one to give it. And no one to take it.

These are the things I will never know:

I will never know at what age she would have started her period. I will never know if she had wisdom teeth. (Or if they would have come in crooked.)I will never know who she spoke to last.  Was it the teacher?  Was it her table partner, George? She says George is always talking, even during silent reading. Did she even scream?

She screamed the lyrics to We Don’t Talk About Bruno at 7:58 AM as she hopped out of my car in the circle drive.  She always sings the Dolores part, her sister sings Mirabel and I’m Bruno. “And I wanted you to know that your bro loves you so Let it in, let it out, let it rain, let it snow, let it goooooo……..”Did the killer ever see Encanto?  

Could we have sat in the same row of seats, on the same day, munching popcorn?  What if Amerie brushed past him in the aisle? Did she politely say, “Excuse me,” to the boy who would someday blow her eye sockets apart? Was he chomping on bubble gum as he destroyed them all? If so, what flavor?  Cinnamon? Wintergreen?

Was the radio on as he drove to massacre them?  Or did he drive in silence? Was the sun in his eyes as he got out of the car in the parking lot?  Did his pockets hold sunglasses or just ammunition? These are the things I will never know.

There is laundry in the dryer that is Amerie’s. Clothes I never need to fold again. Clothes that are right now warmer than her body. How will I ever be able to take them out of the dryer and where will I put them if not back in her dresser?  I can never wash clothes in that dryer again. It will stand silent; a tomb for her pajamas and knee socks. 

Her cousin’s graduation party is next month and I already signed her name in the card.  Should I cross it out? That will be the last card I ever sign her name to. The dog will live longer than she will.  The dog will be 12 next month and she will be eternally 10. What will the school do with her backpack? It was brand new this year and she attached her collection of key-chains like cherished trophies to its zipper. A beaded 4 leaf clover she made on St. Patty’s Day. A red heart from a Walk-a-Thon. A neon ice cream cone from her friend’s birthday party.

Now there will be no more key-chains to attach. No more trophies. Surely they can’t throw it out? Would they throw them all out? 19 backpacks, full of stickered assignments and rain boots, all taken to the dumpster behind the school?  Is there even a dumpster big enough to contain all that life? 

These are the things someone else knows:

The moment the semiautomatic rifle was put into his hands–was “Bring Me a Higher Love” playing in the gun store? “Get off my Cloud” by the Rolling Stones? Maybe it was Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”  Did the Outback Oasis salesperson hesitate as they slid him 375 rounds of ammunition? not my problem my kids are grown and out of school Or I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to worry about their skulls getting blown across the naptime mat. Or fingers crossed there’s a good guy with an equally powerful gun that will stop this gun if needed. Did they sense any danger or were they more focused on picking that morning’s Raisin Bran out of their teeth?

My Nana used to say, “Pay attention to what whispers, and you won’t have to when it starts screaming.” But now I know there is a more deafening sound than children screaming. More horrific even, than automatic rifles on a Tuesday morning.

I beg the world:

Pay attention to what’s screaming today, or be forced to endure the silence that follows.”

‘Whatever I want with my guns’: GOP lawmaker pulls out handguns during House hearing on gun control

USA Today

‘Whatever I want with my guns’: GOP lawmaker pulls out handguns during House hearing on gun control

Candy Woodall – June 3, 2022

WASHINGTON – Florida Congressman Greg Steube pulled out multiple handguns during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday aimed at curbing mass shootings.

The Republican congressman appeared by video conference from his Florida home, arguing that Democrats are trying to strip Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms by restricting the ammunition they use.

“Don’t let them fool you that they’re not attempting to take away your ability to purchase handguns,” Steube said. “They are using the magazine ban to do it.”

The congressman said his Sig Sauer P365 XL comes with a 15-round magazine and would be banned if the Democrats’ “Protecting Our Kids Act” passes. The congressman also said the Glock 19 would be banned.

He also displayed his Sig Sauer P226 and Sig Sauer 320.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., holds up his own handgun as he speaks via videoconference as the House Judiciary Committee holds an emergency meeting to advance a series of Democratic gun control measures, called the Protecting Our Kids Act, in response to mass shootings in Texas and New York, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 2, 2022.
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., holds up his own handgun as he speaks via videoconference as the House Judiciary Committee holds an emergency meeting to advance a series of Democratic gun control measures, called the Protecting Our Kids Act, in response to mass shootings in Texas and New York, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 2, 2022.

The display of weapons added to the tension of a legislative hearing packed with partisan and personal broadsides over an issue that has deeply divided Ameicans.

As Steube demonstrated his firearms, Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, of Texas, could be heard cutting into his speech.

“I hope the gun is not loaded,” she said.

Steube sharply responded: “I’m at my house. I can do whatever I want with my guns.”

Video: Biden calls for ‘common sense’ gun reform

Biden calls for ‘common sense’ gun reform amid a series of deadly mass shootings

President Biden addressed gun control as mass shootings continue to plague the nation’s schools, stores, and most recently, a hospital.

The congressman also drew criticism from Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.

“This is who Republicans are. Kids are being buried and they’re bragging about how many guns they own during our gun safety hearing,” he said. “They are not serious. They are a danger to our kids.”

Candy Woodall is a Congress reporter for USA TODAY. 

NY passes bill raising age to buy, own semi-automatic rifles

Associated Press

NY passes bill raising age to buy, own semi-automatic rifles

Marina Villeneuve- June 2, 2022

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s legislature voted Thursday to ban anyone under age 21 from buying or possessing a semi-automatic rifle, a major change to state firearm laws pushed through less than three weeks after an 18-year-old used one of the guns to kill 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo.

The bill raising the age limit is the most significant part of a package of gun control measures announced earlier this week by Democratic legislative leaders and Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Other new legislation will restrict civilian purchases of bullet-resistant armor, which was worn by the killer in Buffalo, and require new guns to be equipped with microstamping technology that can help law enforcement investigators trace bullets to particular firearms.

The age limit bill passed the Senate along party lines, 43-20, and in the Assembly 102-47, and will now head to Hochul’s desk for her signature.

New York already requires people to be 21 to possess a handgun. Younger people would still be allowed to have other types of rifles and shotguns under the new law, but would be unable to buy the type of fast-firing rifles used by the 18-year-old gunmen in the mass shootings in Buffalo and at a Texas elementary school.

New York vows change this Gun Violence Awareness Month

New York State is expected to pass sweeping gun control legislation. CBS2’s John Dias has the details.

Besides raising the legal purchase age to 21, the bill would also require anyone buying a semi-automatic rifle to get a license — something now only required for handguns.

Many Republicans opposed the new gun limitations, arguing they would inconvenience law-abiding firearms owners and could be easily circumvented by people determined to get weapons.

Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Bronx Democrat, said he had no problem putting up obstacles.

“It is meant to be a hassle to those folks who might want to get their hands quickly on something with which they could mass murder people,” he said.

The age limit change would largely impact areas outside New York City, which already requires permits to possess, carry and purchase any type of firearm and prohibits most applicants under 21.

New York would join a handful of states — including Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Vermont and Washington – that require buyers to be at least 21 instead of 18 to purchase some types of long guns. Similar legislation has been proposed in Utah.

Legal fights over the legislation are expected. New York’s law limiting who can get a handgun license is already the subject of a lawsuit now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

California’s attempt to raise the legal buying age for semi-automatic weapons has also been challenged.

On May 11, a U.S. appeals court panel in northern California ruled 2-1 that the state’s ban on the sale of semi-automatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional. The two judges who ruled in the majority were part of Republican President Donald Trump’s wave of conservative-approved nominees that reshaped the famously liberal court.

The National Rifle Association is also challenging Florida’s ban on the sale of rifles and other firearms to adults under age 21, which was passed in the wake of a 2018 shooting that killed 17 students and staff at a high school in Parkland.

Semi-automatic rifles automatically load each bullet after firing, although firing requires pulling the trigger for each round. That makes it possible for mass murderers to kill more people in a short amount of time.

Previously, people as young as 16 could possess long guns like rifles and shotguns without a license in New York, although they had to be 18 to buy one from a federally licensed firearms dealer.

Sen. Alexis Weik, a Republican of Long Island, pointed out that an 18 year old could still travel to another state and buy a semi-automatic rifle.

Sen. Kevin Thomas, a Long Island Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors, replied, “Are you advocating for federal gun control? Because that what’s needed.”

New York lawmakers were also passing legislation expanding the list of people who can apply for an extreme risk protection order, a court order that can temporarily prohibit someone from purchasing or possessing a firearm if they are believed to be a danger to themselves or others.

“Even as we take action to protect New Yorkers, we recognize that this is a nationwide problem. I once again urge Congress to seize this moment and pass meaningful gun violence prevention measures. We have no time to waste,” Hochul said in a statement.

I served in Vietnam, no child should experience the horror of military weapons as I did

The Courier Journal

I served in Vietnam, no child should experience the horror of military weapons as I did

Wes Kendall – May 30, 2022

Editor’s note: this story details historic violence and connects it to the recent massacre in Uvalde, Texas, which some readers may find upsetting.

We are again in another horrible, tragic moment. Our school children were murdered by a gunman with an assault rifle.

On this Memorial Day, it brings it all back for me to a place I do not want to go. Even though I was awarded a Bronze Star while there, some of it is still very painful. But for all of us who love this nation, we feel we must stand up and be counted.

In Vietnam, I carried an M-16 and I was assigned to the 7th Psychological Operations Battalion in Da Nang, South Vietnam. We made propaganda leaflets and dropped them from airplanes. Hoping they would persuade the enemy to surrender.

After battles, our soldiers assembled enemy bodies for a body count. I was assigned to photograph them for new leaflets, describing the battle and their friend’s death. Nothing was more shocking than to see the results of arms and legs blown off or bodies cut in half. Close-up views of what assault weapons were meant to do. Kill people.

Wes Kendall In Vietnam. He carried an M-16 and was assigned 7th Psychological Operation Battalion in Da Nang, South Vietnam
Wes Kendall In Vietnam. He carried an M-16 and was assigned 7th Psychological Operation Battalion in Da Nang, South Vietnam

Therefore, I understand why DNA had to be provided for some of the small children in Texas. I’ve seen and photographed the results of assault weapons.

When I thought back about how the horrors of war, what I saw in Vietnam and that same thing had happened to our young children in school, it became too much. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is what we go to wars over. The protection of our family and nation is what it’s all about.

I cannot remain silent when I see our, so-called leaders, put more importance on guns than they do the safety of our people.

Fifty Republican senators are responsible for nothing being done on gun control, or restrictions on assault weapons in the U.S. I suggest those senators be required to go to the morgue in Texas and see, firsthand, what their love for power and weapons has accomplished and then explain to us why it is more important than the lives of our school children.

More: Texas shooting raises pressure on Mitch McConnell to pass gun laws. Why it will likely fail

Why are these 50 republicans so adamant about protecting the unborn, from fertilization to delivery? But after birth, do nothing to protect them from gunmen who murder them in schools? They only deliver lip service. Statements, that we as parents can recite, word for word. “Need more teachers with guns,” or “more funds for mental health.” Your actions speak loud and clear and your words are totally meaningless.

Senators, you should see in person, what your precious handy work and stalling tactics have achieved. To see small children – cut beyond recognition. If that doesn’t affect your opinion nothing will. I know that will never happen because that takes courage, integrity, and responsibility and you have none.

Our only solution is to seek out those politicians responsible for this problem and vote them out of office. As voters, this should be our number one priority on the ballot. Stop the killing of our children. Then your replacement can work and help make laws that will help keep our citizens from being killed.

Wes Kendall
Wes Kendall

This is not about taking away your guns — it always comes to that argument — no one wants to take away your guns. It’s only about removing military-style weapons from the public that should never have been there in the first place. If this had been done by a terrorist attack on our school children – something would have been done immediately.

Wes Kendall is an artist, Vietnam Veteran and Bronze Star recipient who lives in Louisville.

What can Australia teach us about guns and gun control?

CBS News

What can Australia teach us about guns and gun control?

CBSNews – May 29, 2022

Carolyn Loughton flung herself on top of her daughter when a gunman with a high-powered rifle opened fire on a group of tourists in Australia, but it was not enough to save Sarah’s life. The shooting, in a café in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur in April 1996, resulted in 35 people killed, and another 23 wounded.

Although it happened 26 years ago, telling the story decades later still makes Loughton shake.

Correspondent Seth Doane asked Loughton, “What’s it like being in a mass shooting?”

“It’s beyond frightening; it’s haunting,” she replied. “And for every bullet that’s fired, that’s a life gone. And bang! There’s another life gone. And bang! There’s another life gone. And bang! And when is it gonna be my turn?”

Loughton was shot, and did not know for hours her daughter had died. Sarah had just turned 15.

“It’s said that when you lose your parents, you lose your past,” Loughton said. “When you lose your child, you lose your future.”

Carolyn Loughton was wounded in the mass shooting at Port Arthur, Tasmania in 1996. Her daughter, Sarah, died.  / Credit: CBS News
Carolyn Loughton was wounded in the mass shooting at Port Arthur, Tasmania in 1996. Her daughter, Sarah, died. / Credit: CBS News

The massacre rocked Australia. It came just six weeks after a new prime minister had been elected.

“I thought to myself, if I don’t use the authority of this newly-acquired office to do something, then the Australian people are entitled to think, ‘Well, this bloke’s not up to much,'” said John Howard. So, the then-prime minister, a conservative politician and close friend of George W. Bush, pushed through sweeping gun control legislation just 12 days after the shooting.

“The hardest things to do in politics often involve taking away rights and privileges from your own supporters,” Howard said.

The tough new laws banned the sale and importation of all automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns; forced people to present a legitimate reason, and wait 28 days, to buy a firearm; and – perhaps most significantly – called for a massive, mandatory gun-buyback. Australia’s government confiscated and destroyed nearly 700,000 firearms, reducing the number of gun-owning households by half.

Howard told Doane, “People used to say to me, ‘You violated my human rights by taking away my gun.’ And I’d tell them, ‘I understand that. Will you please understand the argument, the greatest human right of all is to live a safe life without fear of random murder?'”

Australia's National Firearms Agreement banned certain types of weapons, and instituted a gun buyback program for automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns; nearly 700,000 guns were taken and destroyed. The law also created a nationwide firearms registry, and required a 28-day waiting period for gun sales.  / Credit: CBS News
Australia’s National Firearms Agreement banned certain types of weapons, and instituted a gun buyback program for automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns; nearly 700,000 guns were taken and destroyed. The law also created a nationwide firearms registry, and required a 28-day waiting period for gun sales. / Credit: CBS News

If we tally mass shootings that have killed four or more people, in the United States there have been well over 100 since the Port Arthur tragedy. But in Australia, there has been just one in the 26 years since their gun laws were passed. Plus, gun homicides have decreased by 60%.

Howard said, “It is incontestable that gun-related homicides have fallen quite significantly in Australia, incontestable.”

Senator David Leyonhjelm left Howard’s political party in protest over the strict gun laws. He insists they’ve had little effect. “It’s clutching at straws,” he said of the reasoning behind the gun laws. “John Howard just simply didn’t like guns.

“There could’ve been something done about keeping firearms out of the hands of people with a definite violent potential. But instead, all firearm owners were made to pay the price,” Leyonhjelm said. “I don’t think there’s any relationship between the availability of guns and the level of violence.”

Doane asked Howard to respond to critics who say changes in gun deaths did not happen because of the legislation.

“Well, I can say that, because all the surveys indicate it,” he replied. “The number of deaths from mass shootings, gun-related homicide has fallen, gun related suicide has fallen. Isn’t that evidence? Or are we expected to believe that that was all magically going to happen? Come on!”

Locking up guns and ammunition in separate safes is another regulation, as are surprise inspections by police. Lawyer and winemaker Greg Melick showed Doane where he keeps his weapons and ammunition. Melick had to part with some of his prized guns in the buyback.

Doane asked, “How many firearms do you still own?”

“I knew you were gonna ask me that question. I should’ve checked. I don’t know!”

The answer? About two-dozen, which he uses for sport, hunting and shooting pests on his vineyard. Melick sees gun ownership not as a right but a privilege. “I’d be very uncomfortable going back to the way it was before, when anybody could go in and buy a firearm,” he said.

“Really? Why?”

“Quite frankly, I find it surprising that you, as an American, ask me a question like that. It’s just bizarre – the number of people getting killed in the United States. And you have these ridiculous arguments: ‘Well, people carry guns so they can defend themselves.'”

“But this is being said by a gun owner, you, someone who shoots for sport?”

“Yeah, I have a genuine reason to be using firearms.”

From Tasmania to Sydney to Carolyn Laughton’s living room, “Sunday Morning” kept asking if there were lessons for the U.S. in all of this.

Loughton said, “I am loath to comment. But my question is, ‘How is it going for you over there?’ But I can’t answer that for you. My heart goes out to all of you over there in America. Life is so short. And all and every one of us is somebody’s child. And when we see what’s happening, your heart bleeds.”

This story was originally broadcast on March 13, 2016.

       Story produced by Sari Aviv. Editor: Mike Levine.

Debate Over Guns Unfolds in Uvalde, a Rural Texas Town in Grief

The New York Times

Debate Over Guns Unfolds in Uvalde, a Rural Texas Town in Grief

Jack Healy and Natalie Kitroeff – May 29, 2022

Victor M. Cabrales holds a portrait of his granddaughter, Eliahana Torres, one of the children slain in the mass shooting, in Uvalde, Texas, May 27, 2022. (Meridith Kohut/The New York Times)
Victor M. Cabrales holds a portrait of his granddaughter, Eliahana Torres, one of the children slain in the mass shooting, in Uvalde, Texas, May 27, 2022. (Meridith Kohut/The New York Times)

UVALDE, Texas — Living in a rural Texas town renowned for white-tailed deer hunting, where rifles are a regular prize at school raffles, Desirae Garza never thought much about gun laws. That changed after her 10-year-old niece, Amerie Jo, was fatally shot inside Robb Elementary School.

“You can’t purchase a beer, and yet you can buy an AR-15,” Garza said of the 18-year-old gunman who authorities say legally bought two semi-automatic rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition days before killing 19 children and two teachers. “It’s too easy.”

But inside another Uvalde home, Amerie Jo’s father, Alfred Garza III, had a sharply different view. In the wake of his daughter’s killing, he said he was considering buying a holster to strap on the handgun he now leaves in his home or truck.

“Carrying it on my person is not a bad idea after all this,” he said.

An anguished soul-searching over Texas’ gun culture and permissive gun laws is unfolding across the latest community to be shattered by a shooter’s rampage.

Uvalde, a largely Mexican American city of 15,200 near the southern border, is a far different place from Parkland, Florida, or Newtown, Connecticut, which became centers of grassroots gun control activism in the aftermath of the school shootings there.

Gun ownership is threaded into life here in a county that has elected conservative Democrats and twice supported former President Donald Trump. Several relatives of victims count themselves among Texas’ more than 1 million gun owners. Some grew up hunting and shooting. Others say they own multiple guns for protection.

In Uvalde, the debate has unfolded not through protests and marches, as it did after Parkland, but in quieter discussions inside people’s living rooms and at vigils, in some cases exposing rifts within grieving families. The grandfather of one boy killed Tuesday said he always keeps a gun under the seat of his truck to protect his family; the boy’s grandmother now wants to limit gun access.

Gov. Greg Abbott, who signed a law last year making Texas a “Second Amendment sanctuary” from federal gun laws, and other Republicans have dismissed calls for tightening access to guns in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. They have instead called for improving school security and mental health counseling.

But public opinion surveys and interviews with victims’ families and Uvalde residents suggest that many Texans are more open to gun control measures than their Republican leaders and would support expanding background checks and raising the age requirement to buy assault-style rifles to 21 from 18.

Trey Laborde, a local rancher, brought his gun to a fundraiser for relatives of victims of the shooting, where he was helping to smoke meat. Laborde said he despises President Joe Biden, thinks the 2020 election was stolen and recoils at calls to take away people’s guns. He believes “all these teachers should be armed.”

But he also wants more limits on gun access.

“I don’t think that anybody should be able to buy a gun unless they’re 25,” Laborde said. He was recently given an assault rifle as a gift by his father-in-law but said, “I don’t think they should be sold.” He added, “Nobody hunts with those types of rifles.”

Public support for some gun control measures has held steady throughout recent years of opinion polls as Texas was rocked by deadly mass shootings at a Walmart in El Paso and in the streets of Odessa.

In a February poll by the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project, 43% of Texans said they supported stricter gun laws, while just 16% wanted looser rules. In earlier polls, majorities supported universal background checks and were against allowing gun owners to carry handguns in public without a license or training; 71% of Texans supported background checks on all gun purchases, according to a poll from the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project in 2021.

Three hundred miles away from Uvalde, raw divisions over gun rights in Texas were on vivid display Friday as hundreds of gun control supporters protested outside an annual National Rifle Association convention in Houston. Inside, Trump and others blamed “evil” and an array of social ills for the attacks, but not easy access to guns.

Abbott withdrew from speaking in person at the convention and instead traveled to Uvalde amid mounting anger over revelations that the police response was delayed in confronting and killing the gunman.

The Roman Catholic archbishop of San Antonio, whose territory includes Uvalde, said the NRA should have canceled its meeting in Houston. “The country is in mourning, but they are not,” Gustavo García-Siller, the archbishop, said in an interview, calling the embrace of guns “a culture of death in our midst.”

Vincent Salazar, 66, whose granddaughter Layla was killed in the Uvalde attack, said he had kept guns in his house for 30 years for protection. But as he grieved the girl who won three blue ribbons at Robb Elementary’s field day, he said he wanted lawmakers to at least raise the age for selling long guns such as the black AR-15-style rifle used in his granddaughter’s killing.

“This freedom to carry, what did it do?” Salazar asked. “It killed.”

Several parents and relatives of Uvalde’s victims said they wanted politicians in Texas to follow the lead of six states that have raised the age for buying semi-automatic rifles to 21 from 18. But gun rights supporters are challenging those laws in court and recently won a legal victory after an appeals court struck down California’s ban on selling semi-automatic guns to young adults.

Javier Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn was killed inside Robb Elementary, carries a gun and fully supports the Second Amendment, having learned how to fire semi-automatic rifles at 18 when he enlisted in the U.S. Army. But he said the killing of Jacklyn and so many of her fourth-grade friends should force politicians into tightening gun measures.

“There should be a lot stricter laws,” he said. “To buy a weapon at 18 — it’s kind of ridiculous.”

Even as many in Uvalde have said they want to focus their attention on the victims, the conversation about guns has been reverberating through town. Kendall White, who guides groups on hunting trips, helped cook at Friday’s barbecue fundraiser for relatives of victims of the attack.

White said he would never give up the right to “legally go out and harvest an animal and bring it home to my kids.” He crowed over the fact that his daughter shot her first white-tailed deer at the age of 3.

“She was sitting on my lap,” he said.

White believes people are the problem — not guns. “Guns don’t kill nobody, period,” he said. “You’ve got to have somebody pull the trigger.”

But the recent mass shootings have weighed on White, 45, and this one, in his hometown, left him gutted.

He said he wants some things to change.

“He should never have been able to get that gun,” White said, referring to the gunman. “We should raise the age limit. We should do stronger background checks.” There is room, he said, “for some compromises” on gun laws.

Ricardo García was working a shift as a groundskeeper at Uvalde Memorial Hospital on Tuesday when the first students from Robb Elementary were hustled inside the emergency room, followed by a group of parents. As the hours wore on, he said, the hospital began informing families that their children had died.

Mothers screamed the word “no” over and over. Fathers banged on the walls of the hospital.

García said he has never owned a gun and now believes the only way to solve gun violence in America is to ban them for everyone other than law enforcement.

“They’ve got to stop selling the guns,” he said. “The governor’s got to do something about it.”

One child, who came in with blood on his shirt, told his parents that he was right next to the gunman as he was shooting, and now the boy could not hear out of one ear.

“He had an AR-15, man, inside a classroom,” García said. “It’s going to make a lot of noise for those kids.”

The grief swirling through the little green house where Eliahana Torres once cared for her goldfish and practiced her softball swing into the night was still raw as relatives gathered to grapple with her killing.

An uncle, Leo Flores, said that someday, some other gunman would attack another school. He said the best hope for preventing more bloodshed was to arm and prepare teachers — a view shared by many conservative politicians and residents across Texas.

But inside the house, Eliahana’s grandfather, Victor Cabrales, said the seeming inevitability of another mass shooting was a clarion call for stronger gun restrictions.

“It’s because we don’t do nothing,” he said. “We need a change. A real change. Not just words.”

Uvalde newspaper publishes powerful front page 2 days after school massacre

Yahoo! News

Uvalde newspaper publishes powerful front page 2 days after school massacre

Dylan Stableford, Senior Writer – May 26, 2022

The Uvalde Leader-News, a locally owned newspaper in Uvalde, Texas, published a powerful front page on Thursday, two days after 19 children and two teachers were killed in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

The cover of the twice-weekly paper was completely black, except for the date of the massacre — May 24, 2022 — a stark reminder of the darkness that has enveloped the community of about 16,000 people in southwest Texas.

The front page of Thursday's Uvalde Leader-News.
The front page of Thursday’s Uvalde Leader-News. (Uvalde Leader-News)

Inside, the first 10 pages of the 12-page paper contain news from what would have been an ordinary week in a small town: graduations, taxes, local elections, weather, sports. Three collegiate rodeo athletes have qualified for the National Rodeo Finals, the paper reported.

There is almost no indication of the carnage that unfolded on Tuesday, except for the announcement of a blood drive at the civic center on Saturday (there is an urgent need for donors, particularly those with type O blood, the paper said) and an advertisement for the Robb School Memorial Fund established by the First State Bank of Uvalde. An ad for the Uvalde Honey Festival, which had been scheduled for June 10 and 11, shows that it has been canceled without explanation.

The final two pages, however, are dedicated to the tragedy.

Crosses with the names of victims of the mass shooting are seen at a memorial outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Thursday.
Crosses with the names of victims of the mass shooting at a memorial outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Thursday. (Marco Bello/Reuters)

Under the headline “City’s Soul Crushed,” the back page of the paper includes photos of children being taken out of the school through windows, and a teacher running to safety after the last of her students were evacuated.

Another shows the suspect’s abandoned pickup truck crashed in a ditch, and a rifle, believed to be the shooter’s, sitting atop a duffel bag on the ground next to the passenger door.

There is also a story about the school district’s graduation ceremonies, which had been scheduled for Friday, being postponed.

“My heart is broken,” Hal Harrell, the district’s superintendent, is quoted as saying. “We are a small community and we are going to need your prayers to get through this.”

Switzerland has a stunningly high rate of gun ownership — here’s why it doesn’t have mass shootings

Insider

Switzerland has a stunningly high rate of gun ownership — here’s why it doesn’t have mass shootings

Hilary Brueck – May 25, 2022

Switzerland hasn’t had a mass shooting since 2001, when a man stormed the local parliament in Zug, killing 14 people and then himself.

The country has about 2 million privately owned guns in a nation of 8.3 million people. In 2016, the country had 47 attempted homicides with firearms. The country’s overall murder rate is near zero.

The National Rifle Association often points to Switzerland to argue that more rules on gun ownership aren’t necessary. In 2016, the NRA said on its blog that the European country had one of the lowest murder rates in the world while still having millions of privately owned guns and a few hunting weapons that don’t even require a permit.

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“Ghost guns” don’t require background checks or serial numbers, meaning they can’t be traced. Some companies are taking advantage of the legal loophole that has allowed this industry to go unregulated.

But the Swiss have some specific rules and regulations for gun use.

Insider took a look at the country’s past with guns to see why it has lower rates of gun violence than the US, where gun death rates are now at their highest in more than 20 years, and the leading cause of death for children and adolescents.

Knabenschiessen swiss guns
Wikimedia Creative Commons

Having an armed citizenry helped keep the Swiss neutral for more than 200 years.

swiss herders
Alpine herdsmen in Toggenburg, Switzerland.Keystone/Getty Images

The Swiss stance is one of “armed neutrality.”

Switzerland hasn’t taken part in any international armed conflict since 1815, but some Swiss soldiers help with peacekeeping missions around the world.

Many Swiss see gun ownership as part of a patriotic duty to protect their homeland.

Most Swiss men are required to learn how to use a gun.

Swiss President Ueli Maurer shooting guns switzerland
Swiss President Ueli Maurer pauses during a shooting-skills exercise — a several-hundred-year-old tradition — with the Foreign Diplomatic Corps in Switzerland on May 31, 2013.REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Unlike the US, Switzerland has mandatory military service for men.

All men between the ages of 18 and 34 deemed “fit for service” are given a pistol or a rifle and trained.

After they’ve finished their service, the men can typically buy and keep their service weapons, but they have to get a permit for them.

In recent years, the Swiss government has voted to reduce the size of the country’s armed forces.

Switzerland is a bit like a well-designed fort.

swiss bunkers
Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

Switzerland’s borders are basically designed to blow up on command, with at least 3,000 demolition points on bridges, roads, rails, and tunnels around the landlocked European country.

John McPhee put it this way in his book “La Place de la Concorde Suisse”:

“Near the German border of Switzerland, every railroad and highway tunnel has been prepared to pinch shut explosively. Nearby mountains have been made so porous that whole divisions can fit inside them.”

Roughly a quarter of the gun-toting Swiss use their weapons for military or police duty.

swiss-army
AP/Keyston, Lukas Lehmann

In 2000, more than 25% of Swiss gun owners said they kept their weapon for military or police duty, while less than 5% of Americans said the same.

In addition to the militia’s arms, the country has about 2 million privately owned guns — a figure that has been plummeting over the past decade.

swiss army
Members of an honor guard of the Swiss army.REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

The Swiss government has estimated that about half of the privately owned guns in the country are former service rifles. But there are signs the Swiss gun-to-human ratio is dwindling.

In 2007, the Small Arms Survey found that Switzerland had the third-highest ratio of civilian firearms per 100 residents (46), outdone by only the US (89) and Yemen (55).

But it seems that figure has dropped over the past decade. It’s now estimated that there’s about one civilian gun for every three Swiss people.

Gun sellers follow strict licensing procedures.

swiss gun shop
Daniel Wyss, the president of the Swiss weapons-dealers association, in a gun shop.REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

Swiss authorities decide on a local level whether to give people gun permits. They also keep a log of everyone who owns a gun in their region, known as a canton, though hunting rifles and some semiautomatic long arms are exempt from the permit requirement.

But cantonal police don’t take their duty dolling out gun licenses lightly. They might consult a psychiatrist or talk with authorities in other cantons where a prospective gun buyer has lived before to vet the person.

Swiss laws are designed to prevent anyone who’s violent or incompetent from owning a gun.

swiss nina christen rifle
Nina Christen of Switzerland at the Olympic Games in Rio in August 2016.Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

People who’ve been convicted of a crime or have an alcohol or drug addiction aren’t allowed to buy guns in Switzerland.

The law also states that anyone who “expresses a violent or dangerous attitude” won’t be permitted to own a gun.

Gun owners who want to carry their weapon for “defensive purposes” also have to prove they can properly load, unload, and shoot their weapon and must pass a test to get a license.

Switzerland is also one of the richest, healthiest, and, by some measures, happiest countries in the world.

Swiss Switzerland flag fan trumpet
Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

Switzerland was ranked sixth in the UN’s 2019 World Happiness Report.

The Swiss have been consistently near the top of this list. In 2017, when Switzerland was ranked fourth overall among nations, the report authors noted that the country tends to do well on “all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance.”

Meanwhile, according to the report, happiness has taken a dive over the past decade in the US.

The report authors cite “declining social support and increased corruption,” as well as addiction and depression for the fall.

But the Swiss aren’t perfect when it comes to guns.

Swiss flag Switzerland
Harold Cunningham/Getty Images

Switzerland still has one of the highest rates of gun violence in Europe, and most gun deaths in the country are suicides.

Around the world, stronger gun laws have been linked to fewer gun deaths. That has been the case in Switzerland too.

Geneva Swiss Switzerland Police Officer
A police officer at Geneva’s airport.REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

After hundreds of years of letting local cantons determine gun rules, Switzerland passed its first federal regulations on guns in 1999, after the country’s crime rate increased during the 1990s.

Since then, more provisions have been added to keep the country on par with EU gun laws, and gun deaths, including suicides, have continued to drop.

As of 2015, the Swiss estimated that only about 11% of citizens kept their military-issued gun at home.

Most people aren’t allowed to carry their guns around in Switzerland.

swiss hunters
Hunters at a market in central Switzerland offer their fox furs.REUTERS

Concealed-carry permits are tough to get in Switzerland, and most people who aren’t security workers or police officers don’t have one.

“We have guns at home, but they are kept for peaceful purposes,” Martin Killias, a professor of criminology at Zurich University, told the BBC in 2013. “There is no point taking the gun out of your home in Switzerland because it is illegal to carry a gun in the street.”

That’s mostly true. Hunters and sports shooters are allowed to transport their guns only from their home to the firing range — they can’t just stop off for coffee with their rifle.

And guns cannot be loaded during transport to prevent them from accidentally firing in a place like Starbucks — something that has happened in the US at least twice.

‘Forever chemicals’ may have polluted 20m acres of US cropland, study says

The Guardian

‘Forever chemicals’ may have polluted 20m acres of US cropland, study says

Tom Perkins – May 8, 2022

<span>Photograph: Tannen Maury/EPA</span>
Photograph: Tannen Maury/EPA

About 20m acres of cropland in the United States may be contaminated from PFAS-tainted sewage sludge that has been used as fertilizer, a new report estimates.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds used to make products heat-, water- or stain-resistant. Known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, they have been linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, liver problems, birth defects, immunosuppression and more.

Dozens of industries use PFAS in thousands of consumer products, and often discharge the chemicals into the nation’s sewer system.

The analysis, conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), is an attempt to understand the scope of cropland contamination stemming from sewage sludge, or biosolids. Regulators don’t require sludge to be tested for PFAS or closely track where its spread, and public health advocates warn the practice is poisoning the nation’s food supply.

“We don’t know the full scope of the contamination problem created by PFAS in sludge, and we may never know, because EPA has not made it a priority for states and local governments to track, test and report on,” said Scott Faber, EWG’s legislative policy director.

All sewage sludge is thought to contain the dangerous chemicals, and the compounds have recently been found to be contaminating crops, cattle, water and humans on farms where biosolids were spread.

Sludge is a byproduct of the wastewater treatment process that’s a mix of human excrement and industrial waste, like PFAS, that’s discharged from industry’s pipes. Sludge disposal can be expensive so the waste management industry is increasingly repackaging it as fertilizer because excrement is rich in plant nutrients.

EWG found Ohio keeps the most precise records of any state, and sludge has been applied to 5% of its farmland since 2011. Extrapolating that across the rest of the country would mean about 20m acres are contaminated with at least some level of PFAS. Faber called the estimate “conservative”.

EPA records show over 19bn pounds of sludge has been used as fertilizer since 2016 in the 41 states where the agency tracks the amount of sludge that’s spread, but not the location. It’s estimated that 60% of the nation’s sludge is spread on cropland or other fields annually.

The consequences are evident in the only two states to consistently check sludge and farms for PFAS contamination. In Maine, PFAS-tainted fields have already forced several farms to shut down. The chemicals end up in crops and cattle, and the public health toll exacted by contaminated food in Maine is unknown. Meanwhile, the state is investigating about 700 more fields for PFAS pollution.

“There’s no easy way to shop around this problem,” Faber said. “We shouldn’t be using PFAS-contaminated sludge to grow food and feed for animals.”

Michigan faces a similar situation as it uncovers contaminated beef and farms, and growing evidence links sludge to public health problems and contaminated drinking water.

The health cost of using sludge outweighs the benefits, advocates say. Many have questioned the sense in spending billions of dollars to pull sludge out of water only to inject the substance into the nation’s food supply, and calls for a ban on the practice are growing louder.

“The EPA could today require treatment plants to test sludge for PFAS and warn farmers that they may be contaminating fields, but it has refused to do so,” Faber said.