Now is not the time to talk about gun control (1 Viewer)

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    today's example of 'what can possible go wrong?'
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    For a large part of the history of the United States, domestic abuse was tolerated under the nation’s legal system. There were few laws criminalizing domestic violence, and enforcement of the existing laws was rare.

    It was only in the past few decades that laws criminalizing domestic violence came to be widespread and enforced. But now, the U.S. is in danger of backtracking on that legal framework precisely because of the nation’s historical legacy of turning a blind eye to domestic violence.

    On Nov. 10, 2022, a judge in the Western District of Texas struck down the federal law that prohibits access to guns for people subject to domestic violence protection orders. He did this based on a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, NYSRPA v. Bruen, which held that, to be constitutional, a firearm restriction must be analogous to laws that were in existence when the country was founded.

    In other words, disarming domestic abusers violates the Second Amendment because those types of laws didn’t exist at the founding of the country.

    The ruling has since been appealed to the 5th Circuit Court. The outcome of the appeal is far is from certain.

    We study the link between gun laws and domestic violence in the U.S. and know that backtracking on laws that prevent the perpetrators of domestic violence from getting their hands on guns will put lives at risk – the research has proved this time and time again...............

     
    It’s all part of the right’s attack on women. They cannot stand for women to have any sort of equality. It’s obvious.
     
    Good luck even suggesting America do something like this
    ===================


    PRAGUE — When eight people had taken their seats in the classroom, the proctor put on his glasses and said it was time to begin. He took attendance. He glowered as one person walked in late.

    He described how the test would work — 30 multiple-choice questions, 40 minutes — and how to properly mark an X on the answer sheet. Then he ordered phones away; only a pen and paper, he said, were permitted on the table.
“If anybody needs to go to the toilet, now is the time,” he said.


    The test had all the tedious markings of a high school exam, down to the motivational poster on the wall saying “I will.”

    But in the Czech Republic, this is part of how you obtain a gun.


    And 40 minutes later, three of the nine had already failed, ushered out the door as the others went on to the later stages of the exam, in which they had to prove the ability to handle a weapon safely and shoot accurately.

    In an America riven by gun violence, with recent mass killings at a Walmart in Virginia and an LGBTQ club in Colorado, weapons can often be purchased without even a background check.

    With the country divided about even the smallest changes to gun laws, the question is only hypothetical: What if anybody who wanted a gun had to first prove their competence?


    The Czech Republic embodies an answer.

    By European standards, its gun laws are permissive. It allows people to carry concealed weapons for the purpose of self-defense, and it is one of the few countries in the world — and the only one in Europe — that provide the constitutional right to bear arms.

    But exercising that right is contingent on the test.

    Czech lawmakers and gun owners say their national system dramatically increases the odds of responsible ownership. The rules also require a health clearance and a background check, and demand safe storage of weapons once they are purchased.

    In a country more populous than New York City, there were seven homicides using guns during all of last year.


    “We really have bad politics in many ways here — corruption. But something I am proud of is this law,” said Martin Fiser, 35, a weapons instructor. “It can be a model for the rest of the world.”

    The test is obligatory for anybody who wants a weapon, including hunters, collectors, even someone inheriting a shotgun from a grandfather.

    The standards are high: The test consists of questions randomly drawn from a pool of 501 possible.

    Those trying to obtain the hardest-to-get license — for concealed carry — can miss no more than one question. The failure rate is around 40 percent…….

     
    posted in EE also

    interesting article on the word "tragedy"
    ================================

    It’s the easiest word we reach for to describe things we often find indescribable, especially for politicians:

    “We had a horrific tragedy overnight at UVA, lives were lost and families changed forever,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin tweeted after the shooting there last month.

    “We can’t and won’t prevent every tragedy,” said President Biden after the schoolhouse massacre in Uvalde, Tex., as he strained for the right words to look toward solutions.

    “Our thoughts are with their families & everyone enduring another senseless tragedy,” former president Barack Obama tweeted after the 2017 mass killing at a concert in Las Vegas.

    Tragedy. I’ve used the word hundreds of times over decades spent grappling with the precise words for human suffering — most recently when I wrote about the 10-year anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary.

    But this week, Timothy Kendall stopped me in the middle of my keyboard taps, re-upping a request he’d sent in a letter to the editor earlier this year: “Would The Post please, please, please stop using the utterly inadequate term ‘tragedy’ to refer to a mass murder?”..........

    “Calling a school shooting (or a lynching, or the slave trade, or the Holocaust, or the Trail of Tears, or for that matter any deliberate murder) a ‘tragedy’ is like calling brain cancer a “headache,” he wrote.

    Hmm. Okay, I’m listening.

    “ ‘Tragedies’ are left in the wake of such things as hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, wildfires, accidents, epidemics, strokes, heart attacks, sudden illnesses,” he wrote. And, he said, “nothing reasonable can be done to stop or prevent them. ... The proper word for any deliberate murder is ‘atrocity.' ... Atrocities are somebody’s fault, often both the perpetrator’s and numerous enablers’, and they can often be stopped.”........

    Let’s see what a dictionary says:

    A tragedy is “an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe,” according to the Oxford-informed Google dictionary.

    An atrocity is “an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury.”

    That makes sense. Mass shootings — especially when we look at those clearly fueled by racism, politics, homophobia, antisemitism, sexism or, simply, pure evil — are atrocious.

    “Words matter,” Kendall told me.

    Of course. But will a semantic shift sway public opinion, framing our national bloodshed as something cruel, evil and, ultimately, preventable?

    While the us of “tragedy” is not inherently political, it can be used to distance an event from its root causes. America is the only country to grapple with gun violence of this type and magnitude because, among other issues, Americans have seemingly endless access to guns.

     
    Good but sad article
    ================

    Ramon Price makes sure he’s working on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

    He’s a counselor at a funeral home in Oakland, California, where for the past 18 years he’s helped hundreds of families navigate grief, death certificates, insurance and casket selections. About half of them lost loved ones in a homicide, usually with a firearm.

    He said the holidays are a particularly difficult time to grieve, not only in the immediate aftermath of killing, but also for years – and decades – to come. Many families cancel their holiday celebrations, while others modify them. He knows because he’s one of them.

    In February 2012, his 17 year-old son Lamont Price was killed by gun violence in Oakland. Nearly a decade later, in October 2021, his oldest son, Ramon Price Jr, was shot and killed at age 27 while driving on a stretch of freeway in the San Francisco Bay Area.

    It was after Lamont’s killing that Price started working holidays to avoid questions from well-meaning family about how he’s holding up. “I don’t like being around a lot of people now,” said Price, who has eight surviving children and 10 grandchildren. “Most people are conditioned to say, ‘It’ll get better in time.’ I think people do so much out of routine.”

    For those like Price who have lost children to gun violence, the end of the year can be especially painful, from the first Thanksgiving dinner without their child, to creating new traditions that help them grapple with the trauma of a violent loss.

    The Guardian spoke to three other parents who have also lost children to gun violence near the holiday season about what their grief looks like years, and even decades, after loss, and how they’re working to overcome it.

    “It’s like if you fall and get a scar,” Price said. “Some scars are there forever, as a constant reminder. But this is one that never heals.”

    This year marks the third holiday season Sparkle Davis will spend without her only daughter.

    In 2019, 19-year-old Oshiana Thompkins was shot at a Halloween party in Orinda, a small city in the Bay Area. She was one of five people killed in the incident.

    Since then, her family hasn’t gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas together; seeing people hang lights on homes during this time brings up “bittersweet feelings”, Davis said……



    www.theguardian.com

    ‘Some scars are for ever’: the grief of losing a child to gun violence during the holidays

    End of the year can be painful for those who have lost loved ones to firearm crime, but forming new traditions can help ease trauma
    www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
     
    A federal judge has blocked a California gun law that emulated a controversial Texas abortion measure — and which was intended to provoke a court fight.

    The injunction from Judge Roger Benitez sets California’s law, which enables private citizens to sue manufacturers of illegal guns, on a potential path to the U.S. Supreme Court. That could set up a test of both laws — an outcome that California Gov. Gavin Newsom has sought.

    “I want to thank Judge Benitez. We have been saying all along that Texas’ anti-abortion law is outrageous. Judge Benitez just confirmed it is also unconstitutional," Newsom said in a statement Monday. "The provision in California’s law that he struck down is a replica of what Texas did, and his explanation of why this part of SB 1327 unfairly blocks access to the courts applies equally to Texas’ SB 8."

    Benitez also underscored the ties between the two laws in his ruling, citing Newsom’s condemnations of the Texas measure that deputizes citizens to sue abortion providers as evidence that the California gun law is unconstitutional.............

     
    MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama on Jan. 1 will become the latest state to allow people to carry a concealed handgun without a state permit that requires a background check.

    The new state law ends the requirement for a person to get a permit to legally carry a concealed handgun in public. A person can still choose to get a permit if they want to do so.

    The proposal had been introduced unsuccessfully for years in Montgomery, before winning approval this year. The legislation was championed by gun rights advocates who call it “constitutional carry,” in reference to the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Opponents, including state sheriffs and others in law enforcement, argued the permits help combat crime and enhance public safety.

    The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, which lobbied for the Alabama legislation, said in April that 25 states now allow permitless carry.

    “It’s going to be a big step to help the average law-abiding citizen to keep them from having to go through the hoops of getting a permit to carry their weapons,” Rep. Shane Stringer, the legislation’s sponsor, said. Stringer noted the law only impacts the permit requirement. “It's not going change who can and cannot carry a gun. People that are prohibited now are still prohibited.”

    The Alabama Sheriffs Association had opposed the legislation. “Alabama sheriffs are clear on the law taking effect Jan. 1 and have adjusted accordingly,” said Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones, president of the Alabama Sheriffs’ Association.............

    MSN

    www.msn.com
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama on Jan. 1 will become the latest state to allow people to carry a concealed handgun without a state permit that requires a background check.

    The new state law ends the requirement for a person to get a permit to legally carry a concealed handgun in public. A person can still choose to get a permit if they want to do so.

    The proposal had been introduced unsuccessfully for years in Montgomery, before winning approval this year. The legislation was championed by gun rights advocates who call it “constitutional carry,” in reference to the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Opponents, including state sheriffs and others in law enforcement, argued the permits help combat crime and enhance public safety.

    The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, which lobbied for the Alabama legislation, said in April that 25 states now allow permitless carry.

    “It’s going to be a big step to help the average law-abiding citizen to keep them from having to go through the hoops of getting a permit to carry their weapons,” Rep. Shane Stringer, the legislation’s sponsor, said. Stringer noted the law only impacts the permit requirement. “It's not going change who can and cannot carry a gun. People that are prohibited now are still prohibited.”

    The Alabama Sheriffs Association had opposed the legislation. “Alabama sheriffs are clear on the law taking effect Jan. 1 and have adjusted accordingly,” said Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones, president of the Alabama Sheriffs’ Association.............

    MSN

    www.msn.com
    Click to expand...

    Back the Blue, amirite?
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama on Jan. 1 will become the latest state to allow people to carry a concealed handgun without a state permit that requires a background check.

    The new state law ends the requirement for a person to get a permit to legally carry a concealed handgun in public. A person can still choose to get a permit if they want to do so.

    The proposal had been introduced unsuccessfully for years in Montgomery, before winning approval this year. The legislation was championed by gun rights advocates who call it “constitutional carry,” in reference to the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Opponents, including state sheriffs and others in law enforcement, argued the permits help combat crime and enhance public safety.

    The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, which lobbied for the Alabama legislation, said in April that 25 states now allow permitless carry.

    “It’s going to be a big step to help the average law-abiding citizen to keep them from having to go through the hoops of getting a permit to carry their weapons,” Rep. Shane Stringer, the legislation’s sponsor, said. Stringer noted the law only impacts the permit requirement. “It's not going change who can and cannot carry a gun. People that are prohibited now are still prohibited.”

    The Alabama Sheriffs Association had opposed the legislation. “Alabama sheriffs are clear on the law taking effect Jan. 1 and have adjusted accordingly,” said Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones, president of the Alabama Sheriffs’ Association.............

    MSN

    www.msn.com
    Click to expand...


    Gun laws/gun ownership and death rates:

    "Massachusetts, 3.7 gun deaths per 100,000 residents. Massachusetts is one of only two states to require locked storage of any firearm not in the owner’s immediate control. Second only to Hawaii, Massachusetts has the lowest rate of gun ownership and ranks 49th in gun death rate."

    https://www.deseret.com/2022/5/27/2...g-2nd-amendment-violent-crime-concealed-carry



    "All of those states with the highest gun death rates are among the ones with the highest gun ownership rates.

    • Mississippi – 50% of adults live in a household with a gun.
    • Louisiana – 48%.
    • Wyoming – 59%.
    • Missouri – 48%.
    • Alabama – 50%.
    • Alaska – 59%.
    Where there are fewer guns, there are fewer gun deaths. The states with the lowest gun death rates in 2020, per the CDC (alongside the percentage of homes with a gun in 2007-2016, per RAND) were:

    • Hawaii – 3.4 (8% of adults live in a household with a gun).
    • Massachusetts – 3.7 (10%).
    • New Jersey – 5 (8%).
    • Rhode Island – 5.1 (11%).
    • New York – 5.3 (14%)."
    https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/26/politics/gun-violence-data-what-matters/index.html


    It's pretty simple.
     
    Last edited:
    cuddlemonkey said:
    Back the Blue, amirite?
    Click to expand...
    A good pun. :LOL:

    8fu1253gf8t71.png

    Amirite Chrystal
     
    Last edited:
    PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon judge on Tuesday declined to lift his order that temporarily freezes part of a new, voter-approved gun safety measure requiring a completed criminal background check before a gun can be sold or transferred.

    Harney County Judge Robert S. Raschio previously dealt a blow to gun control advocates when he put all other elements of the tough new law on hold, including a permit-to-purchase provision and a ban on high-capacity magazines.

    On Dec. 23, he heard oral arguments from Oregon on a motion to allow the law’s background check provision to take effect even while the constitutionality of the Measure 114's other elements were decided by the courts. Under federal law, firearms dealers can sell guns without a completed background check if the check takes longer than three business days — a practice Oregon’s new law would end.

    The so-called “Charleston loophole” allowed a man in Charleston, South Carolina, to buy a gun in 2015 and kill nine Black parishioners at a church...........

     
    If we take away the guns from law abiding citizens, only 6 year olds will be able to get guns.

    If only that teacher had been carrying a gun, she could have taken out the 6 year old who shot her. Then everything would be fine.
     
    www.npr.org

    A U.S. appeals court blocks a ban on rapid-fire 'bump stocks'

    A Trump administration ban on the devices, which enable a shooter to rapidly fire multiple rounds from semi-automatic weapons after an initial trigger pull, was struck down by a federal appeals court.
    www.npr.org www.npr.org
    Click to expand...
    "A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of 'machinegun' set forth in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act," Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the lead majority opinion.
     

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