House Republican leaders told their members to vote against 8 gun-safety bills, citing opposition from the NRA and Gun Owners of America
Bryan Metzger – June 8, 2022
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other GOP members at a press conference on Capitol Hill on March 1, 2022.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images House Republican leaders told their members to vote against 8 gun-safety bills, citing opposition from the NRA and Gun Owners of America
The House is set to vote Wednesday on a package of gun-related bills dubbed the “Protect Our Kids Act.”
GOP leaders told members to vote against the package, calling it the “Unconstitutional Gun Restrictions Act.”
The notice sent to GOP offices included links to talking points from the NRA and Gun Owners of America.
House Republicans are poised to vote against eight bills aimed at preventing gun violence on Tuesday, in part due to opposition from powerful pro-gun groups on the right.
House Democratic leaders have scheduled votes for Wednesday evening on the “Protecting Our Kids Act” — a package of seven gun violence-related measures that includes raising the age for legal purchase of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns to 21, closing the “bump stock” loophole, and other measures aimed at preventing the illegal trafficking of guns.
The House will also vote on the “Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act,” a federal “red flag” bill that would allow family members and law enforcement officials to temporarily block firearm access to those who a court determines pose a danger to themselves or others.
In a “whip notice” sent to rank-and-file members on Tuesday afternoon, House GOP leadership urged a “no” vote on all eight bills, referring to the seven-bill package as the “Unconstitutional Gun Restrictions Act.” They wrote that House Democrats had “thrown together this reactionary package comprised of legislation that egregiously violates law-abiding citizens’ 2nd Amendment rights and hinders Americans’ ability to defend and protect themselves and their families.”
The email also noted the opposition of the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America, including links to talking points from the NRA about both the gun package and the red flag law. Leaders also noted the opposition of Heritage Action for America, an advocacy group tied to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“Due to the importance of this issue, votes on this legislation will be considered in future candidate ratings and endorsements by the NRA Political Victory Fund,” declares one of the memos shared by party leaders.
Screenshot of the end of the June 7th whip notice, including links to talking points from the NRA and Heritage Action for America.House Republican Whip Steve Scalise
It’s not uncommon for party leaders to note the opposition of outside groups to major pieces of legislation. For example, in a February whip notice urging Republicans to vote against a major piece of legislation aimed at boosting the US semiconductor industry, GOP leaders noted the opposition of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, National Taxpayers Union, and Americans for Prosperity.
But the two gun groups’ inclusion — and the NRA’s threat to downgrade candidate ratings or withhold endorsements should any Republicans back the measures — underscores the enduring influence of pro-second amendment groups on the right, despite the NRA’s recent financial troubles and shrinking membership.
NRA talking points distributed by House GOP leadership, including a warning that candidate ratings and endorsements are at stake.National Rifle Association
Meanwhile, Democrats are planning to stage a striking visual contrast to Republicans — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked her caucus members on Tuesday to be present on the House floor for debate on the gun measures on Wednesday, when the floor would otherwise be empty.
“On behalf of the survivors of gun violence, and out of respect for those who lost their lives, I am asking all Members of our Caucus to be present on the Floor of the House for the two hours of debate, which should begin at approximately 2:30 p.m. following the vote on the Rule,” she said.
Home affordability has ‘collapsed’ in 2022. What to expect next, according to B of A
Is a housing crash brewing? Not likely, says B of A
Joy Wiltermuth – June 7, 2022
U.S. new home sales plunged 16.6% in April, even as prices continued to climb, according to government data released on May 24. AFP/GETTY IMAGES
B of A Global sees annual home-price growth as near a peak, not home prices overall. Also, low affordability likely hurts demand, not supply.
The double whammy of surging mortgage rates and skyrocketing home prices has led to “collapsed” housing affordability in America, according to Chris Flanagan’s team at B of A Global Research.
The situation has gotten so bad that it now compares to the “historically low affordability readings” in the fourth quarter of 1987 and the first quarter of 2005, according to the B of A team.
Existing home sales tumbled 33% in the wake of the 1987 crash and 45% in the aftermath of the subprime mortgage debacle. “In this cycle, we think a 35% peak-to-trough existing-home-sales decline is plausible,” Flanagan’s team wrote, in a weekly client note.
The cost of a 30-year fixed mortgage nearly doubled to about 5.25% in May from 2.75% last winter. The move higher came as the Federal Reserve began fleshing out plans to raise interest rates and trim its nearly $9 trillion balance sheet in a bid to tackle inflation that recently hit a near 40-year high.
While home prices have continued to climb this year, household wealth tied up in stocks and bonds has suffered, with the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.95% off 14% from its Jan. 3 closing high through Monday and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.94% nearly 24% below its peak, according to FactSet data.
However, even in a somewhat “draconian” scenario, where the demand “side for housing is meaningfully altered by reduced affordability, the supply side remains exceptionally supportive” for home price appreciation, Flanagan’s team wrote.
Why? Blame the subprime mortgage mess and decades of underbuilding. Those catalysts led to record low supply of existing homes (see chart), which will take time to “normalize.
Housing crunch likely persists, even if demand dwindles. B OF A GLOBAL
Home supply was tight before the pandemic made it worse, as many families looked for bigger houses outside of big cities to adapt to remote work. That remains a key factor in B of A’s forecast for home prices to climb 15% for 2022 and 5% for 2023.
“Shelter is still scarce and residential real estate is still a good inflation hedge: To the extent there is any distress in housing, and forced sellers emerge, we think owner-occupied or non-owner-occupied buyers will be there to at least partially absorb the sales,” they said.
Uvalde gunman threatened rapes and school shootings on social media app Yubo in weeks leading up to the massacre, users say
Daniel A. Medina, Isabelle Chapman, Jeff Winter and Casey Tolan
May 28, 2022
CNN: Salvador Ramos told girls he would rape them, showed off a rifle he bought, and threatened to shoot up schools in livestreams on the social media app Yubo, according to several users who witnessed the threats in recent weeks.
But those users – all teens – told CNN that they didn’t take him seriously until they saw the news that Ramos had gunned down 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, this week.
Three users said they witnessed Ramos threaten to commit sexual violence or carry out school shootings on Yubo, an app that is used by tens of millions of young people around the world.
The users all said they reported Ramos’ account to Yubo over the threats. But it appeared, they said, that Ramos was able to maintain a presence on the platform. CNN reviewed one Yubo direct message in which Ramos allegedly sent a user the $2,000 receipt for his online gun purchase from a Georgia-based firearm manufacturer.
“Guns are boring,” the user responded. “No,” Ramos apparently replied.
In a statement to CNN, a Yubo spokesperson said “we are deeply saddened by this unspeakable loss and are fully cooperating with law enforcement on their investigation.” Yubo takes user safety seriously and is “investigating an account that has since been banned from the platform,” the spokesperson said, but declined to release any specific information about Ramos’ account.
Use of Yubo skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, as teens trapped indoors turned to the app for a semblance of in-person interactions. The company says it has 60 million users around the world – 99% of whom are 25 and younger – and has trumpeted safety features including “second-by-second” monitoring of livestreams using artificial intelligence and human moderators.
Despite those safety features, the users who spoke to CNN said Ramos made personal and graphic threats. During one livestream, Amanda Robbins, 19, said Ramos verbally threatened to break down her door and rape and murder her after she rebuffed his sexual advances. She said she witnessed Ramos threaten other girls with similar “acts of sexual assault and violence.”
Robbins, who said she lives in California and only ever interacted with Ramos online, told CNN she reported him to Yubo several times and blocked his account, but continued seeing him in livestreams making lewd comments.
“[Yubo] said if you see any behavior that’s not okay, they said to report it. But they’ve done nothing,” Robbins said. “That kid was allowed to be online and say this.”
Robbins and other users said they didn’t take Ramos’ comments seriously because troll-like behavior was commonplace on Yubo.
Hannah, an 18-year-old Yubo user from Ontario, Canada, said she reported Ramos to Yubo in early April after he threatened to shoot up her school and rape and kill her and her mother during one livestream session. Hannah said Ramos was allowed back on the platform after a temporary ban.
Hannah, who requested CNN withhold her last name to protect her privacy, said Ramos’ behavior turned increasingly brazen in the last week. In one livestream, she said, Ramos briefly turned his webcam to show a gun on his bed.
The users said they didn’t make recordings of Ramos’ threats during the livestreams.
Yubo’s community guidelines tell users not to “threaten or intimidate” others, and ban harassment and bullying. Content that “promotes violence such as violent acts, guns, knives, or other weapons” is also banned.
Just a week before the Uvalde attack, Yubo announced an expanded age verification process that involves users taking a photo of themselves and the app using artificial intelligence to estimate their age. The platform only allows people 13 and older to sign up, and doesn’t allow users 18 and older to interact with those under 18.
Yubo, which is based in Paris, has attracted controversy since it launched in 2015 under the name Yellow, with some local law enforcement officials warning about the possibility of abuse. Police have arrested men in Kentucky, New Jersey and Florida who allegedly used Yubo to meet or exchange sexually explicit messages with kids. Last month, Indiana police investigating the 2017 murder of two teenage girls said they were seeking information about a Yubo user who had solicited nude photos of underage girls on other social media platforms.
Ramos’ disturbing social media interactions didn’t only take place on Yubo. One user, a girl from Germany who met Ramos on Yubo, said she had some troubling interactions with him via text and FaceTime. The 15-year-old said she received text messages from him shortly after he shot his grandmother and before his assault at the elementary school, as CNN previously reported.
The girl said she thought any violent or strange comments Ramos made were in jest.
But after the shooting, she said, “I added everything up and it made sense now… I was just too dumb to notice all the signals he was giving.”
“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
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 congressmanappeared 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.
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.”
Everything you need to know about this gun control package: Democrats don’t even want to let me show what they’re trying to ban.
I’m an American in my own home, and I’ll do whatever I want with my guns, Mr. Chairman. pic.twitter.com/pH2OIsnlVp
— Congressman Greg Steube (@RepGregSteube) June 2, 2022
Candy Woodall is a Congress reporter for USA TODAY.
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.
Two states aim to arm teachers despite opposition from educators and experts
Phil McCausland – June 2, 2022
George Frey
Two state legislatures are considering measures that would permit teachers and other school staff to carry arms in the aftermath of the Texas elementary school shooting that killed 19 children last month, despite opposition from gun safety advocates, teachers’ groups and school security experts.
While the idea isn’t new — many Republican-controlled legislatures considered similar legislation after the 2018 Parkland, Florida, shooting — it is a growing talking point as the country has witnessed a number of mass killings in the past few weeks. Two states, Ohio and Louisiana, are now considering either decreasing the requirements to arm school staff or permitting employees to carry a firearm after fulfilling the required training.
It’s a popular talking point in conservative circles. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said in an interview on Fox News on the day of the Uvalde school shooting that the state, which already allows teachers to be armed, should go further to ensure school employees have firearms.
Seth Garza pays his respects with his daughter Lilly at a memorial on May 31, 2022, dedicated to the 19 children and two adults killed in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. (Brandon Bell / Getty Images)
“We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things,” he said. “We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly because the reality is that we don’t have the resources to have law enforcement at every school.”
At least 28 states, including Texas, currently allow teachers or school staff to be armed in the classroom under varying conditions, according to a 2020 RAND Corporation study. It is unclear how effective that has been at undermining a school shooting threat and critics note research that shows that adding firearms to a situation only increases the risk of gun violence.
Video: Former FBI agent turned teacher addresses proposal to arm teachers
0:09 5:19 Scroll back up to restore default view.
“These bills are about rhetoric and distraction — they’re not about solutions,” said Rob Wilcox, federal legal director at Everytown for Gun Safety. “If you were to introduce guns into schools, not only is it ineffective, but you’re introducing more risk. How will guns be stored? How will folks be trained? When will guns be used? How do you ensure kids won’t get access to them? How do you ensure a gun isn’t used in a tense situation at school? These are all critical questions about this type of legislation that never gets answered.”
The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have long expressed their opposition to arming teachers as a solution to gun violence at schools, and many have also shared concerns about the heightened risk of legal liability for teachers and schools.
School security experts also shared frustration that many of these programs provide limited training as a cost-saving measure for security, as it appeared to show a lack of commitment to safety.
“You can tell me all you want with your rhetoric that school safety is a priority, but I will know whether it is when I look at your budget, your actions and your leadership,” said Kenneth Trump, who has served as an expert for civil litigation trials after shootings and serves as the president of Ohio-based National School Safety and Security Services. “One thing I’ve learned in 30 years of working with schools is that it becomes a priority when the parents are outraged or when there’s media attention.”
Ohio’s and Louisiana’s pushes to arm teachers
The bill headed to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk from the state’s Republican-controlled legislature would lessen the threshold for carrying a weapon.
DeWine said in a statement that he called on the Ohio General Assembly last week to pass the bill that would allow school districts to “designate armed staff for school security and safety.” He said he looked forward to “signing this important legislation.”
“My office worked with the General Assembly to remove hundreds of hours of curriculum irrelevant to school safety and to ensure training requirements were specific to a school environment and contained significant scenario-based training. House Bill 99 accomplishes these goals, and I thank the General Assembly for passing this bill to protect Ohio children and teachers.”
Ohio state Sen. Cecil Thomas, a Democrat from Cincinnati, said “the bank of common sense is bankrupt in the Ohio legislature, noting that he’s been pushing for new regulations aimed at preventing gun violence since a 2019 mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, left nine dead and 17 wounded.
“Since then, the most we got in the legislature is to put more guns out there and made it easier to have access to firearms,” said Thomas, who served on the Cincinnati Police Department for 27 years.
A teacher puts on a bulletproof vest during a live fire training session in Thistle, Utah, on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2019. (George Frey / Bloomberg via Getty Images file)
The measure to arm teachers is heading to the governor’s desk as Ohio also prepares, in two weeks, to formally lift the requirement that gun owners have a concealed carry license as the state’s “Constitutional Carry” law goes into effect.
While those laws have passed easily in the Republican-controlled legislature, Thomas said he’s had no luck getting a hearing for legislation he’s written to limit the procurement of arms, such as red flag laws, universal background checks, background checks for the transfer of firearms, increasing age requirements for firearm purchases to 21 and more.
In Louisiana, state Sen. Eddie Lambert, a pro-gun Republican, amended a controversial gun bill passed by the statehouse on Wednesday, stripping the legislation of a measure that would allow permitless concealed carry, to pursue a similar idea. Because it is too late to introduce new bills into the legislative session, which ended Monday, his changes would delete the original concept of permitless concealed carry.
In place of the old language, he added text that would give school districts the authority to designate school administrators or teachers who could carry a gun and serve as “school protection officers” after they took a training course and obtained a permit that allowed them to carry weapons in schools. He said they would receive training similar to that provided to police officers.
“You don’t want anybody who is not fully trained in this situation: this is not for just some Joe Blow,” he said, adding that teachers would have to keep the concealed gun “on them at all times” and out of reach of children.
Lambert said the original bill — a copy of legislation vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards last year — had no chance of passing. This “common sense” law did, however, and he said he felt it necessary to include the language after reading about the Tulsa hospital shooting and the attack on the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
“You’re going to have some of the gun rights people criticize me for that,” he said, explaining that some were upset with him for changing the bill. “You know what? I’m just going to do what can be done to protect people.”
Bel Edwards’ office said it had not changed its position on permitless concealed carry since the governor, a gun owner, vetoed the bill last year, but added that it was too early to comment on legislation that hadn’t yet passed the Senate and would have to be voted on again in the House.
Teachers not enthusiastic about being armed
The question is, however, do teachers want to be armed in the classroom?
In the past they’ve said, no. A 2019 national survey of 2,926 teachers, including more than 450 gun owners, conducted in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting found that more than 95 percent of educators did not believe teachers should be carrying a gun in the classroom.
Only about 6 percent said they would be comfortable using a gun to stop a shooter.
Texas is one of the states that has allowed teachers and other school employees to be armed, but it’s not a particularly popular program, either.
Under its “school marshal” program, Texas has licensed certain school employees to carry a firearm since 2013. After an 80-hour course, a psychological exam and a $35 fee, school staff members can be approved to pack heat in schools. But in nine years, the state has only licensed 256 marshals in 62 of the state’s 1,029 school districts, according to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement.
NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement that “teachers need more resources, not revolvers.”
“Educators and parents overwhelmingly reject the idea of arming school staff,” she added. “Rather than arming educators with guns, we need to be giving them the tools needed to inspire their students. Rather than putting the responsibility on individual teachers, our elected leaders need to pass laws that protect children from gun violence and bring an end to senseless and preventable killings.”
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
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
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.
States Rush Toward New Gun Restrictions as Congress Remains Gridlocked
Shawn Hubler and Luis Ferré-Sadurní – May 29, 2022
A vigil in solidarity with the people of Uvalde, Texas, held at Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown, Conn., May 26, 2022. (Christopher Capozziello/The New York Times)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Congress failed to impose gun restrictions after the school massacres in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida, and there’s little confidence that 21 deaths at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, will change matters now.
But states aren’t waiting.
In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy urged lawmakers to advance firearms safety measures, including raising the age to 21 for purchases of long guns and exposing gun-makers to lawsuits.
In New York — where an 18-year-old in Buffalo was charged two weeks ago with committing a racist mass shooting — Gov. Kathy Hochul said she would seek to ban people under 21 from purchasing AR-15-style rifles.
And in California — where a politically motivated mass shooting erupted at a luncheon of older churchgoers this month — legislative leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom fast-tracked tougher controls on firearms.
“We are getting a lot of inquiries even though a lot of state legislatures are out of session,” Nico Bocour, director of government affairs for anti-gun-violence group Giffords, said after the Uvalde shooting. “In the wake of a lot of inaction by Congress, states want to step up and keep people safe.”
In Republican-controlled statehouses, however, the moves evoked an equal and opposite reaction. A day after Uvalde, rural conservatives in Pennsylvania and Michigan beat back Democratic attempts to force votes on long-blocked gun safety legislation.
And in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican officials blamed the school massacre on a gunman with mental health problems, not gun laws. They accused Democrats of politicizing the situation with calls for gun control.
“Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge, period,” Abbott said a day after the Uvalde shooting.
The state actions come as hope for congressional consensus has waned to a flicker, not only on gun violence, but also on an array of American social issues. As polarized politics repeatedly trump compromise in a narrowly divided Congress, liberal and conservative states have enacted disparate and often opposing agendas, erecting a patchwork of policies on a range of issues, including abortion and civil rights.
Since 2019, federal legislation to expand criminal background checks for gun purchases has twice passed the House only to languish amid Senate Republican opposition. On Thursday, a small, bipartisan group of senators said they would work through the weekend in a search for common ground.
“We beg you,” a group of school principals who survived past campus shootings wrote in a letter that was expected to appear as a full-page ad in The Washington Post on Sunday. “Do something. Do anything.”
But as they publicly mourned the tragedy in Uvalde, Republican senators showed scant signs that they had budged. And few believe that gridlocked Washington will accomplish much after seeing the same script play out before. The one modest proposal that seemed to show promise would kick decisions to statehouses: It would offer incentives for states to pass “red flag” laws aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of people who are mentally ill.
Roughly 3 in 5 state legislatures are Republican-controlled, but calls for action on gun violence have run high in the aftermath of Uvalde’s devastation. In Texas, where the National Rifle Association went ahead with a scheduled convention three days after the school shooting, the issue surfaced almost immediately in the governor’s race.
As authorities were still processing the crime scene, former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke — who is challenging Abbott — interrupted the governor’s news conference to charge that the Republican had “done nothing” to protect Texans from gun violence.
“Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state,” O’Rourke called to audience members as he was escorted from the gathering, “or they will continue to be killed.”
Last year, Texas passed a law allowing virtually anyone over the age of 21 to carry a handgun without a permit, making it the most populous among nearly a dozen states that have shunned most restrictions on the ability to carry handguns.
Abbott was scheduled to appear at the NRA convention in Houston before deciding instead to send a video address and travel to Uvalde. But the state’s Republican officials seemed disinclined to tighten gun laws.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested that, instead of restricting guns, school security and mental health care should be improved. But there remain serious questions about whether popular school-based security measures work against mass shootings, particularly when the attacker uses high-powered weapons. And in the Uvalde shooting, the school district had its own police force and school shooting plan, while the gunman was apparently never flagged for mental illness.
Nationally, a majority of Americans have supported stricter gun laws for decades, polls show. A Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted this past week showed overwhelming support among Americans for background checks, a ban on assault-style weapons and other gun restrictions.
But spikes in demand for gun control that occur after mass shootings also tend to revert to the partisan mean as time passes. The same poll also reported that a slim majority of Americans support arming teachers — a solution touted this past week by the Gun Owners of America.
America’s long, bitter fight over guns has hardened lines to the point that refusing to compromise on the Second Amendment has become part of the identity of the Republican Party. The U.S. Supreme Court’s rightward shift on hot-button cultural issues has further emboldened Republican legislatures to pass conservative social policies once viewed as too extreme by courts and Congress — and prompted Democratic-led states to respond in kind.
After the Supreme Court in December preserved a Texas law encouraging private lawsuits against anyone who helps terminate a pregnancy after six weeks, California’s governor proposed parallel legislation to incentivize lawsuits against anyone who traffics in banned firearms.
At the time, Newsom’s social media call was seen as an impulsive retort that lawmakers weren’t sure whether to take seriously, as it came on a Saturday evening and ran counter to his previous view of the Constitution. It is now the foundation for the California bill that has drawn the most attention this past week.
Also this past week, a federal court upheld a New York law — the first of its kind in the nation — allowing lawsuits to be filed against firearm manufacturers and dealers. Passed last year, it is aimed at circumventing the broad immunity long enjoyed by gun companies. Other states have expressed interest, including New Jersey, where Murphy called for a similar law last month.
But Republicans may look to other courts, particularly the Supreme Court, to block state laws on gun control after former President Donald Trump appointed a wave of conservative federal judges. This month, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a state ban on sales of semi-automatic rifles to adults under 21 was unconstitutional.
Despite that decision, Hochul announced Wednesday that she would seek to prevent people “not old enough to buy a legal drink” from purchasing AR-15-style rifles.
“We are not only leaning heavily on state legislatures now, but we have been for the past 10 years, particularly since the Sandy Hook massacre,” said Rebecca Fischer, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, referring to the 2012 elementary school shooting in Newtown that killed 26 people. “Strategically, we understood as advocates that we needed to be working with our state legislators to see real change, and that is where there has been most meaningful change.”
Research indicates that California’s approach has constrained gun deaths.
The state’s rate of firearm mortality is among the nation’s lowest, with 8.5 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2020, compared to 14.2 per 100,000 in Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A more recent analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California found that Californians were about 25% less likely to die in mass shootings, compared to citizens of other states.
Even so, New York and other states pursuing strict gun laws are, in many ways, hampered by the lack of a coherent gun policy from Congress and the flow of illegal firearms from states with looser laws. Research shows that gun crimes in states with tough restrictions are often committed with firearms from more permissive states.
“California leads this national conversation,” Newsom said in the state Capitol alongside Democratic state lawmakers. “When California moves, other states move in the same direction.”
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)
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.”
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