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A momentous political showdown in Tennessee lays bare a new chapter in US politics | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Tennessee Republicans’ ruthless use of their state House supermajority to expel two young Black lawmakers for breaching decorum exposed a torrent of political forces that are transforming American politics at the grassroots.

The GOP action, after the lawmakers had led a gun control protest from the House floor in response to last week’s Nashville school shooting, created a snapshot of how two halves of a diversifying and increasingly self-estranged nation are being pulled apart.

A day of soaring tensions inside and outside the state House chamber thrust the Volunteer State into the national spotlight in an extraordinary political coda to the mass shooting in which six people, including three 9-year-olds, were gunned down.

The drama laid bare intense frustration among some voters at the failure to pass firearms reform – and the growing clash between Democrats from liberal cities and a Republican Party that is willing to use its rural conservative power base to curtail democracy. Given the national attention, the showdown could backfire on the GOP with voters who balk at its extremist turn. And it turned two lawmakers – whom most Americans had never heard of – into overnight heroes of the progressive movement.

The Democrats – Justin Pearson and Justin Jones – were thrown out of their seats in a move that effectively canceled out the votes of their tens of thousands of constituents, simply for infringing the rules of the chamber – an almost unheard of sanction across the country.

But a third Democrat – Gloria Johnson, a White woman who also joined the gun control protest – escaped expulsion after Republicans failed to muster the required two-thirds majority. The discrepancy raised suggestions of racial discrimination and made an acrimonious day even uglier.

Republicans said that the Democrats had interrupted the people’s business with their protest, arguing that democracy couldn’t work if lawmakers refused to abide by the rules. But the Democrats have long warned their voices are being silenced by the hardline GOP supermajority and accused Republicans of infringing their rights to free expression and dissent.

“We called for you all to ban assault weapons, and you respond with an assault on democracy,” Jones told Republican legislators on Thursday as he spoke before the House in his own defense.

At its most basic level, the clash underscored the utter polarization between Republicans and Democrats about how to respond to mass shootings, which pass with little or no significant action to prevent the endless sequence of such tragedies.

Although it did pass a measure intended to enhance school security, the Tennessee state House essentially decided to use its near unchecked power to protect its behavioral rules rather than take any action to make it harder for mass killers to get deadly weapons. In a deep-red state like Tennessee, this is not a surprise. But the fury and even desperation of lawmakers like Pearson and Jones and the hundreds of protesters at the state capitol on Thursday reflect increasing anger among the majority of Americans who want tougher gun restrictions but find their hopes dashed by Republican legislatures.

In Tennessee, that frustration over the endless deaths of innocents erupted into activism.

One protester, teacher Kevin Foster, said the aftermath of the Nashville school shooting had been “deeply, deeply painful.”

And he tearfully called on Tennessee legislators to do something to stop more school shootings. “Just listen to us, there is absolutely no reason you should have assault rifles available to citizens in the public. It serves absolutely no purpose and it brings death and destruction on children,” Foster told CNN’s Ryan Young.

The severe penalties meted out by the legislature for a rules infraction, which did not involve violence or incitement, also underscored another increasing trend – the radicalization of the Donald Trump-era Republican Party. Critics see the way the GOP is using its legislative majorities as an abuse of power that threatens the democratic rights of millions of Americans.

The Tennessee House has only rarely expelled members – and when it has, it’s for offenses like bribery or sexual infractions – so the treatment of Pearson and Jones, who had already had their committee assignments taken away, was regarded by Democrats as disproportionately harsh.

The expulsions looked like a party dispensing with opponents and positions it didn’t agree with – a perspective Pearson voiced when he accused the GOP of acting to suppress ideas it would prefer not to listen to and questions it wouldn’t answer.

“You just expelled a member for exercising their First Amendment rights!” he said.

Tennessee Republican Caucus Chair Jeremy Faison told CNN his members were always firm in wanting the Democratic lawmakers expelled and rejected an alternative route through the House ethics committee. “The overwhelming majority, the heartbeat of this caucus, says ‘not on this House floor, not this way,’” he said. Faison added: “It is not possible for us to move forward with the way they were behaving in committee and on the House floor. There’s got to be some peace.”

Democrats did break the rules last week – they admitted to doing so and their actions, if adopted by every legislator, would make it impossible to maintain order and free debate. Jones, for instance, used a bullhorn to lead chants of protesters in the public gallery. But the question at issue is the appropriateness of the punishments and whether the GOP majority overreached.

One Republican, state Rep. Gino Bulso, said that Jones – with his dramatic self-defense in the well of the chamber on Thursday – had made the case for his ejection because he accused the House of acting dishonorably.

“He and two other representatives effectively conducted a mutiny on March the 30th of 2023 in this very chamber,” Bulso said. State House Speaker Cameron Sexton had previously compared the gun control protest to the mob attack by Trump’s supporters on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

But this appeared an absurd analogy. While the protest in the Tennessee chamber did disrupt regular order, it wasn’t anti-democratic, nor was it designed to interrupt the transfer of power from one president to the next, like the Capitol riot briefly did. And the behavior of the three Democratic lawmakers, while irregular, was not that unusual in a riotous political age. US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and other Republicans, for instance, heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address this year. And Trump this week attacked a New York judge as biased and singled out his family after becoming the first ex-president to be charged with a crime.

The racial backdrop of Thursday’s vote could not be ignored after Johnson was reprieved by a single vote. She told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that she believed race helped explain the differing outcomes.

“I think it is pretty clear. I am a 60-year-old White woman, and they are two young Black men,” Johnson said, adding that she thought the Republicans questioned Jones and Pearson in a demeaning way.

US Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, didn’t rule out the possibility that discrimination was behind the expulsion of Jones and Pearson but not Johnson.

“I am not saying race wasn’t (the reason) – but I haven’t looked at the numbers to see if gender might not have had a play in it, and also maybe some seniority, and also some folks that were on a committee with her,” Cohen told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga.

The question is especially acute since Pearson and Jones were arguing that their voices – and those of hundreds of thousands of Black Americans in the state’s diverse cities – were being silenced by a largely White Republican majority.

“I represent 78,000 people, and when I came to the well that day, I was not standing for myself,” Jones said. “I was standing for those young people … many of whom can’t even vote yet, many of whom are disenfranchised. But all of whom are terrified by the continued trend of mass shooting plaguing our state and plaguing this nation.”

Jones, from Nashville, and Pearson, from Memphis, are representative of a new generation of politically active Americans. Their background in activism and compelling rhetorical styles speak to a kind of politics that is more confrontational than the outwardly genteel but hardball power plays preferred by some of their older Republican colleagues in the legislature.

At times, the speeches by both lawmakers invoked the atmospherics of the civil rights movement and may augur a new brand of urgent activism by younger citizens – like the multi-racial crowd of protesters who greeted Pearson and Jones as heroes after they left the chamber.

The topic of the showdown – over infringements of the decorum of the state House – also had uncomfortable racial echoes as they implied, deliberately or not, that the two young Black Americans did not understand the proper way to behave in public life.

“It’s very scary for the nation to see what’s happening here. If I didn’t know that it was happening to me, I would think this was 1963 instead of 2023,” Jones told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

More broadly, Pearson and Jones also represent a cementing reality of the American political map in which growing liberal and racially diverse cities and suburbs are increasingly clashing with legislatures dominated by Republicans from more rural areas.

This dynamic is playing out on multiple issues – including abortion, crime and voting rights – in states like Georgia and Texas. In Florida, meanwhile, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is using his big reelection win and GOP control of both chambers of the state legislature to drive home a radical America First-style conservative agenda that he’s using as a platform for a possible presidential campaign. Some Republicans see similar trends in Democratic-majority California.

In Tennessee, as Democratic state House Rep. Joe Towns put it, the GOP used a nuclear option by deploying their supermajority to suppress the ability of minority Democrats to speak.

“You never use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat,” Towns said. “We should not go to the extreme of expelling our members for fighting for what many of the citizens want to happen, whether you agree with it or not.”

Pearson was specific in viewing his expulsion as being about far more than a thwarted gun control protest.

“We are losing our democracy to White supremacy, we are losing our democracy to patriarchy, we are losing our democracy to people who want to keep a status quo that is damning to the rest of us and damning to our children and unborn people,” he said.

The political crisis in Tennessee quickly got national attention.

Biden described the expulsions as “shocking, undemocratic and without precedent” and lambasted Republicans for not doing more to prevent school shootings.

“Americans want lawmakers to act on commonsense gun safety reforms that we know will save lives. But instead, we’ve continued to see Republican officials across America double down on dangerous bills that make our schools, places of worship, and communities less safe,” he said in a statement.

Republicans in Tennessee had their own political reasons for acting against the trio of Democratic lawmakers. But by making national figures of Pearson and Jones and by handing the White House a new example of GOP extremism, their efforts may have badly backfired.

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April 6, 2023

Tennessee House expels 1 lawmaker, falls short of ousting another while 3rd awaits vote | CNN

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Nashville
CNN
—

A vote to expel Democratic Rep. Gloria Johnson from Tennessee’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives has failed, a week after she and two other Democrats led a gun reform protest on the House floor. The House earlier expelled Rep. Justin Jones over that protest, which followed a deadly mass shooting at a Nashville school.

The third Democrat involved, Justin Pearson, also faces a possible vote on his removal from office Thursday.

The vote over rules violations for Johnson was 65-30. Expulsion from the House requires a two-thirds majority of the total membership. The vote for Jones split along party lines, 72-25.

Protesters flooded the state Capitol on Thursday as the legislators were set to take up three resolutions filed by GOP lawmakers Monday seeking to expel Jones, of Nashville, Johnson of Knoxville and Pearson of Memphis, a step the state House has taken only twice since the 1860s.

“There comes a time where people get sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Jones said in a speech prior to a vote on his expulsion. “And so my colleagues, I say that what we did was act in our responsibility as legislators to serve and give voice to the grievances of people who have been silenced.”

“We called for you all to ban assault weapons,” he said, “and you respond with an assault on democracy.”

Jones added: “How can you bring dishonor to an already dishonorable house?”

Jones’ vote took place after two hours of debate that included Jones answering questions regarding his actions during a protest last Thursday over calls for gun violence legislation. Johnson’s vote followed about an hour and a half of discussion.

Throughout the day, crowds have gathered outside and inside the building. Following the vote to expel Jones, those inside the Capitol gallery raised their fists and erupted in boos.

After a Democratic motion to adjourn until Monday was voted down, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton admonished the people in the balcony for yelling, saying if their “disruptive behavior” continued they would clear the area of everyone but the media.

“That’s the one warning,” he said.

Cheers filled the Capitol following the failed vote to expel Johnson.

“We did what we needed to do,” Johnson said to reporters outside the chamber.

Johnson thanked the crowd that was gathered around the building and encouraged them to vote. “Keep showing up, standing up and speaking out and we will be with you,” she added.

Johnson, who is White, was asked why there was a difference in the outcome for her and Jones, who is Black-Filipino.

“I will answer your question. It might have to do with the color of our skin,” she said.

President Joe Biden criticized the proceedings in Nashville in a tweet.

“Three kids and three officials gunned down in yet another mass shooting. And what are GOP officials focused on? Punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters calling for action. It’s shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent,” he wrote.

The three lawmakers led a protest on the House floor last Thursday without being recognized, CNN affiliate WSMV reported, using a bullhorn as demonstrators at the state Capitol called on lawmakers to take action to prevent further gun violence after a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville left three 9-year-olds and three adults dead. Each lawmaker was removed from their committee assignments following last week’s demonstrations.

Discussion Thursday began with Republicans playing footage of the protest last week, showing Jones, Johnson and Pearson standing in the well of the House and using the bullhorn to address their colleagues and protesters in the gallery.

Democrats were opposed to having the footage played, arguing it was unfair because they had not seen the video themselves and did not know the extent to which it had been edited.

Democratic Whip Jason Powell, who represents Nashville, said he was “outraged” and “expelling Justin Jones is not the answer.”

He angrily said the House was spending too much time on the expulsion issue.

“I had to leave here Monday night after this resolution was introduced and go to my son’s Little League field and see red ribbons surrounding the outfield in memory of William Kinney who was murdered and I am outraged, and we should all be outraged,” he said, his voice rising. “We need to do something and expelling Justin Jones is not the answer. It is a threat to democracy.”

More about the three representatives:

Rep. Justin Pearson:District: 86
Age: 28
In office: 2023-
Issues: Environmental, racial and economic justice
Of note: Successfully blocked oil pipeline from being built in south Memphis
Recent awards: The Root’s 100 Most Influential Black Americans (2022)Rep. Gloria Johnson:District: 90
Age: 60
In office: 2013-2015, 2019-
Issues: Education, jobs, health care
Of note: Successfully organized in favor of Insure Tennessee, the state’s version of Medicaid expansion
Recent awards: National Foundation of Women Legislators Women of Excellence (2022)Rep. Justin Jones:District: 52
Age: 27
In office: 2023-
Issues: Health care, environmental justice
Of note: Wrote “The People’s Plaza: 62 Days of Nonviolent Resistance” after helping to organize a 2022 sit-in
Recent awards: Ubuntu Award for outstanding service, Vanderbilt Organization of Black Graduate and Professional Students (2019)

“This is not just about losing my job,” Jones told “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday, saying constituents of the three representatives “are being taken and silenced by a party that is acting like authoritarians.”

As he left the Capitol on Thursday, Jones said he is not sure what his next steps are following his expulsion.

“I will continue to show up to this Capitol with these young people whether I’m in that chamber or outside,” Jones told reporters.

In the last 157 years, the House has expelled only two lawmakers, which requires a two-thirds vote: In 1980, after a representative was found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office, and in 2016, when another was expelled over allegations of sexual harassment.

This week, Sexton said the three Democrats’ actions “are and always will be unacceptable” and broke “several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor.”

Sexton said peaceful protesters have always been welcomed to the capitol to have their voices heard on any issue, but that the actions of the Democratic lawmakers had detracted from that process.

“In effect, those actions took away the voices of the protestors, the focus on the six victims who lost their lives, and the families who lost their loved ones,” Sexton said in a series of tweets Monday.

“We cannot allow the actions of the three members to distract us from protecting our children. We will get through this together, and it will require talking about all solutions,” Sexton said.

During the discussion Thursday, Democratic Rep. Joe Towns called the move to expel the “nuclear option.”

“You never use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat,” Towns said. “We should not go to the extreme of expelling our members for fighting for what many of the citizens want to happen, whether you agree with it or not.”

The move to expel the trio drew protesters to the Capitol Thursday morning, with many wanting to express both their opposition to the lawmakers’ removal from office – chants of “We stand with the Tennessee three,” were heard outside – as well as support for gun reform legislation.

To some, the vote to expel Johnson, Jones and Pearson was a distraction from the real issue: Keeping children safe.

“I want people to know this is not a political issue, it’s a child issue,” Deborah Castellano, a first-grade teacher in Nashville, told CNN. “If you wash away Democrat, Republican, it’s about kids and do we want them to be safe or not. I will stand in front of children and protect as many as I can with my body … but we shouldn’t have to, and those kids shouldn’t be afraid.”

Paul Slentz, a retired United Methodist pastor, knows two of the lawmakers personally, he said, adding it was wrong for them to face a vote for their expulsion.

“They’re good people,” Slentz told CNN affiliate WSMV in an interview outside the Capitol. “They have strong moral convictions. They are people of faith.”

Each of the resolutions says the lawmakers “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives,” saying they “began shouting without recognition” and “proceeded to disrupt the proceedings of the House Representatives” for just under an hour Thursday morning.

The resolutions seek to remove the lawmakers from office under Article II, Section 12 of the Tennessee Constitution, which says, in part, the House can set its own rules and “punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

Republicans control the Tennessee House of Representatives by a wide margin, with 75 members to Democrats’ 23. One seat is vacant.

The code allows for the appointment of interim members of the House until the seats of the expelled are filled by an election.

Pearson has acknowledged he and his two colleagues may have broken House rules, both in a letter sent to House members this week and in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, acknowledging they “spoke out of order” when they walked to the well of the House.

“We broke a House rule,” he said, “but it does not meet the threshold for actually expelling members of the House who were duly elected by their district, who sent us here to serve, and now they’re being disenfranchised by the Republican party of the state of Tennessee.”

House Democrats expressed solidarity with Johnson, Jones and Pearson in a statement, while Rep. Sam McKenzie, of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators, called the move “political retribution.”

“We fundamentally object to any effort to expel members for making their voices heard to end gun violence,” McKenzie said.

The move to expel the lawmakers also drew condemnation from the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, whose executive director, Kathy Sinback, called expulsion “an extreme measure” infrequently used, “because its strips voters of representation by the people they elected.”

“Instead of rushing to expel members for expressing their ethical convictions about crucial social issues,” Sinback said, “House leadership should turn to solving the real challenges facing our state.”

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April 6, 2023

Suicide note and weapons found when police searched the Nashville shooter’s home, warrant shows | CNN

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Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 to connect with a trained counselor or visit 988lifeline.org.

CNN
—

Investigators found a suicide note when they executed a search warrant at the home of the shooter who killed six people at a Nashville school last week, along with more weapons and ammunition, according to an inventory of items seized.

The search warrant and the list of items found were released Tuesday, just over a week after the shooter, former student Audrey Hale, opened fire at The Covenant School, killing three 9-year-olds and three adults.

The warrant, executed the same day as the shooting, shows authorities also found several Covenant School yearbooks and a school photo, in addition to the shooter’s journals. Some of the journals are described as being related to “school shootings; firearm courses,” the list indicates.

A total of 47 items were seized, according to the list.

Hale, 28, fired 152 rounds in the attack, which was planned “over a period of months,” police said in a news release Monday. Hale “considered the actions of other mass murderers,” that release said, and “acted totally alone.”

Hale, who police said was under care for an emotional disorder, had legally purchased seven guns and hidden them at home, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake previously said.

Hale was armed with three guns during the attack, which ended after Nashville officers arrived on the scene and confronted the shooter.

Two officers opened fire – a moment captured in bodycam footage later released by police – and killed Hale at 10:27 a.m., 14 minutes after the shooter entered the private Christian school, according to Nashville police spokesperson Don Aaron.

Police continue to work to determine a motive for the attack, but they said previously that writings left behind by Hale – which continue to be reviewed by police and the FBI – made clear it was “calculated and planned.”

Hale targeted the school and Covenant Presbyterian Church, to which the school is attached, police said, but it’s believed the victims were fired upon at random.

Those victims were Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, all 9 years old, as well as school custodian Mike Hill, 61, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60, who was head of the school.

Four police officers who responded to the shooting described to reporters Tuesday how their training guided them as they hunted the shooter.

Officer Rex Engelbert praised two staff members “who stayed on the scene and didn’t run.” They gave him the concise information he needed, as well as “the exact key I needed to enter the building,” he said.

Engelbert and Detective Sgt. Jeff Mathes became part of a team that cleared classrooms and searched for the shooter. When they reached the first-floor atrium they took gunfire from the shooter.

“We were still unsure where that was, but our job is to go towards it, so we went through a pair of double doors,” Mathes said.

Detective Michael Collazo, who heard the shooter might be on the second floor, joined the group.

“At some point around that time frame is when we started hearing the first shots … that’s when everything kind of kicked into overdrive for us, “Collazo said.

After they went up a stairwell and down a second-floor hallway, they encountered a victim on the floor.

“Doing what our training tells us to do in those situations and following the stimulus, all of us stepped over a victim. To this day, don’t know how I did that morally, but training is what kicked in,” Mathes said.

Smoke was filling the building and the fire alarm was blaring, Collazo said. Then there was a gunshot to their right.

He asked Engelbert, who had a scope on his rifle, to lead the team toward the gunshot. Engelbert said things were unfolding “very similar to the training we receive.”

“We then proceeded continually towards the sounds of gunfire and then once we got near the shooter, the shooter was neutralized,” Mathes said.

The school shooting – the deadliest since 21 people, including 19 children, were killed at a school in Uvalde, Texas, last May – renewed debate over the scourge of American gun violence, access to firearms and school safety, a fight that spilled over into the state legislature this week.

Tennessee House Republicans on Monday took steps toward expelling three Democratic state representatives who participated in protests at the state Capitol last Thursday calling for more gun control in the wake of the deadly mass shooting.

A vote on whether to expel the three members – Reps. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis – is slated for Thursday, according to The Tennessean.

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April 4, 2023

As more details emerge about how the Nashville school shooting unfolded, expert says the quick thinking of teachers saved lives | CNN

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CNN
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As more details emerge about how a deadly mass shooting unfolded inside a private Christian school in Nashville, a former police officer who provided active shooter training at the school said the quick-thinking actions of teachers who locked down classrooms helped save lives.

The shooter who got into The Covenant School on Monday fired multiple rounds into several classrooms but didn’t hit any students inside the classrooms, “because the teachers knew exactly what to do, how to fortify their doors and where to place their children in those rooms,” security consultant Brink Fidler told CNN.

“Their ability to execute literally flawlessly under that amount of stress while somebody trying to murder them and their children, that is what made the difference here,” Fidler said.

“These teachers are the reason those kids went home to their families,” he added.

Six people were killed in the Monday morning school shooting. They were three 9-year-old students: Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs. The adults killed were Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher; Katherine Koonce, the 60-year-old head of the school; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian, police said.

All of the victims who were struck by gunfire had been in an open area or hallway, said Fidler, who did a walk-through of the school with officials Wednesday.

“The only victims this shooter was able to get to were victims that were stuck in some sort of open area or hallway,” Fidler said. “Several were able to evarocuate safely. The ones that couldn’t do that safely did exactly what they were taught and trained to do.”

While the shooter had targeted the school, it’s believed the victims were fired upon at random, police have said.

Also credited with saving lives are the officers who rushed into the school and fatally shot the attacker, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, ending the 14 minutes of terror that unfolded at the school.

“We had heroic officers that went in harm’s way to stop this and we could have been talking about more tragedy than what we are,” Drake told CNN Wednesday.

The law enforcement response in Nashville stands in contrast with the response in Uvalde, Texas, where there was a delay of more than an hour before authorities confronted and killed the gunman. The attack in Uvalde left 21 people dead.

Monday’s school shooting in Nashville was the deadliest US school shooting since last May’s massacre in Uvalde. It also marked the 19th shooting at a school or university in just the past three months that left at least one person wounded, a CNN count shows.

A Nashville city councilman also said a witness told him Koonce, the head of The Covenant School, spent her last moments trying to protect the children in her care.

“The witness said Katherine Koonce was on a Zoom call, heard the shots and abruptly ended the Zoom call and left the office. The assumption from there is that she headed towards the shooter,” Councilman Russ Pulley said. He did not identify the witness.

Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said he can’t confirm how Koonce died but said, “I do know she was in the hallway by herself. There was a confrontation, I’m sure. You can tell the way she is lying in the hallway.”

Fidler said that Koonce had been adamant about training school staff on how to respond during an active shooter situation.

“She understood the severity of the topic and the severity of the teachers needing to have the knowledge of what to do in that situation,” he said.

Koonce and the other victims were honored at a citywide vigil in Nashville Wednesday, where residents came together to pray and grieve.

“It’s such a tragedy and felt so deeply by everyone here,” Nashville resident Eliza Hughes said. “Nashville is a close tight-knit community. We definitely feel the tragedy. It’s an awful situation.”

After the shooting, police found that Hale had detailed maps of The Covenant School – which the shooter had attended as a child – and “quite a bit” of writings related to the shooting, according to the police chief.

The FBI, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and police have been combing through the maps and writings Hale left, including looking at a notebook, Drake said.

Authorities have called the attack “calculated,” with Drake saying Wednesday that the maps “did have a display of entry into the school, a route that would be taken for whatever was going to be carried out.”

The shooter is also believed to have had weapons training and had arrived at the school heavily armed and prepared for a confrontation with law enforcement, police have said.

But as details of the pre-planning are uncovered, it’s still unclear what motivated the attack. Drake said police have met with the school and found no indication that Hale had any problems while attending The Covenant.

Hale had been under care for an emotional disorder and legally bought seven guns in the past three years, but they were kept hidden from Hale’s parents, Drake said. Three of the weapons, including an AR-15 rifle, were used in the attack Monday.

Tennessee does not have a “red flag” law that would allow a judge to temporarily seize guns from someone who is believed to be a threat to themselves or others.

The police chief said law enforcement was not contacted about the shooter previously, and Hale was never committed to an institution.

Hale’s childhood friend, Averianna Patton, told CNN on Tuesday the killer sent her disturbing messages minutes before the attack, saying “I’m planning to die today” and it would be on the news.

Patton called the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville but was on hold for “maybe like 7 minutes,” she said. By then, the shooting had already started.

Asked about the messages, Drake told CNN, “If their timeline was accurate, the actual call came in after the officer had already arrived on the scene. So, it plays no bearing on that.”

“The moment we got the call, we responded immediately to the scene. Officers pulled up, were taking gunfire, pulled the gun out, went inside, did not wait,” Drake said.

The shooter entered the school by firing at glass doors and climbing through to get inside, surveillance video shows. The first call about the shooting came in at 10:13 a.m., and police arrived on scene at 10:24 a.m., according to the police chief.

Body-camera footage from the first responding officers shows them rushing in and clearing classrooms before racing to the second floor of the school, where an officer armed with an assault-style rifle shot the assailant multiple times. The shooter was dead at 10:27 a.m., police said.

Police have referred to Hale as a “female shooter,” and later said Hale was transgender. Hale used male pronouns on a social media profile, a spokesperson told CNN when asked to clarify.

The Covenant School shooting victims (top row) Katherine Koonce, Mike Hill, Cynthia Peak, (bottom row) Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney.

Nashville residents came together for a citywide vigil Wednesday to mourn the victims, pray and sharex in the heartache.

First lady Jill Biden was in attendance, as was singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, who performed her song “I Shall Believe” to the grieving crowd.

“Nashville has had its worst today,” Mayor John Cooper told the crowd. “Our heart is broken. Our city united as we mourn together.”

The police chief also addressed the community, saying that a school shooting like the one officers faced at The Covenant School on Monday is a moment officers have trained for but hoped would never come.

“Our police officers have cried and are crying with Nashville and the world,” Drake said.

As the community grieves, families are mourning loved ones lost in the shooting.

First Lady Jill Biden at the Nashville Remembers candlelight vigil Wednesday.

William, one of the children killed, had an “unflappable spirit,” friends of the Kinney family shared on GoFundMe.

Hallie’s aunt Kara Arnold said the 9-year-old had “a love for life that kept her smiling and running and jumping and playing and always on the go.”

Evelyn’s family called her “a shining light in this world.”

The family of Hill, a father of seven children and grandfather to 14, remembered his love for cooking and spending time with his family.

“Violence has visited our city and brought heartache and pain. In the midst of sorrow, we are yet looking for hope,” said Tennessee Representative Rev. Harold M. Love, Jr. as he ended the vigil with a prayer.

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March 29, 2023

Children and teens are more likely to die by guns than anything else | CNN

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CNN
—

Guns are the leading cause of death for US children and teens, since surpassing car accidents in 2020.

Firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths (ages 1-18) in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database. Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year. That’s about five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States. In no other comparable country are firearms within the top four causes of mortality among children, according to a KFF analysis.

The shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville on Monday, marks the 16th shooting this year in grades K-12 and the deadliest since the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last year, according to a CNN analysis of school shooting data. Six people — three children and three adults — were killed.

There have been 130 mass shootings so far in 2023, the highest number of shootings recorded at this point in any year since at least 2013, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

Child and teen mortality overall surged during the Covid-19 pandemic — driven not by Covid-19 deaths but by fatal injuries, according to a new study in JAMA. Firearms accounted for nearly half of the increase in mortality in 2020.

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March 29, 2023

Covenant School shooter was under care for emotional disorder and hid guns at home, police say | CNN

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Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence.

CNN
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The 28-year-old who killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville was under care for an emotional disorder and had legally bought seven firearms that were hidden at home, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Tuesday.

The parents of the shooter, Audrey Hale, spoke to police and said they knew Hale had bought and sold one weapon and believed that was the extent of it.

“The parents felt (Hale) should not own weapons,” the chief said.

On Monday morning, Hale left home with a red bag, and the parents asked what was inside but were dismissed, Drake said.

Three of the weapons were used in the attack Monday. Police also said Tuesday they did not know a motive.

The shooter targeted the school and church in the attack but did not specifically target any of the six people killed, police spokesman Don Aaron said. He also said Hale’s writings mentioned a mall near the school as another possible target.

Live updates: Nashville Covenant School shooting

The news conference came a day after Hale, a former student at the Covenant School, stormed into the elementary school and killed six people before being fatally shot by responding police officers.

The attack was the 19th shooting at an American school or university in 2023 in which at least one person was wounded, according to a CNN tally, and the deadliest since the May attack in Uvalde, Texas, left 21 dead. There have been 42 K-12 school shootings since Uvalde.

The victims included three 9-year-old students: Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, the daughter of lead church pastor Chad Scruggs. Also killed were Cynthia Peak, 61, believed to be a substitute teacher; Katherine Koonce, the 60-year-old head of the school; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian, police said.

Earlier Tuesday, police released body-camera footage from the two officers who rushed into the Covenant School on Monday and fatally shot the mass shooter.

The footage is from the body-worn cameras of officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, who police said fatally shot the attacker on Monday at 10:27 a.m. The videos show a group of five officers entered the school amid wailing fire alarms and immediately went into several rooms to look for the suspect.

They heard gunfire on the second floor and so hustled up the stairs as the bangs grew louder, the video shows. The officers approached the sound of gunfire and Engelbert, armed with an assault-style rifle, rounded a corner and fired multiple times at a person near a large window, who dropped to the ground, the video shows.

Collazo then pushed forward and appeared to shoot the person on the ground four times with a handgun, yelling “Stop moving!” The officers finally approached the person, moved a gun away and then radioed “Suspect down! Suspect down!”

The video adds further insight into the timeline of the shooting and the police response. The first 911 call about the shooting came in at 10:13 a.m., and the shooter was killed 14 minutes later, according to police. The bodycam footage of Engelbert entering the school and shooting the attacker lasts about three to four minutes.

The Covenant school is a private Christian school educating about 200 students from Pre-K through 6th grade. The school is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, its website states.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper told CNN the swift police response prevented further disaster.

“It could have been worse without this great response,” the mayor of the police response. “This was very planned and numerous sites were investigated.”

The police chief similarly praised the response as swift.

“I was hoping this day would never ever come here in the city. But we will never wait to make entry and to go in and to stop a threat especially when it deals with our children,” Drake said in a Monday news conference.

This undated picture provided by the Metro Nashville Police Department shows Audrey Elizabeth Hale.

Police said the shooting was targeted, closely planned and outlined in documents from the shooter.

Hale left writings pertaining to the shooting and had scouted a second possible attack location in Nashville, “but because of a threat assessment by the suspect – there’s too much security – decided not to,” Drake said on Monday.

The shooter left behind “drawn out” maps of the school detailing “how this was all going to take place,” he added.

The writings revealed the attack at the Christian school “was calculated and planned,” police said. The shooter was “someone that had multiple rounds of ammunition, prepared for confrontation with law enforcement, prepared to do more harm than was actually done,” Drake said.

Three weapons – an AR-15, a Kel-Tec SUB 2000, and a handgun – were found at the school, he said. A search warrant executed at Hale’s home led to the seizure of a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other evidence, according to police.

“They found a lot of documents. This was clearly planned,” Mayor Cooper said. “There was a lot of ammunition. There were guns.”

Police have referred to Hale as a “female shooter,” and at an evening news conference added Hale was transgender. Hale used male pronouns on a social media profile, a spokesperson told CNN when asked to clarify.

Hale graduated from Nossi College of Art & Design in Nashville last year, the president of the school confirmed to CNN. Hale worked as a freelance graphic designer and a part-time grocery shopper, a LinkedIn profile says.

Former teammate of Nashville school shooter got unusual Instagram messages before rampage

Information from police and from the shooter’s childhood friend helped illuminate a timeline of the deadly attack.

Just before 10 a.m. Monday, the shooter sent an ominous message to a childhood friend, the friend told CNN on Tuesday. In an Instagram message to Averianna Patton, a Nashville radio host, just before 10 a.m. Monday, the shooter said “I’m planning to die today” and that it would be on the news.

“One day this will make more sense,” Hale wrote. “I’ve left more than enough evidence behind. But something bad is about to happen.”

Patton told CNN’s Don Lemon she was the shooter’s childhood basketball teammate and “knew her well when we were kids” but hadn’t spoken in years and is unsure why she received the message. Disturbed by its content, she called a suicide prevention line and the Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s Office at 10:13 a.m.

At that very minute, police in Nashville also got a 911 call of an active shooter inside Covenant School and rushed there.

The moment school shooter Audrey Hale arrived at the Covenant School was captured in 2 minutes of surveillance video released by Metro Nashville Police.

Armed with three firearms, the shooter got into the school by firing through glass doors and climbing through to get inside, surveillance video released by Metro Nashville Police shows. Pointing an assault-style weapon, the shooter walked through the school’s hallways, the video shows.

As the first five officers arrived, they heard gunfire from the second floor. The shooter was “firing through a window at arriving police cars,” police said in the news release.

Police went upstairs, where two officers opened fire, killing the shooter at 10:27 a.m., police spokesperson Don Aaron said.

After the shooter was dead, children were evacuated from the school and taken in buses to be reunited with their families. They held hands and walked in a line out of the school, where community members embraced, video showed.

“This school prepared for this with active shooter training for a reason,” Nashville Metropolitan Councilman Russ Pulley told CNN. “We don’t like to think that this is ever going to happen to us. But experience has taught us that we need to be prepared because in this day and time it is the reality of where we are.”

Patton, meanwhile, had “called Nashville’s non-emergency line at 10:14 a.m. and was on hold for nearly seven minutes before speaking with someone who said that they would send an officer to my home,” she told CNN affiliate WTVF. An officer did not come to her home until about 3:30 p.m., she said.

Students from the Covenant School hold hands Monday after getting off a bus to meet their parents at a reunification site after a mass shooting at the school in Nashville.

Two Covenant School employees are among the victims of Monday’s mass shooting, according to the school.

Katherine Koonce was identified as the head of the school, its website says. She attended Vanderbilt University and Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville and got her master’s degree from Georgia State University.

Sissy Goff, one of Koonce’s friends, went to the reunification center after the shooting and suspected something was wrong when she didn’t see Koonce there.

“Knowing her, she’s so kind and strong and such a voice of reason and just security for people that she would have been there in front handling everything, so I had a feeling,” Goff said.

She said Koonce was a calming influence and even got a dog named “Covie” who greeted students before and after school.

“Parents are so anxious, kids are so anxious, and Katherine had such a centering voice for people,” Goff said.

Mike Hill was identified in the staff section of the Covenant Presbyterian Church’s website as facilities/kitchen staff. Hill, 61, was a custodian at the school, per police. A friend confirmed his image to CNN.

Cynthia Peak, 61, was believed to be a substitute teacher, police said Monday.

The family of Evelyn Dieckhaus, one of the 9-year-old victims, provided a statement to CNN affiliate KMOV.

“Our hearts are completely broken. We cannot believe this has happened. Evelyn was a shining light in this world. We appreciate all the love and support but ask for space as we grieve,” the family said.

The Covenant School issued a statement Monday night grieving the shooting.

“Our community is heartbroken. We are grieving tremendous loss and are in shock coming out of the terror that shattered our school and church. We are focused on loving our students, our families, our faculty and staff and beginning the process of healing,” the school said in a statement.

“Law enforcement is conducting its investigation, and while we understand there is a lot of interest and there will be a lot of discussion about and speculation surrounding what happened, we will continue to prioritize the well-being of our community.

“We appreciate the outpouring of support we have received, and we are tremendously grateful to the first responders who acted quickly to protect our students, faculty and staff. We ask for privacy as our community grapples with this terrible tragedy – for our students, parents, faculty and staff,” the statement said.

Cooper, the Nashville mayor, said he is “overwhelmed at the thought of the loss of these families, of the future lost by these children and their families.”

“The leading cause of kids’ death now is guns and gunfire and that is unacceptable,” Cooper said.

A recent study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics in December backs that point, finding that homicide is a leading cause of death for children in the United States and the overall rate has increased an average of 4.3% each year for nearly a decade.

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March 28, 2023

3 children and 3 adults fatally shot at Nashville grade school

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A female shooter wielding two “assault-style” rifles and a pistol killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday in what marks the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country growing increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.

The suspect also died after being shot by police following the violence at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school for about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade. Police said the shooter was a 28-year-old woman from Nashville, after initially saying she appeared to be in her teens.

Authorities were working to identify her and whether she had a connection to the school.

The killings come as communities around the nation are reeling from a spate of school violence, including the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year; a first grader who shot his teacher in Virginia; and a shooting last week in Denver that wounded two administrators.

President Joe Biden called on Congress again to pass his assault weapons ban in the wake of the Nashville shooting.

“It’s heartbreaking, a family’s worst nightmare,” he said.

First lady Jill Biden also spoke about the slayings on Monday.

“I am truly without words. And our children deserve better,” she said during a National League of Cities conference in Washington. “We stand – all of us, we stand – with Nashville in prayer.”

The tragedy unfolded over roughly 14 minutes. Police received the initial call about an active shooter at 10:13 a.m.

Officers began clearing the first story of the school when they heard gunshots coming from the second level, police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news briefing.

Two officers from a five-member team opened fire in response, fatally shooting the suspect at 10:27 a.m., Aaron said. He said there were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school.

The Covenant School’s victims were pronounced dead at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. One officer had a hand wound from cut glass.

Other students walked to safety Monday, holding hands as they left their school surrounded by police cars, to a nearby church to be reunited with their parents.

“In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting,” Mayor John Cooper wrote on Twitter. “My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Our entire city stands with you.”

Jozen Reodica heard the police sirens and fire trucks blaring from outside her office building nearby. As her building was placed under lockdown, she took out her phone and recorded the chaos.

“I thought I would just see this on TV,” she said. “And right now, it’s real.”

On WTVF TV, reporter Hannah McDonald said that her mother-in-law works at the front desk at The Covenant School. The woman had stepped outside for a break Monday morning and was coming back when she heard gunshots, McDonald said during a live broadcast. The reporter said she has not been able to speak with her mother-in-law but said her husband had.

The Covenant School was founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church in 2001, according to the school’s website. The school is located in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville, situated close to the city’s top universities and home to the famed Bluebird Café – a beloved spot for musicians and song writers.

The grade school has roughly 50 staff members. The school’s website features the motto “Shepherding Hearts, Empowering Minds, Celebrating Childhood.”

Top legislative leaders announced Monday that the GOP-dominant Statehouse would meet briefly later in the evening and delay taking up any legislation.

Republican Gov. Bill Lee said he was “closely monitoring” the situation, while Democratic state Rep. Bob Freeman, whose district includes The Covenant School, called Monday’s shooting an “unimaginable tragedy.”

“I live around the corner from Covenant and pass by it often. I have friends who attend both church and school there,” Freeman said in a statement. “I have also visited the church in the past. It tears my heart apart to see this.”

Nashville has seen its share of mass violence in recent years.

On Christmas Day 2020, a recreational vehicle was intentionally detonated in the heart of Music City’s historic downtown, killing the bomber, injuring three others and forcing more than 60 businesses to close.

A man shot and killed four people at a Nashville Waffle House in April 2018. He was sentenced in February 2022 to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

In September 2017, a masked gunman opened fire at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, walking silently down the aisle as he shot unsuspecting congregants. One person was killed and seven others were wounded. The gunman was sentenced in 2019 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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March 27, 2023

DOJ seeks fast-track Supreme Court review of ruling against gun ban for people under domestic violence restraining orders | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to fast-track its consideration of a recent appeals court ruling that deemed unconstitutional a federal law barring gun possession by those under domestic violence restraining orders.

“The presence of a gun in a house with a domestic abuser increases the risk of homicide sixfold,” US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in her petition Friday, urging the high court to decide before its summer recess whether to take up the case.

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said in February that the 1996 law was unconstitutional, and while the ruling applies only to Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, advocates worry it will have wide implications, including that it will discourage victims from coming forward.

The circuit court cited the major Second Amendment ruling handed down by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority last year that laid out a new test for lower courts to use to analyze a gun regulation’s constitutionality.

Prelogar told the Supreme Court on Friday that the 5th Circuit’s reasoning was wrong and the high court should take up the case so “that it can correct the Fifth Circuit’s misinterpretation of Bruen,” referring to last summer’s Supreme Court opinion.

The high court’s majority opinion in June said that part of the test was whether a gun restriction had a parallel to the regulations in place at the time of the Constitution’s framing.

The 5th Circuit said, with its opinion regarding the domestic violence gun restriction earlier this year, that the prohibition on alleged abusers lacked that kind of historical parallel and therefore was unconstitutional.

If the 5th Circuit’s “approach were applied across the board,” Prelogar wrote, “few modern statutes would survive judicial review; most modern gun regulations, after all, differ from their historical forbears in at least some ways.”

At the time of the circuit court ruling, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that Congress had determined the gun ban statute “nearly 30 years ago” and signaled the department’s plan to appeal the ruling.

“Whether analyzed through the lens of Supreme Court precedent, or of the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, that statute is constitutional. Accordingly, the Department will seek further review of the Fifth Circuit’s contrary decision,” he said.

Guns are used to commit nearly two-thirds of intimate partner homicides, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. A 2021 study found that the majority of mass shootings are also linked to domestic violence.

Though some of the states covered by the appeals court have similar state law restrictions, the new ruling undermines a crucial tool that survivors have to protect themselves from their abusers. If the 5th Circuit’s logic were adopted nationwide by the US Supreme Court, the consequences would be devastating, advocates say.

“People are going to know that their abuser still has their gun. They’re going to continue to live in absolute, abject fear,” said Heather Bellino, the CEO of the Texas Advocacy Project, which works with victims of domestic violence. “They are going to be afraid to get a protective order, because now that gun’s not going away.”

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March 18, 2023

Opinion: An often overlooked solution to prevent accidental gun deaths | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Jamie Gold is a wellness design consultant and author of “Wellness by Design: A Room-by-Room Guide to Optimizing Your Home for Health, Fitness and Happiness.” The opinions expressed in this article are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.

CNN
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President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday seeking to increase the number of background checks for gun purchasers. The measure does something else that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: It would promote the secure storage of firearms.

I’m a city girl whose family didn’t own guns but as a teenager, I got to see what secure gun storage looks like. I lived with my cousin’s family in Brooklyn during my senior year of high school. My uncle, a retired New York City police detective, enjoyed deer hunting upstate and would take his sons with him on many of those outings.

I remember seeing trophy photos in their house, but never the rifles. Those were secured out of sight and reach from young hands. Kids were only allowed to safely handle them while he was supervising. It’s the way many responsible parents teach their children to respect the power of firearms and protect their families from harm.

Many, but unfortunately, not all.

There were news reports this week of what has become a spate of incidents in which young children get their hands on unsecured firearms, with tragic consequences.

A 3-year-old girl fatally shot her 4-year-old sister in Houston, Texas over the weekend in an incident authorities called “tragic” but “very preventable.” Law enforcement officials said the child got hold of a loaded semi automatic pistol in the home.

And in January, a six-year-old Virginia boy allegedly shot a teacher with his mother’s handgun. While the state prohibits anyone from leaving a loaded gun in a place or manner to endanger a child younger than 14, or providing a firearm to a child younger than 12, it does not require that guns be locked away.

This meant that a schoolboy was able to swipe his parent’s firearm and smuggle it to school in his backpack, a teen could use it to commit suicide, a person with dementia or other mental illness could harm a loved one, or someone could just take your gun from your home and use it to commit other crimes.

Broadly speaking, gun owners are doing a better job of securing their weapons. According to a 2021 survey by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA Network), the percent of firearm owners with children who were more likely to safely store their weapons increased to 44.1% from 29% six years earlier.

But that still leaves more than half of gun-owning parents ignoring this vitally important safety measure. In 2020, (the most recent year in which data was available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), firearms were the number one cause of death for children ages 1-19 in the United States, claiming the lives of 4,357 children, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. This drives home the importance of safely securing one’s guns in the home, especially for parents and guardians of the estimated 30 million children who lived in households with these weapons as of April 2021, according to JAMA.

A growing number of states have secure storage laws to keep guns away from minors. And while Americans are deeply divided on guns, one policy with broad bipartisan support, (87%, according to Pew Research), is keeping them away from people with mental issues. Secure storage is one of the ways to do that in shared households with people of all ages and household members whose diagnoses suggest that they shouldn’t have access to firearms.

Secure storage is also one of the few measures that’s accepted by both sides of the gun debate – from the firearm industry’s trade organization to gun safety advocates to a broad swath of the healthcare community.

Research has shown that personal protection tops the list of reasons why gun owners say they keep a firearm. It’s certainly understandable that people want to protect themselves and their families. I know that feeling as a survivor of violent crime myself.

Women often feel more vulnerable – with some justification. (The first fact on Harvard’s School of Public Health page about firearms research blares, “Across states, more guns = more female violent deaths.”)

So having a firearm close at hand adds a measure of security and comfort when something goes bump in the night. If she shares her home with others, though, that weapon can become a safety risk to her or her housemates.

How do you balance safety and risk with firearms at home? And how does this fit into my professional focus as a wellness design consultant? The answer to both is that secure gun storage contributes to safer home environments.

Safety and security is a key facet of wellness design, the practice of creating spaces that support the well-being of their occupants.

Since I concentrate on spaces where people live, and four in 10 American adults say they live in a home where someone owns a gun, that becomes a wellness design concern. What can be done to make their living spaces safer, respecting both well-being and rights?

For the person who wants a firearm within reach while sleeping, there are gun safes designed to fit inside nightstands, and even nightstands with built-in gun safes. The latter is a better option, as it doesn’t allow someone to easily walk off with a small, portable lockbox.

You also want your safe to have either biometric access, so you’re not fumbling for a key in the dark and only your fingerprint can open it, or a keypad if you have no problem remembering obscure numbers, even when your adrenaline is pumping.

If you own a shotgun or rifle, or a collection of firearms, they’re not going to fit into a bedside safe. Then you have other secure storage options and considerations, including the best (and worst) locations in your home, access, weight (vis-à-vis floor joists), flooring type, fire and theft. Gun safes are not simple purchases, and some larger solutions benefit from professional insight and installation.

You’ll quickly realize that the elegant closet system you chose probably isn’t going to suffice to secure your firearms either. As one luxury designer shared in a message, “Secure? I can put a lock on anything, but it’s not a safe. We can build around and hide safes or secret hiding places where you need a code to get in. But with TFL, [thermally-fused laminate, formerly called melamine], if you put enough force, it can be broken.” That set-up might keep your kids or their friends out of your closet-housed gun storage, but not necessarily an angry ex or serious thief.

You need a firearms storage expert to help secure your weapons, especially if you own more than one. (Since there are about 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to one survey, it’s not a small number of owners who are in need of larger safe storage.)

There are numerous online guides to choosing and buying gun safes. Many are published by the safe companies themselves, sources that aren’t owned or tied to a manufacturer or seller are going to be your best bet for unbiased advice.

The 79-year-old publication Gun Digest published a buying guide on its site. The Gun Safe Reviews Guy posted a four-minute Gun Safe FAQ on his site, along with extensive buying and installation guides. His self-described background as an engineer with residential construction experience comes through in his site’s advice.

The dealer who sold you your guns can possibly recommend a secure storage dealer. Or once you’ve chosen a make and model after reviewing the advice sites, the company’s website can likely refer a local professional to sell and install it – an improperly-installed safe may not work as it should.

Will secure gun storage prevent every gun injury or death? No, but it can help reduce the number of accidents, suicides and access to firearms by those who shouldn’t have them – including under your roof.

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March 14, 2023

Family of environmental activist killed while protesting ‘Cop City’ files lawsuit against Atlanta in search for answers | CNN

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CNN
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The family of an environmental activist killed while protesting a planned law enforcement training facility in Atlanta earlier this year has filed a lawsuit against the city, seeking the release of records to aid in their search for answers about what led to the fatal shooting.

“We’re here because Manuel Paez Terán’s family wants answers,” Jeff Filipovits, an attorney for the family, told reporters in a news conference Monday. “And we are not getting any answers.”

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, has said officers shot Terán after the activist shot and seriously wounded a state trooper on January 18, 2023, as law enforcement worked to clear protesters from the forested site of the proposed facility, dubbed “Cop City” by opponents who fear it will further militarize police and harm the environment.

Activists have disputed the GBI’s claim, and the family’s attorneys say an autopsy commissioned by the family and released Monday indicates the activist was seated and had their hands raised when they sustained at least some of the wounds.

But that autopsy – which notes Terán was shot about a dozen times by ammunition used in handguns and shotguns and could neither prove nor disprove the allegation the activist was armed – “is not enough for us to work backward from it to figure out what happened,” Filipovits said Monday.

The lawsuit aims to have a Georgia court order the city of Atlanta to turn over police department records the family’s attorneys previously requested, including any images and video or audio recordings related to authorities’ operation on January 18. But those requests have been stymied by what the attorneys and their lawsuit allege is a “coordinated effort” by the state to “prevent public records from being released to Manuel’s family and the public at large.”

“My heart is destroyed,” Belkis Terán, the mother of the activist, said at Monday’s news conference, adding she is trying to continue her child’s legacy but still lacks the answers she needs. “I want answers for my child’s homicide. I’m asking for answers to my child’s homicide.”

A spokesperson for the city of Atlanta declined to comment Monday, citing the pending litigation. Reached for comment Monday, the GBI referred CNN to earlier statements. In a news release last week, the agency said its actions were aimed at preventing the “inappropriate release of evidence” to “ensure the facts of the incident are not tainted.” The GBI “continues to work diligently to protect the integrity of the investigation and will turn our findings over to an appointed prosecutor for review and action.” The investigation so far, it added, “still supports our initial assessment.”

The city initially responded to a January request for information from attorneys by saying the Atlanta Police Department had identified relevant records that would be released on a “rolling basis,” according to Wingo Smith, another attorney representing the family, and the lawsuit. On February 8, the family’s attorneys had received 14 videos from body-worn cameras that were also released to reporters, the lawsuit says.

On February 13, however, the director of the GBI’s Legal Division sent a letter to the Atlanta police chief asking the department to “withhold those records” related to the GBI’s investigation, the lawsuit says. According to the letter, provided as an exhibit in the family’s lawsuit, the GBI explained the records were evidence in an ongoing investigation, and thus exempt from public disclosure.

The next day, the state Department of Law sent a letter to the city, according to the lawsuit, and on February 15, Atlanta police sent a revised response to the attorneys, saying it would “not be releasing further footage at this time.”

The planned police facility – slated to include among other things, a shooting range, a burn building and a mock city – has received fierce pushback from several groups. Among them are residents who feel there was little public input, conservationists who worry it will carve out a chunk of much-needed forest land and activists who say it will militarize police forces and contribute to further instances of police brutality. Those backing the facility say it’s needed to help boost police morale and recruitment efforts.

Tensions between law enforcement and protesters have continued to rise since Terán’s death, reaching a fever pitch earlier this month when nearly two dozen demonstrators were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism in connection to violent clashes at the site. Authorities said officers and construction equipment were assailed with Molotov cocktails, commercial-grade fireworks, bricks and large rocks.

Eli Bennett, a defense attorney for some of those charged, claimed his clients had been wrongfully arrested “more than a mile” from those clashes and about “an hour or two” after footage showed demonstrators lobbing fireworks and Molotov cocktails at police.

“They all deny it,” he added, speaking about his clients. “Police moved in with an overwhelming display of force,” Bennett told CNN about the arrests.

A makeshift memorial to Terán is seen on February 6, 2023.

The attorneys on Monday also publicly released the autopsy commissioned by the family and performed by a forensic pathologist, who detailed the numerous gunshot wounds Terán suffered to their feet, legs, abdomen, arms, hands and head.

Most of the wounds indicate they were caused by handguns, the autopsy notes, though others appear consistent with shotgun ammunition. There were no entrance wounds on Terán’s back, the pathologist wrote, indicating the activist “was facing the multiple individuals who were firing their weapons at him during the entire interval in which the shooting occurred.”

The wounds, the pathologist writes, “indicate that the decedent was most probably in a seated position, cross-legged, with the left leg partially over the right leg.”

“At some point during the course of being shot, the decedent was able to raise (their) hands and arms up in front of (their) body, with (their) palms facing towards (their) upper body,” it says.

“It is impossible to determine if the decedent had been holding a firearm, or not holding a firearm, either before (they were) shot or while (they were) being shot the multiple times.”

The official autopsy, performed by the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office, has not been released.

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March 13, 2023

DeSantis agenda — and potential campaign platform — in the spotlight as Florida lawmakers return to work | CNN Politics

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CNN
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In the coming weeks, Gov. Ron DeSantis is poised to show Floridians – and the country – just how much further he is willing to go than any other Republican leader to turn his state into a conservative vision where abortion is nearly outlawed, guns can be carried in public without training, private schools are subsidized with taxpayer dollars and “wokeness” is excised.

DeSantis’ agenda is expected to dominate the debate in Tallahassee when state lawmakers return to action on Tuesday for what is perhaps the most anticipated legislative session in recent memory. With a decision on his presidential ambitions waiting on the other side of the 60-day session, DeSantis has hyped the humdrum of parliamentary proceedings and legislative sausage-making into a spectacle worth following.

“People look at Florida like, ‘Man, the governor has gotten a lot done,’” DeSantis told “Fox & Friends” last month. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

With DeSantis’ backing or urging, Republican lawmakers have filed a slate of bills that will keep Florida at the forefront of the culture wars that are raging in statehouses across the country. There are legislative proposals targeting drag shows, treatments for transgender children, diversity and equity programs at public universities, gender studies majors, professor tenure, teachers unions, libel protections for the media, so-called “woke” banking and in-state college tuition for undocumented residents. Other proposals would extend DeSantis’ powers as governor, including to control the hiring of professors on every public campus through his political appointees and put him in charge of picking the board that oversees scholastic athletics in the state. Another would amend a longstanding “resign to run” law so DeSantis could launch a bid for president without stepping down as Florida governor.

Though no governor in Florida’s modern history has wielded executive power or the bully pulpit quite like DeSantis, it’s the closely aligned, Republican-held legislature that has handed the governor many of the policy wins that have fueled his political rise. Already this year, the legislature has met in special session to shore up several of DeSantis’ priorities, including the freedom to transport migrants from anywhere in the country to Democratic jurisdictions and fewer hurdles for his new election crime office to charge people for voting errors and violations.

Lawmakers in the special session also approved DeSantis’ plans for a takeover of Disney’s special government powers – punishment for the entertainment giant’s objection last year to the Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics, which prohibited the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity until after third grade. Under the new law, DeSantis chooses the board members that oversee the taxing district around Disney’s Orlando-area theme parks. Last week, he appointed to the board a political donor, the wife of the state GOP chairman and a former pastor who once suggested tap water could turn people gay.

Now, lawmakers have proposed taking up the legislation at the heart of that feud once again, by extending the prohibited topics in the Parental Rights in Education law to eighth grade. The bill also declares “it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex” and it prohibits school districts from requiring teachers or other employees to use a student’s preferred name or pronouns.

For his part, DeSantis will deliver the state of the state address on Tuesday and then spend much of the following weeks on the road to promote his new book, “The Courage to be Free,” a memoir transfixed on the political battles from his first term. It will be up to Republican lawmakers to give DeSantis fresh material from which he can build a narrative for a presidential campaign, should he choose to run. DeSantis has said he intends to decide after the session if he will jump into the 2024 contest.

Privately, DeSantis’ political team believes that as a sitting governor, DeSantis’ ability to stack policy wins is critical to mounting a campaign against former President Donald Trump. Like Trump and former Gov. Nikki Haley, the only other major declared candidate, many potential contenders for the nomination are out of office and unable to dictate an agenda for other Republicans to match. And, unlike DeSantis, their records may not reflect what animates GOP primary voters at the moment.

In a speech behind closed doors last week to the conservative Club for Growth, DeSantis also suggested he is a singular force among elected Republicans in pushing the party to engage in ideological battles.

“I’m going on offense,” DeSantis said, according to audio of his speech obtained by CNN. “Some of these Republicans, they just sit back like potted plants, and they let the media define the terms of the debate. They let the left define the terms of debate. They take all this incoming, because they’re not making anything happen. And I said, ‘That’s not what we’re doing.’”

Democrats, a perennial minority in Tallahassee with even fewer members after the last election, have little recourse to stop DeSantis and Republican lawmakers. Democrats have asserted that the Republican agenda is failing to address the problems many Floridians are facing, including skyrocketing rents, a housing shortage and fast-rising property insurance rates.

“Just a reminder, eggs are still $5 for a dozen,” Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book said Monday. “It’s $3.50 for a gallon of gas. If you live in the state of Florida in a high rise, you still have to buy flood insurance. But the Republicans want to fight about drag and which bathroom people use.”

Still, there are signs of dissent among Republicans in how hard to push on several fronts. Some Republicans have raised concern at the price tag for a DeSantis-backed expansion of a school voucher program that currently allows low-income parents to offset the cost of sending their children to private and religious school. Under the latest proposal, the program would be open to virtually all parents regardless of income, including those who choose to home school their kids.

At a committee meeting last week, state Sen. Erin Grall, a Republican, warned that the “potential for abuse rises significantly with the dollar amount and keeping a child at home.”

Republicans also have not settled on a new legislative framework for the future of abortion access in the state. Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, DeSantis signed a bill to ban abortion at 15 weeks without exception. He recently signaled he would support legislation that banned abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected; however, he has not publicly advocated for it with the same fervor as his other priorities. Meanwhile, the state’s Senate President Kathleen Passidomo previously said she wanted a 12-week ban that included exemptions for rape and incest.

John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, an influential conservative group, said he expects a compromise heartbeat bill will pass that includes some exceptions. Other anti-abortion groups want to see DeSantis sign a complete ban on abortion.

“While exceptions are important and represent real human beings, the bottom line is they are small in number, so it’s a huge victory even with exceptions and I think the governor and his staff are thinking the same way,” Stemberger said. “He’s certainly committed to signing a heartbeat bill.”

It remains to be seen, too, how Republicans respond to DeSantis’ immigration agenda. DeSantis has proposed repealing a measure that granted in-state tuition for undocumented students who were brought to the US by their parents. The law, championed by his own lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nuñez, when she was a state representative, was a top priority of his predecessor, then-Gov. Rick Scott, and passed the GOP-controlled legislature with help from many of the party’s Latino members. Additionally, DeSantis wants lawmakers to mandate that employers check the immigration status of all workers against a federal database called E-Verify, a proposal opposed for years by the state’s influential hospitality and agriculture industries that bankroll many Republican campaigns.

Republicans have also faced pressure from the right on another DeSantis priority: eliminating the state permit to carry a concealed weapon in Florida. Under the proposal, eligible Floridians could carry a concealed gun in Florida without seeking approval from the state, which currently requires proof of training and a background check to obtain.

While Democrats and gun-control advocates have criticized DeSantis for removing one of the few checks on firearms in the state, gun-rights activists have said the measure doesn’t go far enough. They want Florida to allow people to carry a gun in public in the open and for the state to eliminate gun-free zones. In Florida, it’s currently illegal to carry a firearm at a school or on a college campus.

“The title of ‘constitutional carry’ for this bill is a lie,” Luis Valdes, the Florida director of Gun Owners of America, said during a recent committee hearing on the bill. “Why are Republicans defending (former Democratic attorney general) Janet Reno’s gun control policies?”

DeSantis has suggested, at times, that it is up to the legislature to put these bills on his desk. But for some conservatives, DeSantis has set the expectation that he can bully Republican lawmakers into supporting any measure he gets behind.

DeSantis himself has said his political philosophy is guided by taking political risks that others won’t.

“Boldness is something that voters reward,” DeSantis said Sunday in California. “The lesson is swing for the fences. You will be rewarded.”

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March 6, 2023

5 people shot near a gun buyback event at a Los Angeles beach | CNN

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Five people were injured in a shooting at a Los Angeles beach Saturday – a few miles from where city officials had hosted a gun buyback event earlier in the day, according to the Los Angeles Police Department and City Councilmember Tim McOsker.

The LAPD’s Harbor Division responded to a radio call of a shooting at Royal Palms Beach around 5:45 p.m. Saturday.

“Five male Hispanic victims were at a barbeque, at the beach, with a group of approximately 10-20 people,” Los Angeles police said in a written statement Sunday.

Two suspect approached the group and got into a physical altercation. “The suspects then produced a handgun and fired multiple rounds, striking the victims,” police said. “The suspects then fled the location in a vehicle.”

Five victims were struck by gunfire. “Last information we received was two victims are in critical condition, two victims are in serious condition and one victim is in stable condition,” the police statement said.

Previously, police said one victim was in critical condition, and four were in stable condition.

“We’re outraged and saddened by the shooting at Royal Palms Beach in San Pedro that has left 5 people injured,” said a joint statement by McOsker and Janice Hahn, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

“It’s tragically ironic that today we hosted a gun buy-back event just a few miles away from this location. Gun violence is wreaking havoc on our community.”

Royal Palms Beach will be closed Sunday and will close earlier on weekends as city officials work on plans “to ensure safety and peaceful community use,” the joint statement said.

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March 5, 2023

Two men sentenced to probation after bringing guns to 2020 vote count site in Philadelphia | CNN Politics

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Two men were sentenced Wednesday to two years of probation after being convicted of bringing guns to a Philadelphia vote counting center while 2020 presidential votes were being tallied.

Antonio LaMotta, 63, and Joshua Macias, 44, both of Virginia, were found guilty in October of two counts each of Violations of the Uniform Firearms Act. The two approached the Pennsylvania Convention Center on November 5, 2020, with firearms while election workers inside were counting votes for the 2020 presidential election, according to evidence at trial. LaMotta and Macias were also sentenced to prison time that had been served prior to sentencing.

Court of Common Pleas Judge Lucretia Clemons emphasized to LaMotta and Macias during the sentencing that while on their probation they are not allowed to possess any guns – even though they live in a different state.

“That means I do not want to see you on social media with a gun. I don’t want to see you in a car with a gun. There are no guns while you are on my supervision. I do that with every single gun case that comes before me,” Clemons said.

Macias apologized to the judge, saying, “I will make sure this type of situation will never happen again.”

LaMotta did not address the court, but his lawyer Lauren Wimmer suggested to the judge that her client was being targeted for his political views – an allegation prosecutors vehemently denied.

Following their conviction in October 2022, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said in a statement that LaMotta and Macias’ actions would serve as a lesson.

“Let this be a lesson not to illegally bring firearms to Philly’s elections. If you commit a crime while seeking to undermine people’s right to vote, and to have their votes appropriately counted, you will be held accountable,” Krasner said.

LaMotta has also been charged with four misdemeanor counts for his alleged participation in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. He has pleaded not guilty.

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March 2, 2023

Incumbent Lightfoot fights to make runoff in Chicago mayoral primary | CNN Politics

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is fighting for her political survival, seeking to finish in the top two in Tuesday’s crowded primary and advance to an April runoff in her quest for a second term.

Lightfoot, the first Black woman and first out gay person to serve as mayor of a city often pilloried by conservatives in national debates over violence and gun control, rose to prominence as a pugnacious reformer promising a break from the corruption and clubby governance that had long marked Chicago politics.

But years of contentious brawls over policing, teacher pay and Covid-19 public safety policies, as well as mounting complaints about long waits in Chicago’s public transit system, have left Lightfoot vulnerable, raising the prospect of the Second City ousting its Democratic mayor in the first round of voting.

Voters on Tuesday will sort through the nine-candidate field – including eight Democrats and one independent. No candidate is expected to top 50% of the vote, which would mean the top two finishers will advance to an April 4 runoff.

Campaigns and Chicago political observers describe the contest as wide open, with four candidates emerging at the top: Lightfoot; progressive US Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García; Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson; and Paul Vallas, a law-and-order candidate and a onetime head of schools in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans.

If the outcome is close, it could take days to determine the top two finishers, as mail-in votes postmarked by election day get delivered.

Powerful interests with which Lightfoot has at times brawled are split among her major challengers. Conservatives and the police have aligned behind one rival. Teachers have backed another. And many progressives are backing a third major contender.

Above all else, concerns about crime and public safety have rattled Chicago. Violence in the city spiked in 2020 and 2021. And though shootings and murders have decreased since then, other crimes – including theft, car-jacking, robberies and burglaries – have increased since last year, according to the Chicago Police Department’s 2022 year-end report.

Lightfoot and her rivals have placed the issue at the forefront of their campaigns.

“We absolutely need to hire more officers,” Lightfoot said at a WTTW mayoral forum earlier this month. “This is one of the toughest times in the country to recruit, and mayors all over the country are experiencing the difficulty.”

Chicago’s municipal elections are nonpartisan, which means all voters – Democrats, Republicans and independents – can participate. However, Chicago is an overwhelmingly blue city, and all the major contenders say they are Democrats.

Vallas, however, has attracted support from conservatives, and has described the Democratic Party as moving away from him in recent years on certain issues. Lightfoot, in an email to supporters, said Vallas “has so strongly aligned himself with Republican views that he can’t even be considered a moderate Democrat.”

Vallas, who unsuccessfully ran for Illinois governor as a Democrat in 2002 and was the losing Democratic lieutenant governor nominee in 2014, was endorsed by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, the same organization that hosted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in nearby Elmhurst earlier this week.

“I have talked about the need to take our city back from the criminals that are preying on our residents and preying on our businesses,” Vallas told CNN in an interview.

Johnson, meanwhile, has floated the idea in the past of diverting some funds from the police budget to alternate sources, saying he wants to “invest in people.”

He has the backing of the Chicago Teachers Union, a powerful organization that has repeatedly clashed with Lightfoot – including over teachers’ pay and class sizes in 2019 that led to an 11-day strike and then last year as Lightfoot pushed teachers to return to classrooms at a time of rising Covid-19 cases.

“The reason we don’t have enough police officers is because we are asking them to be social workers, therapists and marriage counselors,” Johnson said at the WTTW forum. “I’m actually investing in actually having social workers, therapists to show up on the front line, to actually free up law enforcement to deal with the more severe crime that happens in the city of Chicago.”

García – a former Cook County commissioner who in 2015 forced then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff – has sounded similar themes.

“Hiring more civilians to free up more police officers with their guns and badges to walk the walk, to talk to people, rebuild trust is the most important. The other important element is investing in communities and investing in violence prevention programs,” he told CNN.

Vallas, whose message has revolved around a tough-on-crime message, said Chicago needs more police on “L” station platforms and on trains as part of a push to place more officers on local beats.

He said combating violent crime is the “first, second and third priority” of his campaign.

“Everything becomes undermined if you can’t provide public security,” Vallas told CNN.

Lightfoot in recent days has lambasted Vallas after he told a crowd that his “whole campaign is about taking back our city, pure and simple.”

The mayor told reporters that Vallas was “blowing the ultimate dog whistle.”

“Take our city back, meaning what? To what time? And take our city back from whom?” she said.

When pressed by CNN, Vallas said he was referring to criminals in his remark that Lightfoot has criticized.

“I have talked about the need to take our city back from the criminals that are preying on our residents and preying on our businesses,” he said.

For her part, Lightfoot has touted Chicago’s lawsuit against an Indiana gun store – part of an effort to demonstrate that the influx of firearms into the city isn’t a result of Chicago’s gun policies, but rather neighboring states with more lax laws.

She has also touted her administration’s efforts to hire nearly 1,000 additional police officers, put privatized, unarmed security on public transit and create teams and task forces focused on car-jacking, halting the flow of guns into the city and more.

The Chicago Tribune, the city’s largest newspaper, has endorsed Vallas. The newspaper’s editorial board credited Lightfoot’s financial management of the city and her navigation of the Covid-19 pandemic and said it hopes the mayor will advance to face Vallas one-on-one in the runoff.

“Vallas has the ear of rank-and-file police officers on the street. We will expect him to use that trust to improve police conduct and the abysmal clearance rate for violent offenses,” the editorial board said.

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February 25, 2023

Pentagon’s suicide prevention committee recommends age limit and waiting period for on-base gun purchases | CNN Politics

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A suicide prevention committee that was established by the Pentagon last year is recommending instituting a waiting period for gun purchases on bases and raising the minimum age for buying firearms in an attempt to reduce the number of suicides among service members.

The Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee (SPRIRC) announced the suggested measures as part of a broader set of 127 recommendations to reverse the current trend of suicides in the military, which has steadily increased over the last 15 years.

The committee recommended putting in place a seven day waiting period for gun purchases on Defense Department facilities and a four day waiting period for ammunition purchases.

The committee was created by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in May 2022 to review the Department of Defense’s ongoing suicide prevention efforts. The committee submitted a first set of 10 recommendations to Austin in December before submitting its latest report.

Dr. Craig Bryan, one of the members of the committee, said a high percentage of suicides on base involved guns purchased at base military exchanges.

“There’s a very strong scientific basis showing that waiting period, even as short as seven days, significantly reduce suicide rates,” said Bryan, a lethal means safety expert, in urging the Defense Department to “follow the science.”

The committee also recommended raising the minimum age to purchase weapons on base to 25 years old.

“There’s arguably only one thing that all researchers agree on,” said Bryan, “and that one thing is that taking steps to slow down convenient access to highly lethal methods like firearms is the single most effective strategy for saving lives.”

According to the Defense Department’s annual report, 519 service members died by suicide in 2021, the most recent number for which numbers are available. Though the latest figure is a slight decrease from the previous year’s 582 suicides, the overall number has still been trending upward.

“We will review those closely,” said Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder of the latest recommendations. “I don’t have anything to announce today in terms of what steps we may take, but again this is a very important topic to the Secretary and to the entire Department of Defense.”

However, Dr. Rajeev Ramchand, an epidemiologist with the RAND corporation and another member of the SPRIRC, told reporters on Friday that service members the committee spoke with said they felt the Defense Department’s “current approach … was more of a check-the-block approach” and that suicide prevention was “not discussed frequently.”

Ramchand gave an example of a series of required suicide prevention trainings that took place over a course of several days, saying service members sat in a dark auditorium where many of them fell asleep or “were on their phones.”

“It’s hard to think this is having an effect,” Ramchand said.

In addition to gun safety regulations, the committee also urged the Defense Department to address the lack of mental health services available for service members, including hiring psychologists and other mental health specialists quickly.

“When service members were getting into care, they might not be seen for their second visit for about 6 weeks,” said Rebecca Blais, a sexual assault and suicide expert who is on the committee.

Often, when job openings in mental health services were posted, the hiring process could drag out over a year, at which point the psychologist or other professional was no longer available, Blais said.

In cases where mental health services were not available or already booked, the committee urged the Defense Department to increase insurance payments so service members could seek mental health experts outside of the military’s healthcare system.

Editor’s Note: If you or a loved one have contemplated suicide, call The National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to connect with a trained counselor.

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February 24, 2023

Tag: firearms

Louisville gunman’s brain to be studied for CTE, father says | CNN

As Louisville police investigate what led up to bank shooting that left 5 dead, several victims remain hospitalized | CNN

The GOP’s silence on guns and abortion is a short-term response with a long-term problem | CNN Politics

Opinion: The way to respect starts with raising your voice | CNN

Tennessee House GOP expels 2 Democrats in retaliation over gun control protest, on ‘sad day for democracy’ | CNN

More about the three representatives:

A momentous political showdown in Tennessee lays bare a new chapter in US politics | CNN Politics

Tennessee House expels 1 lawmaker, falls short of ousting another while 3rd awaits vote | CNN

More about the three representatives:

Suicide note and weapons found when police searched the Nashville shooter’s home, warrant shows | CNN

As more details emerge about how the Nashville school shooting unfolded, expert says the quick thinking of teachers saved lives | CNN

Children and teens are more likely to die by guns than anything else | CNN

Covenant School shooter was under care for emotional disorder and hid guns at home, police say | CNN

DOJ seeks fast-track Supreme Court review of ruling against gun ban for people under domestic violence restraining orders | CNN Politics

Opinion: An often overlooked solution to prevent accidental gun deaths | CNN

Family of environmental activist killed while protesting ‘Cop City’ files lawsuit against Atlanta in search for answers | CNN

DeSantis agenda — and potential campaign platform — in the spotlight as Florida lawmakers return to work | CNN Politics

5 people shot near a gun buyback event at a Los Angeles beach | CNN

Two men sentenced to probation after bringing guns to 2020 vote count site in Philadelphia | CNN Politics

Incumbent Lightfoot fights to make runoff in Chicago mayoral primary | CNN Politics

Pentagon’s suicide prevention committee recommends age limit and waiting period for on-base gun purchases | CNN Politics