America will top 100 mass killings in the year 2023, under gun violence
New Jersey, New York and California will not enforce the Second Amendment gun ownership law in public spaces unless they are signed by a gun court
The Supreme Court decision that offered a broad interpretation of the Second Amendment right of American to carry guns in public has resulted in new laws in several states, including New Jersey.
A draft of the bill shows that handguns would not be allowed in 25 public spaces, including bars, beaches, stadiums and day care centers, and private establishments that do not post signs explicitly stating that weapons are permitted.
Last week, a federal judge in New York invalidated key components of legislation adopted in Albany in response to the Supreme Court’s gun ruling; New York’s attorney general has appealed the order, and on Wednesday a federal appeals court agreed to allow the state to continue to ban guns in some public places as a three-judge panel weighs a request to keep the law in place longer. A similar bill fell short of approval in California in September, and is expected to be reintroduced in December.
After a gunman killed three students and wounded five others on the Michigan State University campus this week, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has called on the state’s lawmakers to pass tighter gun control measures.
“As parents, we tell our kids it’s going to be okay. “We say that at a lot of places,” she said at the press conference. “But the truth is, words are not good enough. We must act and we will.”
The Michigan Legislature is Up for Business: Protecting Humans, Protecting Crimes and Preventing Violence Through Gun Laws and Red Flags
State lawmakers filed an 11-bill package Thursday, which includes several policies experts say are proven to reduce gun violence. In recent years, Democrats in Michigan tried to pass stronger gun regulations under Republican rule. Their efforts intensified after the November 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School just outiside Detroit, but none of the measures passed.
The Democrats’ proposed measures include universal background checks, so-called red flag laws – court orders requiring police to seize a gun from an individual – and safe storage.
“Whether it’s mass shootings, homicides or suicides, we know there is not one bill or one policy that can make all of that go away overnight,” said state Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks Tuesday.
Brinks said they can change the lives of the people of our state and prevent more tragedies from happening in the future.
A majority of Michigan voters support tighter gun laws. A statewide survey in December found that most people supported background checks for buyers of guns and courts should remove guns from people who are dangerous to themselves or others.
The Republican-controlled legislature in Michigan didn’t approve of similar measures such as red flags and safe storage laws after the Oxford High School mass shooting.
The time for only thoughts and prayers is over. “We are in a unique position to take action and save lives. And that’s exactly what we are going to do in the weeks ahead.”
A Law for Gun Control Reforms in Michigan, and a Case Study of a Newly-Accepting MSU Shooter Michael McRae
Three specific policies included in Thursday’s package have been proven to be effective in lowering gun violence rates, according to a study by Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit focused on gun violence prevention.
“It’s better to start enacting these reforms and start having less mass shootings than it is to sit in silence and do nothing,” said Annie Heitmeier, a third-year student at MSU and a volunteer with Students Demand Action, a movement pushing for gun control.
We have had bills like this before in Michigan that don’t go far, or die in committee, so they might have been introduced here before. I hope that this time will be different.
Some gun policy experts believe that red flag laws are useful in certain cases, such as the case of theMSU shooter who previously pleaded guilty to a firearms charge but struggled with mental health and showed warning signs that he could be a risk to himself or others.
Prosecutors alleged the Oxford gunman’s father bought the gun used in the attack and his parents gave it to him as an early Christmas gift, CNN previously reported. The parents, who each face four counts of involuntary manslaughter, are accused of giving their son unfettered access to the gun.
If he had been convicted of the felony for carrying a concealed pistol without a permit, he would have been unable to buy a gun. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for possession of a loaded firearm and spent a year and a half on probation.
The father told CNN his son became bitter after his mother died from a stroke, and didn’t care about anything anymore. He had a note in his pockets that said he had shot up other businesses in New Jersey.
Michael McRae said his son had a gun several years ago before police took it away. He said he kept the weapon in his room because he didn’t want his son to get it.
If a person is found to be a risk a judge will be able to temporarily seize the person’s firearms.
The bill gives people with roommates and family member the power to petition a judge. The person needs to show in the petition that there is a history of use or threat of violence against them.
If the evidence indicates that McRae is a threat to the community or himself, then a family member or law enforcement officer could petition for an extreme risk protection order.
Why Congress and the Supreme Court Can’t Stop The Violence, and Why We Shouldn’t Have a Single Gun Policy for the Prevention of Its Implications
“Despite pleas from Oxford families, these issues never even got a hearing in the last legislature,” Whitmer said during the January 25 address. Let’s change that this year. Let’s work together to stop the violence and save lives.”
The package of bills introduced Thursday had been in the works for “several weeks” before the MSU shooting, but Senate Democrats had a “critical opportunity” to take action last week, according to Geller, who said she’s been in discussion with lawmakers about the bills in recent weeks.
An associate professor in the school of criminal justice at Michigan State says there isn’t a single gun policy that will reduce or end gun violence.
Gun violence is a complicated issue that requires a multidisciplinary approach by policymakers, law enforcement and the medical community, experts told CNN.
It is gun homicides, community violence, police-involved shootings and domestic-violence homicides. Different policies are used to address the different types of gun violence.
If the public is uninformed of the potential risk, or rejects gun control measures, or law enforcement refuses to enforce the law, it could be rendered useless, experts have previously told CNN.
After a string of mass shootings, including those in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, last year, I wrote a story with this headline: Why the president, Congress and the Supreme Court can’t – or won’t – stop mass shootings.
America reached the grim number by the first week of March – record time, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, which, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
“Although fatal and nonfatal firearm injuries are growing, no real legislative response has followed acts of gun violence in support of individuals or the communities in which they live. And there is scant proof that prevention measures, such as active shooter drills, have reduced actual harm,” Mark S. Kaplan, a professor of social welfare at UCLA, told CNN.
Banning the sale of assault weapons is one of the real solutions and tools that can make a difference, but only if our elected officials act to implement them.
The U.S. gun violence epidemic after the Nashville elementary school shooting: a case study in the first 2022 Florida congressman’s 2022 campaign
It is, then, perhaps unsurprising that the US has more deaths from gun violence than any other developed country per capita. The rate in the US is eight times greater than in Canada, which has the seventh highest rate of gun ownership in the world; 22 times higher than in the European Union and 23 times greater than in Australia, according to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation data from 2019.
After multiple mass shootings in the country this year, Gun violence activism has become a central plank of Democratic politics, with President Joe Biden repeatedly lamented Congress’ inability to pass “common sense” measures.
Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida, the first member of Generation Z elected to Congress, centered his 2022 campaign on ending gun violence in the US, finding support among young voters who grew up as part of the “mass shooting generation,” as he calls it.
We have wondered our lives as young people, why, since we have seen these things. Why is this happening? Why have we not fixed this? And now we’re at a place where we can vote and we can run, and we’re going to do it,” Frost said when he won the Democratic nomination.
But many Republicans, who now control the US House, have cited a mental health crisis in the US as the reason for America’s gun violence problem, showing little interest in the government trying to regulate access to guns.
Gun violence and mental health challenges increased, but an analysis by researchers at the university found that gun violence made incidences more deadly. Most of the increase in homicides were from gun-related incidences. The rate of gun suicides increased while the non-gun suicide rate decreased.
Only a small number of Americans favor stricter laws on gun sales while half of the public says it wouldn’t reduce violent crime in the United States.
It was in June of last year that Congress passed the first new major national gun legislation in decades and encouraged states to adopt red flag laws, which can be used by courts to prevent individuals in crisis from accessing firearms.
The basic thrust of the story from last year holds as the US grapples with the aftermath of the Nashville, Tennessee, elementary school shooting in which three 9-year-old children and three adults were killed.
The shooter in Nashville purchased her firearms from several different gun stores in the city. Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said that Hale was under the care of a doctor and his parents were aware that he had bought a gun.
“Had it been reported that she was suicidal or that she was going to kill someone and had been made known to us, then we would have tried to get those weapons. But as it stands, we had absolutely no idea, actually, who this person was,” Drake told reporters.
The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence: A Case Study of Gun Laws in the U.S. During the 2016 Parkland Shooting
The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence gives Tennessee an “F” for its existing laws. The legislature there is currently considering legislation to expand which guns can be carried legally without a permit.
The assault weapons ban that was in place after the shooting in Nashville was not reconsidered by Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.
Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the Second Amendment was the most important part of the constitution. “I believe in the Second Amendment and we shouldn’t penalize law-abiding American citizens.”
There was no Senate-confirmed director from 2015, during Barack Obama’s presidency, until President Joe Biden’s second nominee, Steve Dettelbach, was confirmed last July.
Biden promised to crack down on ghost guns, but he doesn’t have the capacity to do a lot about the guns used in mass shootings.
Former President Donald Trump’s administration tried to reinterpret an existing law against civilian ownership of machine guns to ban so-called “bump stocks” like the one used to kill 58 people in Las Vegas in 2017. A federal appeals court struck down the bump stock ban earlier this year, but left it in place while the case returns to a lower court.
There is an irrational belief among many Americans that the Constitution views gun ownership in the same manner as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That belief has been turned into a precedent by the Supreme Court. Justice Clarence Thomas, in striking down that long-standing New York gun licensing law, said gun laws must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition.”
Note: A 2018 Florida law that raised the minimum age to buy a gun to 21 was upheld earlier this month by a federal appeals court that said it was consistent with the historical tradition. But that decision might not make it to the Supreme Court; Republican lawmakers in Florida, now several years removed from the Parkland shooting that inspired the change, are working on changing the age back to 18.
What this all means is that despite the cries that something – or anything – must be done, the US government is predisposed to inaction, the courts are very respectful of gun rights and the absolutists have a chokehold on the system. This cycle will continue until one or all of those things change, and there are more guns than people in the US.
