Category Archives: US gun control

Ordered online, assembled at home: the deadly toll of California’s ‘ghost guns’

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Loopholes surrounding these weapons make them untraceable – and a hot commodity in many vulnerable communities

When Brian Muhammad, a program manager at a gun violence prevention group in California, asked a 16-year-old boy in 2018 how young people were getting guns, he assumed the answer would be Nevada, the neighboring state with looser gun laws.

“Who would waste time going to Nevada when you can just get them in the mail and put it together?” the Stockton teen nonchalantly replied.

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Judge dismisses NRA bankruptcy case in blow for US gun lobby

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Federal court says claim was not filed in good faith, paving the way for legal bid by New York state to close the group down

A federal judge has dismissed the National Rifle Association’s bankruptcy case, leaving the powerful gun-rights group to face a lawsuit from New York state that accuses it of financial abuses.

The judge sitting in Dallas was tasked with deciding whether the NRA should be allowed to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, where the state is suing in an effort to disband the group. Though headquartered in Virginia, the NRA was chartered as a nonprofit in New York in 1871 and is incorporated in the state.

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Biden condemns US gun violence as ‘international embarrassment’ – video

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In his first gun control measures since taking office, Joe Biden announced a half-dozen executive actions aimed at addressing the proliferation of gun violence across the nation that he called an ‘epidemic and an international embarrassment’. Greeting the families of gun violence victims and activists in the Rose Garden, Biden thanked them for their presence and continued action. And he assured them: ‘We’re absolutely determined to make change.’ But the announcement underscores the limitations of Biden’s executive power to act on guns, facing as he is an evenly divided Senate, where Republicans remain near-unified against most proposals

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Joe Biden announces first steps to curb ‘epidemic’ of US gun violence

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President condemned gun violence as an ‘international embarrassment’ after series of recent shootings around the US

Joe Biden, under pressure to act after a slew of mass shootings, has announced his first steps to curb the “epidemic” and “international embarrassment” of gun violence in America.

The president has prioritised the coronavirus pandemic and economic recovery during the first two and half months of his presidency. But a series of recent shooting tragedies in Georgia, Colorado and California led to renewed calls for urgent action on guns.

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Joe Biden to announce executive actions to address gun violence – live

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Calls are mounting for the Biden administration to set up a national tracking system of Covid-19 deaths among frontline healthcare workers to honor the thousands of nurses, doctors and support staff who have died and ensure that future generations are not forced to make the same ultimate – and in many cases needless – sacrifice.

Health policy experts and union leaders are pressing the White House to move quickly to fill the gaping hole left by the Trump administration through its failure to create an accurate count of Covid deaths among frontline staff. The absence of reliable federal data exacerbated critical problems such as shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) that left many workers exposed, with fatal results.

Related: Calls mount for Biden to track US healthcare worker deaths

The number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the US-Mexican border hit a record high last month, the US Customs and Border Protection agency said today.

According to CBP’s newly released figures, 18,890 unaccompanied children arrived at the southern border in March, representing a 100% increase from February.

Related: Migrants held in overcrowded Texas facility, photos released by congressman show

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Everything about America’s gun debate is wrong – here’s why | Abené Clayton and Lois Beckett

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We’ve been reporting on gun violence for years. The mass shooting debate is not just biased; it is actively harmful and racist

We write about gun violence in America as our full-time jobs. Between the two of us, we’ve been doing that for over a decade.

We see that America’s endless gun debate does not treat shooting victims and their families equitably. It is not driven by a focus on what actually works to save lives. It rarely includes the voices of the majority of the victims or any of the people who have a track record of successfully preventing shootings. It is not just biased; it is actively harmful and racist. And it will never make us safer.

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Gun reform laws eluded Biden in 2013. Could this showdown with the NRA be different?

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The Sandy Hook shooting failed to convince Congress to enact more regulations. In the wake of recent shootings, calls for reform have begun

Within hours of 10 people being gunned down at the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado on Monday – the second such bloody rampage in seven days – the calls had begun for Congress to tighten up America’s notoriously slack firearms laws.

John Hickenlooper, a Democratic US senator from Colorado who was governor of the state at the time of the Aurora cinema shooting that killed 12 people in 2012, opined that “our country has a horrific problem with gun violence. We need federal action. Now.”

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‘It will save lives’: Joe Biden calls for gun reform after Colorado shooting – video

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In his first remarks on the supermarket shooting in Boulder, Colorado, that killed 10 people on Monday, Joe Biden called on Congress to move quickly to toughen the country's gun laws, asking lawmakers to close the loopholes in the background checks system and ban assault weapon and high-capacity magazines. Biden homed in on closing what is known as the Charleston loophole – a provision in federal law that gives a gun seller discretion on whether to proceed with a sale if the FBI fails to determine within three business days if a buyer is eligible to purchase a gun

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Shooting survivor Gabby Giffords delivers moving speech at DNC – video

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Former US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords provided the most emotional moment of the third night of the Democratic national convention. 

Giffords, who sustained brain damage after she was shot at an event with constituents in 2011, spoke during a segment on gun control. She said: 'Today, I struggle with speech but I have not lost my voice. America needs all of us to speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words.'

A spokesperson for Giffords said she spent 'countless hours' practising the speech, the longest she has delivered since the shooting

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‘I don’t trust them any more’: how the NRA became its own worst enemy

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The most powerful gun lobby in the world has strayed from its core purpose and shot itself in the foot

Oliver North cut a lonely figure as he walked through the Indianapolis airport, quietly slipping out of the city midway through the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) convention which was still in progress. A day later, North announced from afar that he was not seeking a traditional second term as its president, while it also emerged that the New York attorney general was investigating the NRA’s tax-exempt status.

That was April 2019. More than a year later, the turmoil that heralded North’s departure has culminated in the New York attorney general, Letitia James, suing to put the NRA out of business, alleging that senior leaders used charitable donations for family trips to the Bahamas, private jets and lavish meals that shaved $64m off the organisation’s balance sheet in three years, turning a surplus into a financial crisis.

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New York attorney general sues to shut down NRA, alleging ‘brazen illegality’

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  • Letitia James alleges leaders used NRA as ‘personal piggy bank’
  • Lawsuit claims money helped to pay for trips and private jets

New York’s attorney general has sued to dissolve the National Rifle Association (NRA), alleging that senior leaders used the powerful gun lobby group as their “personal piggy bank” and illegally diverted millions of dollars from its charitable work.

Related: New York attorney general files lawsuit to dissolve NRA – live

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Pandemic and protests spur Americans to buy guns at record pace

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  • Sales picked up in June following initial spike in March
  • ‘All Americans should be concerned’ – gun control group

Fears over the Covid-19 pandemic, a perception of rising crime and worries over civil unrest and political instability in the wake of anti-racism protests have sparked Americans to buy firearms at a record pace – with about 40% being first-time buyers, according to one leading gun rights group.

Related: Coronavirus US: Fauci appears at house hearing on virus 'raging out of control' – live

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‘Time for a new vision’: violence is a public health issue that requires community driven solutions

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Treating violence as a health epidemic can increase safety while decreasing the need for police involvement

In cities across the United States and around the world, millions of people have been protesting to demand alternatives to policing.

In Oakland, California, violence intervention programs in past years have shown there are other ways to address violence in communities than sending in armed police, ways that can quickly be scaled to both save lives and create more equitable treatment of people.

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Joe Biden spars with Michigan autoworker over guns – video

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Joe Biden, frontrunner for the US Democratic presidential nomination, got into a heated exchange with an autoworker at a campaign stop when questioned overwhether he was going to take away people’s guns. ‘You’re full of shit,’ Biden told the man, who accused him of ‘actively trying to end the second amendment’. The exchange came during a typical election-day voting photo shoot at Detroit’s first new auto assembly plant in decades, marking another episode of Biden’s propensity for going off-script and undercutting his campaign’s desired messaging

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Mass shooting in Seattle leaves one dead and seven injured

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  • Police searching for suspect
  • Attack marks third shooting in the area in two days

Eight people were shot in Seattle on Wednesday, authorities said, and one of them succumbed to their injuries.

The Seattle fire chief, Harold Scoggins, said authorities began receiving calls at about 5pm warning of multiple gunshot victims. One person was found dead in a heavily trafficked area of downtown and five others were taken to a Seattle hospital, he said.

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Texas shooting details supercharge NRA’s ‘good guy with a gun’ defense

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Security duo shot and killed gunman in Texas, prompting gun-rights groups to urge states to pass laws expanding firearms access

Every time the US suffers another mass shooting, gun rights activists make an argument that goes something like this: if a good guy with a gun had been there, this terrible tragedy could have been prevented.

Related: Texas shooting: two dead and one injured at Fort Worth church

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2019: the year in US protests – in pictures

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Tens of thousands of teachers walked off the job in Los Angeles, American women gathered for their third annual march in Washington, Iowans protested abortion bans, Texans declared Donald Trump ‘not welcome’ in El Paso and students in New York City rallied around Greta Thunberg in calling for action on climate change

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2019 saw most mass killings on record, US database reveals

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Thirty-three of 41 incidents involved firearms, research shows, even as overall number of homicides fell

This year saw the highest number of mass killings on record, database records show, with 41 incidents claiming 211 lives in 2019 even as the overall US homicide rated dropped.

According to the database complied by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University, 33 of the incidents, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator, involved firearms.

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Gun violence is a health crisis. More policing isn’t the solution

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The unsung heroes of Oakland’s drastic reduction in gun violence are the communities themselves

There is a saying, made famous by the criminal justice reformers Glenn Martin and Piper Kerman, that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution, but are also furthest from the resources and power to address it.

No one is closer to the decades-long epidemic of violence in Oakland than those who have grown up around it, those who live daily with the specter of violence, whose sleep has been punctured by the sound of gunfire, whose lives are forever marked by the pain of loved ones lost. Now that Oakland homicides are finally on the decline, it is these people, and the organizations within which they work, who are the unsung heroes.

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