Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday confirmed he is talking to legislators about a potential special session to address gun violence after a mass shooting at a Minneapolis church.
“The sad reality of it is is that what happened last week is preventable, because so many nations around the world do it,” Walz said while attending the first day of school at Deerwood Elementary in Eagan. “And we cannot resign ourselves to believe that our little ones can’t be safe in what should be and always is the most safe environments they can possibly be in.”
The focus of the special session would be on additional gun-related measures. It would bring lawmakers back to the Capitol earlier than the start of the regular session in February. Walz said he plans to put out a proposal “in the next day or so that I think is very comprehensive, it’s been done in other places, it’s been done without infringements on people’s Second Amendment rights, but it has proven that it will help protect our students.”
“I am not going to allow anyone to try and make the case that the United States is unique in either mental health issues or other things,” he said. “The things that make America unique in terms of shootings is we just have more guns and the wrong kinds of guns that are on the streets.”
Walz acknowledged that the split Legislature would make passing gun laws difficult. Though Minnesota passed enhanced background checks and red flag laws in 2023, more recent efforts have failed in the divided Legislature.
“I have made the case and I am calling through legislators to try and make sure they get there, because I can call a special session, I can’t run a special session,” Walz said. “And to be very candid, just in a very evenly divided — I’m going to need some Republicans to break with the orthodoxy and say that we need to do something on guns, and that’s the opportunity right now.”
A senior administrative official told WCCO last week Walz was considering a special session on gun control as early as this month. GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth and Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson both said at the time that Walz had not spoken to them about a special session.
“As we work through this tragedy, we need to lead with grace and cooperation, not political rallies and vitriol. I look forward to the coming conversations on how we can most effectively address the evil we saw this week perpetrated against the most vulnerable among us,” Demuth said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called for a ban on assault weapons after the Annunciation shooting. In response to Frey’s comments, the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said it “opposes any ban on commonly owned semi-automatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines. Such proposals are unconstitutional and do nothing to reduce crime.”
Typically, only the governor can call a special session, though the Legislature can set its length.
“If Minnesota lets this moment slide and we determine that it’s OK for little ones not to be safe in a school environment or a church environment, then shame on us,” Walz said.
Nicole Hockley lost her son Dylan 13 years ago in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty first-grade students and six educators were killed in the incident, igniting a movement in our country that has snowballed since.
“I always want to talk about my son,” Hockley told WCCO. “He was incredibly cuddly and loved to laugh and giggle. He admired and adored his older brother, Jake. He ate fish fingers and garlic bread all the time, and loved chocolate and the color purple. I only had six years with him, but he’s still with me in my heart every single day.”
WCCO asked Hockley what helped her in the first few weeks and months following the shooting.
“Healing is an interesting word and one I don’t tend to use a lot because I’m nearly 13 years after Dylan’s murder and I am not healed, and I don’t think I ever will be healed. It’s about moving through and forward, not moving on,” she said. “I think the things that I remember being helpful are friends who were able to hold me up and support me. Whether it was a meal train, whether it was taking me to the florist to choose flowers for Dylan’s memorial service or his urn. Getting relatives in and offering homes for people to stay at. If it hadn’t been for friends taking charge to lead things, like his funeral, I had no idea what to do, where to go. You can’t think in those times.”
Hockley is the CEO of Sandy Hook Promise, a group that is changing laws and advocating for training. She says Wednesday’s shooting was preventable.
“I do have significant outage that this keeps happening, especially because there are so many solutions to prevent these acts, and this school shooting was a preventable tragedy, as was sandy hook, as was almost every single school shooting you can think of, and the fact that we have the solutions but dont necissarily have the courage or will to put them into place across the country is frustrating. I get outraged as well when people just point to politicians not doing their jobs. I don’t think this is just about policy. I think this is about all of us. And whether that’s advocating for policy change, violence prevention programs in school, recognizing warning signs and saying something, we all have a role to play. If we’re left in hopelessness or thinking someone else is going to take care of it, then we are allowing this problem to continue. Our children are dying, and if that can’t compel you to action, I’m not quite sure what would.”
Hockley says Sandy Hook Promise advocates for extreme risk protection orders. That allows certain people to request an order from the court to temporarily stop someone from purchasing or possessing a firearm during a period of crisis when they can hurt themselves or others. She said time will tell whether that could have been used to help prevent Wednesday’s shooting.
“We also advocate for suicide prevention and school violence prevention,” she said. “We’ve been incredibly successful. We’ve stopped, as a direct result of our training, 18 school shootings already, but then, things like yesterday [Wednesday] happen, and we realize that no matter how fast and hard we work, we still have a long way to go to keep all children safe.”
She added that someone knew the shooter needed help and was in crisis.
“Helping people understand what the signs are and that they need to act immediately and to take it seriously and to tell someone when they see it, that could have prevented this,” Hockley said.
35 million people in the U.S. have been through training with Sandy Hook Promise.
Erin is a co-host of “The 4” on WCCO and a two-time Emmy Award-winning reporter passionate about experiential storytelling and taking viewers on an adventure – be it inside a bear den, at the bottom of a lake, or in an underground storm drain tunnel.
Leaders and activists renewed calls for gun control on Thursday. The group said they know for years these kinds of efforts have happened and gone nowhere after other mass shootings, but they believe this time, things will be different.
“We need a statewide and a federal ban on assault weapons,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said.
Frey led the call for the weapons ban and a ban on high-capacity magazines.
“So the next go-around, there is not another city two months from now that is saying the same damn thing. Let’s stop this from happening,” Frey said.
Several speakers referenced the fact the U.S. from 1994 to 2004 did have an assault weapons ban — a ban that was allowed to expire.
“Get these weapons of war off our streets and out of our communities. Our kids cannot wait any longer,” Leah Kondes of Minnesota Moms Demand Action said.
In recent years, the Minnesota Legislature has passed gun control laws, including a red flag law and expanded background checks. Efforts to pass other measures have not gone far.
“This is something that is simple, a simple ban to make sure people who should not have access to these weapons do not get them,” Rep. Ilhan Omar said.
The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said it “opposes any ban on commonly owned semi-automatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines. Such proposals are unconstitutional and do nothing to reduce crime.”
Esme Murphy, a reporter and Sunday morning anchor for WCCO-TV, has been a member of the WCCO-TV staff since December 1990. She is also a weekend talk show host on WCCO Radio. Born and raised in New York City, Esme ventured into reporting after graduating from Harvard University.
Denver’s Morgaine Wilkins-Dean was one of 10 girls honored by First Lady Jill Biden at the 2nd Girls Leading Change event on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. The young women were recognized for the impact they have had in their communities.
Caitlyn Kim/CPR News
After experiencing three school shootings her junior year at East High School, Morgaine Wilkins-Dean said she was scared.
She took that fear and mixed it with another thought she had: “I want to help.”
Wilkins-Dean reached out to Denver School Board member Michelle Quattlebaum and together they worked to enact a policy this year that requires all DPS superintendents to regularly inform the districts’ families about Colorado’s safe storage laws and how to protect children from guns at home.
First Lady Jill Biden honored Wilkins-Dean for her work on Thursday, along with nine other young women, at a “Girls Leading Change” event at the White House to mark International Day of the Girl, on October 11. Honorees were noted for shaping a brighter future in their communities.
“Today we say proudly for all to hear that girls are powerful,” Biden said. “Every time you show up as your true self, with your boldness and your insight, with your questions, you all shape the world, and that’s what this year’s honorees did.”
Biden said these girls didn’t wait for life to happen to them. “They stepped forward, and they spent their weekends and hours after school to make our world kinder and fairer and filled with more possibility.”
Of her White House visit, Wilkins-Dean said, “it’s surreal” and “overwhelming.”
The 18-year-old was nominated for the honor by someone from the local League of Women voters and the Girl Scouts of Colorado. This project earned Wilkins-Dean her Gold award, the highest achievement for a Girl Scout.
“Being here and getting to earn this award really has shown me that if you are scared of something or if you want something to change, you might not believe in yourself. But if you go out and do it, you can do it. And the only voice that you need is your own, really,” she said.
And now that she’s proven to herself she can do something on an issue that matters to her, she hopes other young women will be inspired to do the same, especially when it comes to the male-dominated world of public policy.
“When I was a young girl. I didn’t feel powerful,” she explained. “But it really takes a second to realize I can be powerful if I want to, and I am powerful. I don’t have to prove it to anyone. And I think that’s an important thing to show girls that you can do just as much as the boys next to you. You can be just as loud as them.”
Biden echoed that sentiment to the crowd that included family, friends, young girls from the area and President Joe Biden who popped in to learn about the girls being honored.
“If you ever wonder, can I — one person, one girl — can I make a difference? Standing here among these incredible women and girls, we have an answer, Yes you can!” the First Lady said.
First Lady Jill Biden honors ten young women from across the country, including Denver’s Morgaine Wilkins-Dean, at the 2nd Girls Leading Change event in the East Room of the White House on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024.Caitlyn Kim/CPR News
The other honorees included Cheyenne Anderson of New Mexico, Sreenidi Bala of Connecticut, Noel Demetrio of Illinois, Serena Griffin of California, Pragathi Kasani-Akula of Georgia, Chili and Dolly Pramoda, sisters from Puerto Rico, Kira Tiller of Virgina, and Emily Austin, a military child who joked she’s “from everywhere.”
Wilkins-Dean said it was great to meet those other young women who are kind and passionate. “It really makes me hopeful for the future of not only government, but the arts.”
Wilkins-Dean, now a freshman at Sacramento State University, added she was thankful to all the people that helped her, because “getting a policy in place is a group effort.” For her, that group included her mom, board member Quattlebaum, and her troop leaders.
BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey is moving to implement a tough new gun control law in response to a lawsuit challenging its provisions and a effort to repeal the restrictions.
On Wednesday, Healey signed an executive order attaching an emergency preamble to the bill she signed in July that expanded the state’s bans on “assault” weapons and high-capacity magazines, outlawed so-called “ghost” guns and set new restrictions on open carry of firearms, among other provisions.
Gun control groups praised the rare maneuver, which they said is aimed at blocking an effort by critics of the new law to block its implementation as they gather signatures to put the issue before voters in two years.
“After years of advocating for these gun safety measures to become law, we weren’t going to stand by and let the gun lobby get in the way of our progress,” Anne Thalheimer, a survivor fellow with the Everytown Survivor Network, said in a statement. “We’re grateful to Governor Healey for standing with us and taking decisive action to ensure that this lifesaving law is implemented.”
But the Massachusetts Gun Owners’ Action League, which has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the law’s training and licensing requirements, said Healey’s “radical move” signing the executive order makes hundreds of thousands of lawful gun owners across the state into “felons in waiting.”
He accused the governor and Democratic lawmakers of waging a “consistent effort to silence our voices and mislead the general public.”
“Ever since this tantrum against the Supreme Court decision Bruen started last year, the so-called ‘process’ has become even more putrid,” said Jim Wallace, GOAL’s executive director, in a statement. “At every turn, the Legislature and now the governor, have avoided honest public input, especially from the 2A [Second Amendment] community.”
Wallace said despite the order the group is still urging the federal judge to issue a temporary injunction to block the law from going into effect as the ballot initiative and legal challenge plays out in court.
Besides the legal fight, critics of the new law or gathering signatures to put the question before voters in the 2026 election. They argue that the restrictions will hurt businesses, cost jobs and deprive legal gun owners of their constitutional rights.
The new law, which passed despite objections from the Legislature’s Republican minority, added dozens of long rifles to a list of prohibited guns under the state’s assault weapons ban, and outlawed the open carry of firearms in government buildings, polling places and schools, with exemptions for law enforcement officials.
It also set strict penalties for possession of modification devices such as so-called “Glock switches” that convert semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic, military-style weapons. The state’s red flag law, which allows a judge to suspend the gun license of someone deemed at risk to themselves or others, was also expanded under the legislation.
Massachusetts already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, including real-time license checks for private gun sales and stiff penalties for gun-based crimes.
Gun control advocates argue the strict requirements have given the largely urban state one of the lowest gun-death rates in the nation, while not infringing on the right to bear arms.
Despite those trends, Democrats who pushed the gun control bill through the Legislature argued that gun violence is still impacting communities across the state whether by suicide, domestic violence or drive-by shootings.
Second Amendment groups have long argued that the tougher gun control laws are unnecessary, and punish law-abiding gun owners while sidestepping the issue of illegal firearms.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
BOSTON — Opponents of Massachusetts’ new gun control law are gearing up to repeal the tough restrictions, which they say will hurt businesses, cost jobs and deprive people of their constitutional rights.
A law signed by Democratic Gov. Maura Healey in July expanded the state’s bans on “assault” weapons and high-capacity magazines, outlawed so-called “ghost” guns and set new restrictions on the open carry of firearms, among other provisions.
The move was in response to concerns about mass shootings and gun violence.
But critics of the new restrictions say they are unconstitutional and argue the changes will do little to reduce gun violence. They’ve started gathering signatures on petitions to put a repeal of the law before voters in the 2026 elections.
The chief organizer of the repeal effort, Cape Cod Gun Works owner Toby Leary, said on Thursday that the petition-gathering effort is well underway and he is seeing strong support for putting the question on the ballot.
“A lot of businesses and jobs are at stake,” Leary said during a livestreamed briefing sponsored by the state’s Republican Party. “The effects of this law on businesses will be catastrophic. Jobs will be lost. Businesses and livelihoods will be lost.”
Leary said among the many concerns gun shop owners have about the new restrictions is that the expansion of banned firearms will reduce the kinds of rifles and other weapons that can be sold in the state, which will hurt bottom lines. He estimates about 50% of his business will be “put on hold” if the law isn’t repealed.
“But this is also about freedom,” Leary said. “This law is so unconstitutional on every level. A lot of ordinary people are going to run afoul of this law.”
Massachusetts already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, including real-time license checks for private gun sales and stiff penalties for gun-based crimes.
Gun control advocates argue the strict requirements have given the largely urban state one of the lowest gun-death rates in the nation, while not infringing on the right to bear arms.
Despite those trends, Democrats who pushed the gun control bill thorough the Legislature argued that gun violence is still impacting communities across the state whether by suicide, domestic violence or drive-by shootings.
Second Amendment groups have long argued that the tougher gun control laws are unnecessary, and punish law-abiding gun owners while sidestepping the issue of illegal firearms.
The new law, which passed despite objections from the Legislature’s Republican minority, added dozens of long rifles to a list of prohibited guns under the assault weapons ban, and outlawed the open carry of firearms in government buildings, polling places and schools, with exemptions for law enforcement officials.
It sets strict penalties for possession of modification devices such as Glock switches that convert semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic, military-style weapons. The state’s red flag law, which allows a judge to suspend the gun license of someone deemed at risk to themselves or others, was also expanded under the law.
The repeal effort is one of several seeking to block the law. The Massachusetts Gun Owners’ Action League, which is affiliated with the National Rifle Association, plans to file a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the new law’s training and licensing requirements. Other legal challenges are expected.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
BOSTON — A national gun rights group pledges to help fund a legal challenge to overturn the state’s tough new gun control law that critics say will do little to prevent gun violence while depriving people of their constitutional rights.
The Firearm Industry Trade Association said it has donated $100,000 to the Massachusetts Gun Owners’ Action League to support the group’s legal challenge against new restrictions on firearms licensing signed into law by Gov. Maura Healey.
“Massachusetts is known as a birthplace of the American Revolution, but these lawmakers have turned their backs to rights that belong to the people and instead are instituting an Orwellian state over the citizens of the Commonwealth,” Lawrence G. Keane, the association’s senior vice president and general counsel, said in a statement.
“The fight to protect liberty and individual rights begins anew and we are confident that when federal courts apply scrutiny to this law, it will be relegated to the trash bin where it belongs,” Keane said.
The new law, signed by Healey last month, adds dozens of long rifles to a list prohibited under the state’s “assault” weapons ban and outlaws the open carry of firearms in government buildings, polling places and schools, with exemptions for law enforcement officials.
It sets strict penalties for possession of modification devices such as Glock switches that convert semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic, military-style weapons. The measure also expands the state’s red flag law, which allows a judge to suspend the gun license of someone deemed at risk to themselves or others.
Massachusetts already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, including real-time license checks for private gun sales and stiff penalties for gun-based crimes.
But Second Amendment groups argue tougher gun control laws are unnecessary and punish law-abiding gun owners while sidestepping the issue of illegal firearms.
GOAL, which is affiliated with the National Rifle Association, has dubbed the restrictions the “The Devil’s Snare” and say it represents the greatest attack on civil rights in modern U.S. history. The group has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the new law’s training and licensing requirements. Other legal challenges are expected.
Members of the group have also filed a petition with the Secretary of State’s Office to begin gathering signatures on a petition to put a repeal of the law before voters next year. The group wants to suspend the law ahead of a 2026 statewide referendum.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal gun control law that is intended to protect victims of domestic violence.
In their first Second Amendment case since they expanded gun rights in 2022, the justices ruled 8-1 in favor of a 1994 ban on firearms for people under restraining orders to stay away from their spouses or partners. The justices reversed a ruling from the federal appeals court in New Orleans that had struck down the law.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said the law uses “common sense” and applies only “after a judge determines that an individual poses a credible threat” of physical violence.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the 2022 Bruen ruling in a New York case, dissented.
Last week, the court overturned a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, the rapid-fire gun accessories used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The court ruled that the Justice Department exceeded its authority in imposing that ban.
Friday’s case stemmed directly from the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision in June 2022. A Texas man, Zackey Rahimi, was accused of hitting his girlfriend during an argument in a parking lot and later threatening to shoot her.
At arguments in November, some justices voiced concern that a ruling for Rahimi could also jeopardize the background check system that the Biden administration said has stopped more than 75,000 gun sales in the past 25 years based on domestic violence protective orders.
The case also had been closely watched for its potential to affect cases in which other gun ownership laws have been called into question, including in the high-profile prosecution of Hunter Biden. President Joe Biden’s son was convicted of lying on a form to buy a firearm while he was addicted to drugs. His lawyers have signaled they will appeal.
A decision to strike down the domestic violence gun law might have signaled the court’s skepticism of the other laws as well. But Friday’s decision did not suggest that the court would necessarily uphold those law either.
The justices could weigh in soon in one or more of those other cases.
Many of the gun law cases grow out of the Bruen decision. That high court ruling not only expanded Americans’ gun rights under the Constitution but also changed the way courts are supposed to evaluate restrictions on firearms.
Roberts turned to history in his opinion. “Since the founding, our nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms,” he wrote.
Rahimi’s case reached the Supreme Court after prosecutors appealed a ruling that threw out his conviction for possessing guns while subject to a restraining order.
Rahimi was involved in five shootings over two months in and around Arlington, Texas, U.S. Circuit Judge Cory Wilson noted. When police identified Rahimi as a suspect in the shootings and showed up at his home with a search warrant, he admitted having guns in the house and being subject to a domestic violence restraining order that prohibited gun possession, Wilson wrote.
But even though Rahimi was hardly “a model citizen,” Wilson wrote, the law at issue could not be justified by looking to history. That’s the test Justice Thomas laid out in his opinion for the court in Bruen.
The appeals court initially upheld the conviction under a balancing test that included whether the restriction enhances public safety. But the panel reversed course after Bruen. At least one district court has upheld the law since the Bruen decision.
Advocates for domestic violence victims and gun control groups had called on the court to uphold the law.
Firearms are the most common weapon used in homicides of spouses, intimate partners, children or relatives in recent years, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Guns were used in more than half, 57%, of those killings in 2020, a year that saw an overall increase in domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic.
Seventy women a month, on average, are shot and killed by intimate partners, according to the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety.
Gun rights groups backed Rahimi, arguing that the appeals court got it right when it looked at American history and found no restriction close enough to justify the gun ban.
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YouTube is updating its policy on firearm videos to keep potentially dangerous content from reaching underage users.
The video-sharing platform, which is owned by Google, announced this week it will prohibit any videos instructing how to remove firearm safety devices. Videos showing homemade guns, automatic weapons and certain firearm accessories like silencers will be restricted to users 18 and older.
The changes take effect on June 18 and come after gun safety advocates have repeatedly called on the platform to do more to ensure gun videos aren’t making their way to the site’s youngest users, potentially traumatizing children or sending them down dark paths of extremism and violence.
YouTube, which has a large community of so-called “gunfluencers” who are known to often promote firearms and accessories, already prohibited content that intended to sell firearms and accessories or instruct viewers how to make their own. It also does not allow livestreams that show people handling or holding firearms.
The video streaming platform said that while sometimes content does not violate its policies, it might not be appropriate for underage users. There are exceptions for videos that show firearms that are of public interest, such as news clips, war footage or police footage.
Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project, said the change was welcome news and a step in the right direction. But she questioned why the platform took so long to issue a new policy, and said her group will look to see how effectively YouTube enforces its new rule.
“Firearms are the number one cause of death for children and teens in America,” said Paul, whose group has long sought stronger age controls on online gun videos. “As always with YouTube, the real proof of change is whether the company enforces the policies it has on the books. Until YouTube takes real action to prevent videos about guns and gun violence from reaching minors, its policies remain empty words.”
Last year, researchers at Paul’s group created YouTube accounts that mimicked the behavior of 9-year-old American boys with a stated interest in video games. The researchers found that YouTube’s recommendations system forwarded these accounts graphic videos of school shootings, tactical gun training videos and how-to instructions on making firearms fully automatic.
One video featured an elementary school-age girl wielding a handgun; another showed a shooter using a .50 caliber gun to fire on a dummy head filled with lifelike blood and brains. Many of the videos violated YouTube’s own policies against violent or gory content.
“We have heard firsthand from young individuals that YouTube’s algorithm is driving them to the world of illegal and 3D-printed firearms, which is having a direct impact on the safety of Manhattanites,” Bragg said in a statement.
YouTube said the policy changes were designed to reflect new developments, like 3D-printed guns, which have become more available in recent years. YouTube requires users under 17 to get their parent’s permission before using the site; accounts for users younger than 13 are linked to the parental account.
“We regularly review our guidelines and consult with outside experts to make sure we are drawing the line at the right place,” said company spokesman Javier Hernandez.
Along with TikTok, YouTube is one of the most popular sites for children and teens. Both sites have been questioned in the past for hosting, and in some cases promoting, videos that encourage gun violence, eating disorders and self-harm.
Several perpetrators of recent mass shootings have used social media and video streaming platforms to glorify violence, foreshadow or even livestream their attacks.
(FOX40.COM) — Over 100 guns were turned in at a gun buyback event, according to the Stockton Police Department.
“It was a successful turn out with 113 firearms turned in,” SPD said in a post on social media. “The majority of the firearms were legally owned, however, they were no longer wanted and had since been unsafely stored.”
113 guns were turned into the Stockton Police Department at a gun buyback event on April 27, 2024./Stockton Police Department
Stockton police said they hosted the event to collect guns that were no longer wanted, to prevent them from landing in the wrong hands and turning into crime guns if they are stolen during burglaries.
MINNEAPOLIS — In the aftermath of the tragic killing of three first responders last week in Burnsville, proposed gun control bills are getting a second look at the Minnesota Legislature.
Among the bills being considered: tougher storage laws, mandatory reporting of stolen weapons and several proposals that would ban assault weapons.
In Talking Points, Esme Murphy looks at the odds of these proposals becoming law and what gun rights advocates are saying.
The Burnsville killing of three first responders has some progressive lawmakers revisiting gun control measures at the Capitol. Last legislative session, DFL representatives in the House and Senate passed both a red flag law and an additional background checks law. Both were strongly opposed by gun rights advocates.
Leftovers from last year are two measures that were never voted on. They include tougher gun storage laws and penalties and a bill requiring immediate reporting of all lost and stolen guns. Also this session, there are at least two bills that would ban assault weapons. Under one of those bills, existing semiautomatic weapons would be grandfathered in but could not be sold or transferred. That assault weapons ban is being sponsored by DFL Rep. Leigh Finke of St. Paul. She was a guest on WCCO Sunday Morning at 10:30 a.m.
“Gun violence is the second most common issue that I hear about from my voters, on the doors. People are tired of what we are seeing, it’s a public health epidemic and I believe that we need to do everything that we can to solve it. Gun violence is the number one cause of death for our children and it’s just simply unacceptable,” she said.
The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus is against all of these measures. Rob Doar, the vice president of the caucus, gave WCCO this statement: “We support measures that protect Minnesotans and uphold the law, but these proposals miss the mark. They not only clash with constitutional precedents but also fail to address Minnesota’s unique safety challenges without infringing on the rights of peaceable citizens.”
And while these bills had been introduced before the Burnsville tragedy, some Republican representatives are accusing Democrats of trying to take advantage of the Burnsville killings.
DFL leaders are also urging caution. This is an election year with the entire Minnesota House up for election. The DFL leaders fear that gun measures that go too far would hurt some of their candidates in swing districts.
You can watch WCCO Sunday Morning with Esme Murphy and Adam Del Rosso every Sunday at 6 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.
Esme Murphy, a reporter and Sunday morning anchor for WCCO-TV, has been a member of the WCCO-TV staff since December 1990. She is also a weekend talk show host on WCCO Radio. Born and raised in New York City, Esme ventured into reporting after graduating from Harvard University.
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The parents of a teenager who was killed in Florida’s Parkland school shooting in 2018 have started a bold new project called The Shotline to lobby for stricter gun laws in the country. The Shotline uses AI to recreate the voices of children killed by gun violence and send recordings through automated calls to lawmakers, The Wall Street Journalreported.
The project launched on Wednesday, six years after a gunman killed 17 people and injured more than a dozen at a high school in Parkland, Florida. It features the voice of six children, some as young as ten, and young adults, who have lost their lives in incidents of gun violence across the US. Once you type in your zip code, The Shotline finds your local representative and lets you place an automated call from one of the six dead people in their own voice, urging for stronger gun control laws. “I’m back today because my parents used AI to recreate my voice to call you,” says the AI-generated voice of Joaquin Oliver, one of the teenagers killed in the Parkland shooting. “Other victims like me will be calling too.” At the time of publishing, more than 8,000 AI calls had been submitted to lawmakers through the website.
“This is a United States problem and we have not been able to fix it,” Oliver’s father Manuel, who started the project along with his wife Patricia, told the Journal. “If we need to use creepy stuff to fix it, welcome to the creepy.”
To recreate the voices, the Olivers used a voice cloning service from ElevenLabs, a two-year-old startup that recently raised $80 million in a round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Using just a few minutes of vocal samples, the software is able to recreate voices in more than two dozen languages. The Olivers reportedly used their son’s social media posts for his voice samples. Parents and legal guardians of gun violence victims can fill up a form to submit their voices to The Shotline to be added its repository of AI-generated voices.
The project raises ethical questions about using AI to generate deepfakes of voices belonging to dead people. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission declared that robocalls made using AI-generated voices were illegal, a decision that came weeks after voters in New Hampshire received calls impersonating President Joe Biden telling them to not vote in their state’s primary. An analysis by security company called Pindrop revealed that Biden’s audio deepfake was created using software from ElevenLabs.
The company’s co-founder Mati Staniszewski told the Journal that ElevenLabs allows people to recreate the voices of dead relatives if they have the rights and permissions. But so far, it’s not clear whether parents of minors had the rights to their children’s likenesses.
At least six people are missing after a massive fire erupted at a Pennsylvania home amid a shooting that injured two police officers, according to local authorities.
Around 3:50 p.m. Wednesday, police responded to a report of an 11-year-old girl being shot at a home on Lewis Avenue in East Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. When officers arrived at the scene, a shooter inside the home opened fire, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said in an evening press conference.
The two officers were each shot once and are both in stable condition, the district attorney said. However, police and firefighters have been unable to enter the residence—initially due to active shooter protocol, then because of the blaze—and fear multiple victims may have been inside when the home went up in flames, Stollsteimer said during the news conference shared online by local station WCAU.
“We are afraid there might be more than one person in that house,” Stollsteimer said. “We know the victim’s family had a lot of people living in that house, including children. We are aware that there are at least six to eight people who are unaccounted for from that family. It is our terrible fear that they may (have been) inside that house when it was burned.”
“We are hopeful that that is not true,” the district attorney continued. “But we will not know until tomorrow morning.”
Stollsteimer said that he could not confirm the identities of those involved but said the individuals unaccounted for included children.
At least six people are unaccounted for after a fire erupted at a Pennsylvania home amid a shooting that inured two police officers, according to local authorities. At least six people are unaccounted for after a fire erupted at a Pennsylvania home amid a shooting that inured two police officers, according to local authorities. Getty
Newsweek reached out via email on Wednesday night to Stollsteimer and the East Lansdowne Police Department for comment and an update on the case.
“We’re not going to make entry into that house until we know that the fire is under control and that it’s safe for those officers to go in there,” Stollsteimer said during an earlier news conference. “We don’t want another single officer hurt tonight in Delaware County.”
During the chaos, officers from three separate agencies responded to the scene and were “immediately met by gunfire,” Stollsteimer said, adding that the two officers who were shot were “dragged out of danger” by other officers, he said.
At some point, the house that the shooter was in caught fire, according to the district attorney, who added that firefighters were unable to battle the blaze due to the bullet assault.
“Officers were taking gunfire,” Stollsteimer said. “Police officers and the fire department who were out there, there was still shots coming out at the beginning of this fire scene.”
Local media reported that the entire block near the home was evacuated as first responders, including a SWAT team and additional police and firefighters, arrived at the scene.
It was unclear what time the gunfire stopped but the blaze was under control, yet still smoldering on Wednesday night, according to Stollsteimer.
Authorities were unsure if the shooter was still inside the house or if the initial report of an 11-year-old girl being shot was accurate, the district attorney said.
“We don’t know who was in the house, we don’t know who the shooter was, we don’t know how many people are in there, we don’t know their status, we don’t know if they’re alive,” Stollsteimer said.
There won’t be more information until crews enter the home on Thursday morning, he added.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
“I see it as an extension of the fight to save our country and our democracy from extremism,” Emma Brown told me over the phone recently. She had just taken over as executive director of Giffords, the key gun-reform organization founded by former representative Gabby Giffords a little more than a decade ago, and we were talking about what the next 10 years of the movement might look like.
Brown was optimistic, especially after recent legislative wins, like 2022’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which would have seemed “impossible” just a handful of years ago. But Brown—a veteran of both Democratic senator Mark Kelly’s 2022 campaign and Joe Biden’s 2020 team in Arizona—was also clear-eyed about the challenges that lie ahead: “The stakes couldn’t be higher” for the November election, she said.
In a conversation, which has been edited for clarity and length, Brown sounded off on the apparent weakening of the NRA, the next big priorities of the gun-reform movement, and the importance of broadening the push beyond Democrats: “We really believe that we have to expand our coalition.”
Vanity Fair:You’re taking over Giffords at an interesting moment for the movement. Several years of uphill fighting have seemed to pay off with some real wins recently, at the federal level, with the Safer Communities Act, as well as with some action in the states. At the same time, we’ve seen some new challenges arise—I’m thinking ofBruen[the Supreme Court decision that did away with the legal requirement to show “proper cause” when applying for a concealed carry license in New York], for instance*.* If you had to take the temperature of the current state of the movement, where would you say we are right now compared with, say, 10 years ago?
Emma Brown: It’s a good question. So first, a lot of people look at this issue and feel like we’re trying to push a boulder. But I think if you step back on it, it has been a tremendous amount of success in a short period of time. In the last 10 years, we have gotten from a place where guns were really on the third rail of politics to a place where it is a major component of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign. I have seen that evolution myself, up close in battleground states across the country over the last 10 years. So there’s really been a significant political development.
Secondly, we’ve passed over 600 gun-safety laws during the time that Giffords has existed, really improving the strength of safety laws across the country. And then obviously, in 2022, we saw the major federal gun-safety law passed, the first one in 30 years, breaking a big logjam. So I think when you look at all of that, and the history of social movements in the United States, this one is relatively young—and the gun lobby had a century head start, but we are making legal and policy strides. And the cultural and political progress, which is part of what we’re really after, is not far behind. That’s obviously thanks to the groups that have been organizing for many decades—our law center being one of them, along with some of the more recent groups like March for Our Lives and Mothers of the Movement. I think we have supercharged in the last decade.
The gun lobby was obviously once seen as a kind of Goliath figure on this issue, but it has seemed somewhat chastened recently. We’ve seen the resignation of Wayne LaPierre at the NRA, but we’ve also seen just kind of the culture shift around this issue. Is it right to see the gun lobby as being in retreat? Or is that wishful thinking a little bit? Is there danger of spiking the ball too early on that?
No doubt, thanks to the work of the larger gun-violence-prevention movement and Giffords, the NRA and the lobby’s influence has significantly decreased. That is how we have been able to pass all those laws at the state level. It’s how we were able to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. I will say that I think it would be a mistake to assume that the lobby’s grip is not strong on state legislatures and Congress. A big part of where I think we are going as an organization, and as a movement, is looking to finally break that grip. I think if you step back, there is a big gulf in America, as you know, between public opinion and public policy on guns—and you ask yourself, If Americans believe that gun violence is a very big problem, and nearly all of Americans—90% of Republicans—support the same safety measures, how are these not law?
From blaming mass shootings on abortion and the teaching of evolution to harassing survivors of school shootings, Republicans have a long history of deeply f–ked-up responses to America’s gun problem. And that tradition is apparently alive and well in Indiana, where a state lawmaker responded to student pleas for gun control by telling them he was packing and flashing his firearm in their faces.
The Associated Press reports that earlier this week, students from Burris Laboratory School traveled to the state Capitol for a day of advocacy with Students Demand Action, a branch of Everytown for Gun Safety. There, state representative Jim Lucas asked the group why they were there and then started to defend the rights of gun owners, telling them people should be able to protect themselves and citing failures of law enforcement to stop school shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. He also claimed that in places where firearms are restricted, people aren’t “truly free,” and then, according to video taken by one of the students, declared, “I’m carrying right now,” opening his suit jacket to show a holstered handgun. (Indiana lawmakers and members of their staff are, inexplicably, allowed to carry handguns in and around the Capitol.)
Speaking to the AP about the incident, one student said the conversation took a “turn for the worst” after he showed them he was armed. “Since a state legislator had shown a weapon, I felt all the more powerless,” she said. “I felt scared. I felt alone. I was timid and almost petrified with fear.”
Lucas did not respond to requests for comment from the AP, which reports that in Facebook posts following the interaction, he claimed the conversation “was respectful, but it was clearly facts, reason and logic vs. plain emotion,” adding, “I fear for, and pity those that are being indoctrinated to fear that which is their best means of self defense. People are also being indoctrinated to depend on government for their ‘safety,’ even when shown that government has clearly ruled that government doesn’t have the duty to protect us.” Lucas is, not surprisingly, a proponent of loosening gun restrictions, and in a 2021 social media post, wrote, “Sweet Baby Jesus, I LOVE this country” in response to a story about 187,585 gun sales on Black Friday.
Vaughn Bryant, a former NFL football player, says he was ready — quite ready, in fact. Bryant told CBS News he’s watched Sunday morning political talk shows religiously for decades. He knows how politicians argue and speak. He knew how to make a case to Congress.
Bryant carefully reviewed his written remarks and testimony the night before, and he entered the big hearing room on the second floor of the Hart Senate Office Building with confidence, wearing the perfect necktie for the occasion. It was symmetrically patterned with equal parts blue and red.
He has dedicated his post-athletic career to combating gun violence in high-crime areas of Chicago. Bryant, executive director of the city’s Metropolitan Peace Initiative, was invited to be a witness last week at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence convened by one of his home-state Democratic senators.
He told lawmakers, “As you consider ways the federal government can address issues of gun violence, sustainable federal funding that brings violence prevention to scale must be part of the solution.” Bryant felt the conversation and questions were strong.
But the room wasn’t filled to capacity when he testified, and the media coverage was scant. Bryant says he wonders how many people heard the message.
Nursing a narrow majority into a challenging election year, Democrats in the Senate have made several attempts over the past month to inject some urgency into the gun control fight.
They held the Judiciary Committee hearing that featured Bryant and other witnesses. Other Democrats have proposed a range of new legislation, on combating ghost guns, tightening regulations on semiautomatics and providing more federal assistance to gun violence victims.
Last week, Senate Democratic leaders tried to draw attention to gun control with a series of doomed parliamentary moves.
They acknowledge they’re fighting an uphill battle. International crises, wars, a standoff over Ukraine aid, a looming government shutdown deadline, a historic U.S. House expulsion and — perhaps most perniciously — pessimism about the prospects of legislation are suffocating some of their efforts. There’s little political oxygen and cable TV coverage, even as mass shootings continue unimpeded.
What’s more, some of the key Republicans who helped secure passage of a gun control bill in 2022 aren’t inclined to revisit the issue right now.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, announced a fruitless effort to pass an assault weapons ban through the Senate by unanimous consent on Wednesday. As expected, the proposal was immediately spiked by Republicans. Sen. John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, blasted the proposal as an overreach that victimizes “law-abiding” gun owners.
Later on Wednesday, Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, whose state was devastated by the Sandy Hook school shootings 11 years ago this month, sought to pass a background check bill by unanimous consent. This, too, was also immediately blocked by Republicans. Murphy also scheduled a press event with Connecticut members of Congress on Thursday, to talk about gun violence near the 11-year mark since the Sandy Hook tragedy.
“There are things that are impossible, until the moment they’re not,” Sen. Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico, told CBS News. Heinrich introduced legislation to regulate some semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines. He held a press conference to gin up attention about his legislation Tuesday.
Flanked by orange signs with “GOSAFE ACT” in large letters, Heinrich announced his proposal in a 30-minute event in a first-floor meeting room in the Capitol. He told the group of spectators and TV cameras that a suspect in a deadly May 2023 shooting in Farmington, New Mexico, was carrying an AR-15 that would have been regulated by his legislation.
“The number of Americans killed in mass shootings is horrific,” Heinrich said. “And we can’t bring those Americans back.”
As he stood near an elevator bank off the Senate floor, Heinrich told CBS News he remains optimistic that some gun control measures could be seriously considered before the 2024 election. He says he’s talked with and “shared a draft” of his legislation with Senate Republicans. But Heinrich was quick to acknowledge that “we haven’t landed anyone yet.”
The pessimism that pervades gun control legislation discussions is unsurprising. The Congress is under divided control. The Republican-led House hasn’t used its agenda-setting power to raise the issue, stage hearings on gun control proposals and is unlikely — to put it mildly — to hold votes on the gun control priorities of Democrats.
Gun safety organizations have championed Heinrich’s proposal. In a statement, the head of Moms Demand Action said, “America’s gun violence epidemic is a public health crisis that claims the lives of 120 Americans and wounds over 200 more every day. Access to assault weapons only makes this crisis more lethal.”
But initial prospects for the bill appear dim.
One of the Republicans who helped negotiate a bipartisan gun bill last year is waving off the prospects of any new gun control initiatives. Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, told CBS News, “This is just an issue [Democrats] can’t let go of, because they’ve got a certain part of their base who don’t believe in the 2nd Amendment.”
The attempts by Democrats on Wednesday to pass sweeping new laws by unanimous consent in the Senate, which were destined to fail, risk further inflaming the issue with partisan rancor. In a floor speech, Sen. John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said of the proposed assault weapons ban, “It’s about trying to label responsible gun owners as criminals.”
“None of this solves the mental health crisis in our country,” he added. “The focus should be on mental health.”
Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, told CBS News, “It’s a very complex and divided situation. Right now, with everything else that we’re into, it just hasn’t been the priority.”
“When we have things like Ukraine, we have Israel, and the threat of shutting the government down,” Fetterman said, “we don’t have the ability to address this issue, which is a very critical issue.”
Bryant, who went home to Chicago after testifying at last week’s Senate committee hearing, did not leave Washington disenchanted by what he heard from senators.
“Mental health and intervening with citizens in crisis is an area of agreement,” he said. “We agree that poverty is a root cause of community violence, and we agree that we have time to enable returning citizens to successfully transition back into society in a productive and meaningful way. There’s a foundation of agreement.”
Scott MacFarlane is a congressional correspondent. He has covered Washington for two decades, earning 20 Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards. His reporting resulted directly in the passage of five new laws.
Two Supreme Court cases could completely change gun control laws, one affecting who can legally own a firearm and the other defining what modifications may be made to existing weaponry.
The rulings, to be given sometime this term, could affect hundreds of thousands of people under restraining orders, their alleged victims and half a million gun owners.
‘United States vs. Rahimi’: Restraining Orders & Gun Rights
One of the cases involves Zackey Rahimi, an alleged small-time marijuana and cocaine dealer, who was having an argument with his girlfriend in an Arlington, Texas, car park in December 2019.
As he became aggressive, she tried to flee but Rahimi grabbed her wrist and knocked her to the ground.
“He then dragged her back to his car, picked her up, and pushed her inside, causing her to hit her head on the dashboard. Realizing that a bystander had seen him, he retrieved a gun and fired a shot,” according to a Solicitor General petition to the Supreme Court.
While he was firing the shot, his girlfriend, identified only as C.M. in court documents, escaped from the car and ran.
Police mugshot of Zackey Rahimi, who won the right to own a gun after an appeal court struck down a law that banned people under restraining orders from gun possession. The government is now challenging that decision before the U.S Supreme Court. Arlington Police Department, Texas
Rahimi later called her and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone about the assault. In February 2020, a Texas state court granted C.M. a restraining order, which was valid for two years. The order also suspended Rahimi’s handgun license and warned him that possessing a firearm while the order remained in effect may be a felony.
“Rahimi, however, defied the restraining order. In August 2020, he tried to communicate with C.M. on social media and approached her house in the middle of the night, prompting state police to arrest him for violating the order,” the Solicitor General petition states.
In November 2020, he threatened another woman with a gun and was charged in Texas with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
The following month, after someone who had bought drugs from him “started talking trash” on social media, the Solicitor General petition states, Rahimi went to the man’s home and fired an AR-15 rifle into it.
The next day, after colliding with another vehicle, he got out of his car, shot at the other driver, fled, returned to the scene, fired more shots at the other car, and fled again. Three days later, Rahimi fired a gun in the air in a residential neighborhood in the presence of young children.
A few weeks after that, a truck flashed its headlights at Rahimi to caution him against speeding. In response, Rahimi slammed his brakes, cut across the highway, followed the truck off an exit, and fired multiple shots at another car that had been traveling behind the truck. Finally, in early January 2021, Rahimi pulled out a gun and fired multiple shots in the air after a friend’s credit card was declined at a fast-food restaurant, the Solicitor General notes.
Amy Coney Barrett on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on October, 1, 2020. Justice Coney Barrett drew attention to the terms of Zackey Rahimi’s restraining order during Supreme Court oral arguments in Rahimi’s gun rights case on November 3, 2023. Greg Nash/Getty Images
The petition, filed in March 2023, notes that a later police search of Rahimi’s room “uncovered a .45-caliber pistol, a .308-caliber rifle, pistol and rifle magazines, ammunition, approximately $20,000 in cash, and a copy of the restraining order.”
To the seeming disbelief of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Rahimi won his right to gun ownership after a Texas federal appeal court struck down a 1994 law that prohibits people under a restraining order from owning a gun.
“That holding was profoundly mistaken,” the Solicitor General’s petition told the Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear a government appeal to the Texas court’s decision.
In oral arguments on November 3, Coney Barrett appeared to have barely disguised contempt for Rahimi, whatever her view of the Second Amendment arguments. When Justice Clarence Thomas asked Rahimi’s lawyers how criminal danger could be determined by a civil restraining order, Coney Barrett pulled out a copy of Rahimi’s restraining order and read from it.
She said Rahimi was instructed to stay at least 200 feet away from his girlfriend and child because of the physical risk he posed to their safety.
Rahimi is one of two major cases that will help shape gun control law, legal analysts believe.
‘Cargill v. Garland’: Bump Stock Ban
The other is Cargill v. Garland, on the issue of whether a bump stock device is a “machine gun” because it is designed and intended for use in converting a rifle into a rapid-fire machine gun.
A bump stock is attached to a semi-automatic firearm to enable it to fire bullets more rapidly.
The case is a challenge to a regulation issued after America’s worst-ever mass shooting, in which 60 people were killed and over 850 were injured at a county music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The killer, Stephen Paddock, had used semi-automatic rifles equipped with bump stocks while firing at the music festival from his hotel room.
Amid public outrage, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives [ATF] issued a rule concluding that bump stocks are machine guns and ordered that anyone who owned one should destroy it or drop it at a nearby ATF office to avoid facing criminal penalties.
Stock images. The Supreme Court will hear two cases this term that could completely change gun control laws. George Frey / Stringer / designer491/Getty Images
That order is now being challenged by Michael Cargill, an army veteran and Texas gun shop owner, who says he purchased two bump stocks and that the ban violates his Second Amendment rights.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance, which supports Cargill’s Supreme Court challenge, said the bump stock ban affects over 500,000 gun owners.
According to New York University constitutional law professor, Peter Shane, Rahimi and Cargill could help bring clarity to gun ownership after the confusion caused by last year’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, in which the Supreme Court urged lower courts to ensure that gun laws are “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition.”
“There are a lot of gun regulations on the books throughout the country. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court decision in Bruen has generated huge uncertainty as to what kinds of regulation are permissible,” Shane told Newsweek.
Justice Clarence Thomas’s decision for the majority in Bruen caused major confusion, especially as it urged lower courts to look to historic precedent without defining that precedent. His ruling struck down New York’s 1911 Sullivan Act, which required a person applying for a concealed pistol permit to show “special cause” for doing so.
Thomas wrote that, for a gun law to be constitutional, “the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition”—a phrase that has been interpreted in many ways by the lower courts.
Research by Jacob Charles, a law professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, shows that 12 state and federal laws have been struck down, either completely or in part, since the Bruen decision, with little consistency in how it has been interpreted.
Writing in the Duke Law Journal last January, Charles was highly critical of the historic legacy approach of Bruen, which he says is “an extension of an increasingly historically-focused Supreme Court” that “imbues an absent past with more explanatory power than it can bear.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
An Ohio mother and her two young children were fatally shot in an apparent murder-suicide by the woman’s husband, who had been previously arrested, accused of domestic violence, local police said.
Around 10 a.m. Sunday, officers were responding to a call about dogs running loose outside a residence on East 9th Street in Lorain, Ohio. When they went inside the second-floor apartment, they discovered the bodies of 29-year-old Tyler Young, his wife Skylar Young, 24, their 4-month-old son, Bandin Young, and Skylar’s 9-year-old daughter, Angel Issac, according to the Lorain Police Department (LPD).
Investigators believe that Tyler Young fatally shot his wife and the two children before killing himself, sometime from 1 a.m. to 10 a.m., LPD Lieutenant Jacob Morris said during a press conference on Monday.
Morris said investigators believe the incident was a murder-suicide, saying that Tyler Young was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head, and next to his body, investigators discovered a 9-millimeter firearm they believe was used in the killings. Two other firearms were found in the home, the lieutenant said.
“The shooting is still under investigation, and we have no final ruling, but we are not looking for any other suspects,” Morris said.
Police tape blocks off a crime scene. An Ohio man fatally shot his wife, 4-month-old son and 9-year-old stepdaughter before turning the gun on himself, local police said. Andri Tambunan / AFP/Getty
Newsweek reached out via email on Monday to the LPD for comment.
Tyler Young had been previously arrested on charges of domestic violence and strangulation in May, Morris said. During that incident, Skylar Young told police, she was physically and verbally abused, saying that she had been threatened and “slapped and choked” by her husband while she was 26 weeks pregnant with Bandin at the time, Morris said. However, the wife recanted her statement to police in June.
That case was presented to a Lorain County grand jury, which chose not to indict Tyler Young on any charges relating to the May incident.
While a family member told investigators that Tyler Young was having a “schizophrenic episode” when the May altercation occurred, according to a police report, Morris said it’s unclear whether he had been officially diagnosed with a mental illness.
Morris said that investigators did not have a suspected motive for the fatal shooting, but they believed Tyler Young’s mental issues could have played a role in the incident.
Skylar Young was the biological mother to both children, Morris said, noting that Tyler Young was the biological father to 4-month-old Bandin, but not to Angel, who attended the Horizon Science Academy, a charter school in Lorain, according to the LPD.
Newsweek reached out via email Monday night to Horizon Science Academy for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Writer/actress Amy Schumer is his second cousin, once removed.
1975-1980 – New York state assemblyman.
1981-1999 – US representative from New York 9th District (formerly 10th District and 16th District).
1987-1988 – Sponsors the Fair Credit and Charge Card Disclosure Act, which requires credit card companies to list detailed information about fees and interest rates when soliciting new customers. The credit card disclosures are nicknamed “Schumer Boxes.”
March 2, 2017 – Schumer calls on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign in the wake of a report that Sessions met with the Russian ambassador to the US during the presidential campaign, contradicting his testimony during his Senate confirmation hearing. Sessions does not resign but recuses himself from involvement in the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Washington — The Supreme Court is convening Tuesday to confront a high-stakes case that pits the Second Amendment right to bear arms against a law that seeks to protect victims of domestic violence by keeping guns away from their alleged abusers.
Arguments in the dispute are the first the court is hearing since its conservative majority imposed a new test for assessing whether a firearms restriction passes constitutional muster, which has sparked confusion and frustration among the nation’s federal judges as they navigate new challenges to longstanding laws.
But the proceedings are also set against the backdrop of the latest mass shooting to rattle an American community, coming less than two weeks after 18 people were killed in Lewiston, Maine, which has again prompted calls for federal action to combat gun violence.
The dispute before the justices involves a law enacted by Congress nearly 30 years ago that prohibits people under domestic violence restraining orders from having firearms. Zackey Rahimi, a Texas man, was subject to such a restraining order granted to a former girlfriend in February 2020 when he threatened another woman with a gun and fired guns in public on five separate occasions in December 2020 and January 2021.
Following the incidents and after police found two guns at his residence while executing a search warrant, Rahimi was indicted for unlawfully having a gun while under a domestic violence restraining order under the 1994 law. He pleaded guilty, but challenged the constitutionality of the near-30-year-old prohibition, arguing it is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately tossed out Rahimi’s conviction and struck down the gun law under a new legal test for determining whether firearms restrictions comport with the Constitution.
Under that test, set forth by the Supreme Court in a landmark decision nearly 17 months ago, the government must put forth laws that are analogous to the modern-day measure in question in order to show that it fits within the nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation.
The 5th Circuit said the analogues offered by prosecutors during its historical inquiry “fall short,” and concluded that law “falls outside the class of firearm regulations countenanced by the Second Amendment.” The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed in late June to review the 5th Circuit’s decision.
“The court didn’t really have much choice about taking this case,” said Nelson Lund, a law professor at George Mason University. “After the 5th Circuit declared the statute unconstitutional, the solicitor general pretty much had to seek cert, and the court probably felt compelled to take the case because a federal statute had been declared unconstitutional.”
Lund said that he expects there will be “considerable discussion about exactly what Bruen requires the government to prove” during arguments, a reference to the Supreme Court’s decision last year in the case New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.
The Biden administration said in a filing that history and tradition establish that the Second Amendment allows Congress to disarm people who are not “law-abiding, responsible citizens,” and cited laws dating back to the founding that disarmed people found to be dangerous. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who represents the government before the Supreme Court, also warned that the presence of a gun substantially increases the chance of domestic violence escalating to homicide.
“This Court has recognized,” Prelogar wrote, that “the only difference between a battered woman and a dead woman is the presence of a gun,” a reference to an opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor for a unanimous court in 2014.
In its 2022 decision, the court was “emphatic that the nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation give Congress and the states ample room to protect the public — including by disarming those who are not law-abiding, responsible citizens,” Prelogar argued, adding that the gun law at issue “falls squarely within that established tradition.”
As a result of the law, the national background check system has prevented more than 77,000 gun purchases by people subject to domestic violence restraining orders since its inception in 1998, said Jennifer Becker of the Battered Women’s Justice Project.
“This is not about taking everyone’s guns away,” Becker said. “This is about temporarily taking guns away from people who have been determined by a court to be currently dangerous.”
But Rahimi, represented by federal public defenders, said in a filing to the justices that there is nothing akin to the federal law disarming people under domestic violence restraining orders in the country’s historical tradition, which means the measure is unconstitutional under the court’s framework.
“Although a ‘historical twin’ is not necessary, the government cannot point to a close relative, a distant cousin, or anything bearing even a passing resemblance,” Rahimi’s lawyers wrote.
The case is the first involving gun rights that the justices will hear since their June 2022 decision, and it presents the court with its first opportunity to clarify how lower courts should apply the so-called history-and-tradition test. Since the court’s 6-3 conservative majority issued its Second Amendment ruling, courts weighing challenges to widely accepted firearms laws have issued conflicting decisions, and restrictions barring felons from having firearms and disarming people using illegal drugs have been invalidated.
“Rahimi is not just important because of the law at issue and the lives placed directly at risk if this law does not survive, but also because the court has that opportunity to course correct,” said Esther Sanchez-Gomez, litigation director at Giffords Law Center. “It must use this case to provide additional guidance on what this new history-bound test requires, how courts should apply it, and make crystal clear the assurance and caveats the justices made [in past Second Amendment cases], which is that a variety of gun laws are constitutional.”
Shira Feldman, director of constitutional litigation at Brady, a gun control advocacy organization, said she is looking to the Supreme Court to provide guidance about the historical inquiry courts must now conduct and what are sufficient analogues for a modern-day regulations, including how many such laws are needed for the government to meet its burden, where they must be from and whether they have to cover certain numbers of people or geographical areas.
“These are questions that Bruen doesn’t answer and that a lot of courts have been struggling with,” she said.
The dispute has attracted input from a slew of pro-Second Amendment and gun control groups, Democratic lawmakers, and prosecutors and public defenders, who submitted friend-of-the-court briefs to the justices.
Of the parties weighing in, many of their positions have fallen along familiar lines, with pro-Second Amendment groups favoring more expansive gun rights, and Democrats and gun control organizations urging the court to allow certain firearms restrictions.
The National Association of Federal Defenders argued the Second Amendment right to bear arms is not limited to just “law-abiding, responsible” citizens, while the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers told the court that protection orders aren’t limited only to people who are not “law-abiding,” yet they would still be subject to prosecution under the disarmament law. Both groups, which represent federal public and community defenders and criminal defense attorneys, raised concerns that limiting the Second Amendment right only to those deemed to be “law-abiding” and “responsible” is unclear and could sweep too broadly.
Meanwhile, Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells, a self-described conservative Republican with endorsements from former President Donald Trump and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and other prosecutors throughout Texas are supporting the Biden administration and argue the Second Amendment does not protect defendants like Rahimi.
“For those who are subject to a protective order, the overwhelming evidence establishes that their firearms are not for self-defense. They are not being kept for a lawful purpose. They are weapons of intimidation, fear, and control,” Sorrells and his fellow Texas prosecutors told the court.
