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Tag: Gun Control

  • Federal judge rules Oregon gun law doesn’t violate Second Amendment | CNN Politics

    Federal judge rules Oregon gun law doesn’t violate Second Amendment | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge in Oregon ruled on Friday that a new state gun law does not violate the US Constitution, keeping one of the toughest gun laws in the country in place.

    US District Court Judge Karin Immergut ruled that Ballot Measure 114’s restrictions on large-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are constitutional because these magazines are “not commonly used for self-defense, and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment.”

    “Even if LCMs are protected by the Second Amendment, BM 114’s restrictions are consistent with this Nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety,” the ruling said.

    The law strengthens background checks and prohibits the sale and transfer of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds. It also closes the “Charleston Loophole,” which allows gun purchases to move forward by default after three days even if a background check has not been completed. The law also requires state police to complete background checks on individuals before a gun sale or transfer is made.

    Since passing in November, the measure has faced a number of legal challenges, with the NRA’s legislative action arm lamenting it as “the nation’s most extreme gun control Initiative.”

    But Immergut’s ruling maintains that while the Second Amendment does protect against “bearable arms” as listed in the US Constitution, large-capacity magazines are a “subset of magazines” – and therefore, not considered a bearable arm.

    “Magazines are an accessory to firearms, rather than a specific type of firearm,” Immergut said. “At the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification through to the late nineteenth century, firearm accessories like cartridge boxes – which held ammunition but, unlike modern magazines, did not feed the ammunition into firearms – were not considered ‘arms’ but instead were considered ‘accouterments,’” the ruling said.

    The measure is one of several gun control laws that passed in 2022, the second-highest year for mass shootings in the United States on record.

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  • After holiday week marred by mass shootings, Congress faces demands to rekindle efforts to reduce gun violence

    After holiday week marred by mass shootings, Congress faces demands to rekindle efforts to reduce gun violence

    Just after 7 a.m. on a stifling morning, one day before his city’s July 4 holiday celebrations, Baltimore’s mayor dashed around the plaza outside city hall. Clad in a white polo shirt and sneakers, Mayor Brandon Scott, 39, ran from point to point, maneuvering between camera crews and a series of tightly-scheduled nationally televised interviews. He’d catch his breath, handle a phone call and, at one point, sprang back inside the building briefly in between appearances.

    Scott is a former city council member who previously represented one of the northernmost sections of a city with a troublingly stubborn history of gun violence. He wanted to make a plea to America, and more specifically to Washington, that morning.   

    “We need Congress to act on this issue,” Scott told CBS News as the morning began. It’s a message and phrase he would repeat at an afternoon press conference, standing with his top city officials and his acting police commissioner.

    One day earlier, a sea of gunfire erupted at the 27th annual holiday week community cookout in Baltimore’s Brooklyn neighborhood. At least 30 people were struck. Two of them died. Though multiple shooters and guns are suspected to have been part of the rampage, in a city with zero gun stores, only one person — a 17-year-old — has been arrested so far.

    Authorities search for evidence at the scene of last nights mass shooting that left 2 dead and 20 wounded, on July 02 in Baltimore, MD.
    Authorities search for evidence at the scene of a mass shooting that left 2 dead and 28 wounded in Baltimore, Maryland.

    Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images


    In one of his Monday interviews, Scott said 400 ghost guns were recovered in Baltimore last year. 

    “And it happens because we in this country are still allowing the sanctity of American guns to outweigh the sanctity of American lives, especially our children,” he said. “How more of these things have to happen before we get action at the national level?”

    Though Congress is just one year removed from passing a law that enhanced background checks for gun buyers under 21 and closed a loophole to prevent convicted domestic abusers from purchasing firearms for five years, the July 4 holiday week ended with a new series of calls on Washington to do more. And not just from Baltimore’s mayor.

    “There is more work to do, including establishing truly universal background checks, banning assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, closing more loopholes related to illegal gun purchases, cracking down on gun trafficking and more,” said Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown, of Ohio, on Sunday. Her comments came in the wake of a mass shooting of nine people in Cleveland, one of nearly 30 mass shootings in the U.S. already in July.


    Senators on first major bipartisan gun legislation passed in nearly 30 years

    08:08

    In a divided Congress, the two parties and two chambers have demonstrated little inclination toward cutting another bipartisan, bicameral agreement to change federal gun laws in 2023.  

    Last month, U.S. House Democrats began an effort to force a formal debate and vote on new gun control measures through the use of a parliamentarian maneuver known as a “discharge petition.”

    Two of the petitions would stiffen background check requirements for firearms sales. Another would order new regulations for assault weapons. If any one of the petitions garners 218 signatures from the House’s 435 members, it would force the hands of Congressional leaders to bring the gun control measures to the House floor.

    One of the background check petitions had garnered 208 signatures, all from Democrats, as the holiday week concluded. But even if all House Democrats were to sign the petitions, they’d need to also secure the signatures of five Republicans.

    As of Sunday, none of them had obtained a single GOP signature, signaling the effort could be destined to stall as the summer continues.

    Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath, of Georgia, whose son was murdered nearly a decade ago, is leading one of the discharge petition efforts. 

    “After the conviction of my son’s killer, I made a promise to Jordan on the steps of the courthouse to take all the love I have as a mother and spend the rest of my life devoted to making sure parents across the country never had to go through the same pain that I did,” McBath said. “It is these policies that will fulfill our promise.”

    When asked last month by CBS News if Republicans had indicated future support, McBath said, “I’m still hoping at some point that they’ll step forward.”

    Rep. McBath Holds A Press Conference To Discuss The Dangers Of Gun Violence
    Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) speaks during a news conference about gun violence outside the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 8, 2023 in Washington, DC.

    Drew Angerer / Getty Images


    Several House Republican leaders did not immediately return CBS News’ request for comment.

    Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, of Pennsylvania, a moderate who co-chairs the Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus and who has previously spoken in support of some background checks for firearms sales, has indicated he would not support the discharge petitions in a June interview with NBC. Fitzpatrick’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from CBS News.

    Democratic Rep Glenn Ivey, of Maryland, who has held a series of news events urging House votes on gun legislation, told CBS News, “Discharge petitions may be the only way to force the House Republicans to vote up or down.”  

    Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton, of Virginia, said, “We’re using every tool at our disposal.”

    Mass shooting in Philadelphia
    A view of the crime scene from a mass shooting in Philadelphia on July 3, 2023.

    Kyle Mazza/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images


    During the two-week Congressional recess — amid the series of mass shootings in Baltimore, Fort Worth, Texas, and Cleveland — some House Democrats issued a new series of statements in support of debate on the gun control bills.

    Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, an alumnus of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School and the Congressman who represents the city of Parkland, Florida, told CBS News he continues to receive daily phone calls from constituents urging Congress to act. 

    “Poll after poll shows the majority of Americans support expanded efforts to curb gun violence. If members truly represent their constituents, wouldn’t they vote to support measures that the American people want and will save lives?” Moskowitz said.

    Republican gun legislation is similarly stuck. During recent debate over House-passed legislation that would loosen regulations of pistol braces, devices that make some firearms easier to fire with one hand, Republicans argued the Biden administration and Democrats sought to violate Second Amendment rights. Republican Rep. Bob Good, of Virginia, accused the Democrats of having “no regard for the Second Amendment or for our disabled veterans.”

    House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, of Louisiana, who was himself wounded in a 2017 shooting while practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game, said, “House Republicans will always fight to protect the constitutional rights of American families.” 

    But with Democrats in the majority in the Senate, the pistol brace bill is just as likely to expire without becoming law as the Democrats’ discharge petitions seeking tighter gun controls.

    The standoff has flared several times this year. In the wake of a March mass shooting in Tennessee, some Tennessee Republicans criticized calls for new gun restrictions. Rep. Tim Burchett told CBS News at the time, “We’ve got a mental health crisis in this country.” 

    During one of his final interviews on that hot morning before the July 4 holiday, Baltimore’s mayor said his city is frustrated by the “cowardice” of a Congress that appears intransigently divided on issues of gun violence, even as the scope and number of shootings soars nationwide. And he said his city isn’t the only one frustrated.

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  • Baltimore investigators searching for suspects in block party mass shooting that killed 2 and injured 28 others | CNN

    Baltimore investigators searching for suspects in block party mass shooting that killed 2 and injured 28 others | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Investigators in Baltimore are searching for multiple suspects in a mass shooting that turned a beloved annual neighborhood block party into chaos early Sunday, killing two people and injuring 28 others, most of whom were teens, officials said.

    The search for the shooters – investigators believe at least two were involved in the incident – is ongoing, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott told CNN Monday, vowing, “We will not rest until we find those who cowardly decided to shoot up this block party and carry out acts of violence which we know will be illegal guns.”

    Officials are combing through “every single lead, every minute, every second of footage, everything that we have to find out who decided to disrupt this peaceful event in this way,” Scott said on “CNN This Morning.”

    The gunfire erupted early Sunday in the south Baltimore neighborhood of Brooklyn, where community members were enjoying a yearly celebration dubbed Brooklyn Day.

    Aaliyah Gonzalez, 18, whose surname police initially spelled ending with an ‘s,’ and Kylis Fagbemi, 20, were fatally shot, the Baltimore Police Department announced.

    The dozens of surviving victims all sustained gunshot wounds, according to acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley. Five of those injured were adults aged 20 or older and the remaining 23 were teenagers ranging in age from 13 to 19, police said.

    Seven of the wounded remain in hospitals, with four in critical condition and three in stable condition, the mayor noted.

    Investigators are scouring the sprawling crime scene – which spans several blocks – for evidence and are poring over hours of surveillance footage, the police commissioner said. Officials have also urged community members to come forward with any relevant information or video footage that may assist in the investigation.

    A reward for information leading to the capture of the suspects has been raised to $28,000, Worley said at a news conference Monday.

    Police began receiving calls reporting the shooting around 12:30 a.m. Sunday, according to Worley.

    As officers arrived on the scene, they found an 18-year-old woman – later identified as Gonzalez – dead, police said. A 20-year-old identified as Fagbemi was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

    An ice cream truck was parked directly across from where Gonzalez was shot and killed. The truck’s driver, Keith, who declined to give his last name, told CNN he watched her collapse on the stairs as hundreds of people ran for cover.

    Keith said he told his children to lay down on the floor of the truck and wait for the rounds of shooting to stop.

    “I walked over to [Gonzalez], checked her pulse, straightened her out, tried to start doing CPR but she was already dead,” he said.

    Some who suffered gunshot injuries took shelter inside the ice cream truck. On Monday morning, blood was still on the ground near the truck’s parking spot.

    Keith said he could not see where the gunshots were coming from. He said there were no disruptions at the block party before the shooting started.

    He said his two daughters, 13 and 18 years old, are “fine but extremely stressed out.”

    Investigators have yet to determine a motive in the attack and are still figuring out whether the victims were targeted or indiscriminately shot at, the police commissioner said. As officers canvassed the neighborhood during the day Sunday, K-9 units located additional shell casings that had not been found overnight, he said.

    Staff at MedStar Harbor Hospital were expecting a routine overnight shift when they were met with the arrival of several patients with traumatic gunshot wounds, Dr. Hania Habeeb, associate chair of the emergency department, said at a news conference Monday.

    Habeeb said the hospital received 19 patients within an hour, 14 of whom were teenagers. Many of the patients were minors, brought in by family and loved ones who were “appropriately concerned,” she said.

    “We didn’t know if we were safe. We didn’t know if the shooter or shooters were right outside of our hospital doors,” Habeeb said.

    The hospital went on immediate lockdown to ensure safety while staff performed lifesaving procedures to stabilize the victims. Habeeb added 10 patients were transferred to Baltimore trauma centers.

    The attack marks one of the latest acts of gun violence to thrust an American community into grief as they gather in everyday spaces, including parks, schools, shopping malls and grocery stores.

    “This was a reckless, cowardly act of violence that has taken two lives and altered many, many more,” Scott said. “This tragic incident is another glaring, unfortunate example of the deep issues of violence in Baltimore, in Maryland and this country and particularly gun violence and the access to illegal guns.”

    Just three days into the month, it is one of five mass shootings in July and one of 340 mass shootings in the US in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.

    “These weapons come from Virginia, they come from Texas, they come from Florida, they come from Alabama, they come from everywhere in this country,” Scott said.

    “We have to deal with this issue of guns and the flow of illegal guns into the hands of people who should not have them at the national level,” he added.

    The National Rifle Association sued Maryland Gov. Wes Moore after he signed the Gun Safety Act of 2023 and other gun safety measures into law in May, court documents show.

    Members of the Kingdom Life Church pray at the site of a mass shooting in the Brooklyn Homes neighborhood on July 2, 2023.

    The block party was held as an annual celebration of the Brooklyn neighborhood. Scott called on the public to think of the shooting as if it happened in a rural community. “When it happens in Baltimore, Chicago or DC it doesn’t get that same attention,” he said.

    “These Black American lives, children’s lives, matter just as anyone else,” he added.

    Scott described the Brooklyn neighborhood as a working-class community filled with “immense pride.”

    “It is a neighborhood that has had its troubles, but a neighborhood that has seen some folks in that community really determined to see it be successful and see things turn around,” he added.

    There were “at least a couple hundred people” at the event Saturday, Worley said at Monday’s news conference, describing it as “unpermitted,” emphasizing no organizers had filed paperwork with the city.

    Asked about whether police had been appropriately staffed for the event, Worley said the annual celebration happens on a different Saturday each year. In the past, law enforcement was able to discover the date of the event in advance to prepare resources.

    But this year, police did not learn of the event until the day of, Worley said. “As far as I know, no one notified BPD that Brooklyn Day was happening on July 1st.”

    “Unfortunately, we didn’t get there in time to prevent what happened.”

    Mayor Scott said Sunday his office is mobilizing every available resource to assist with the investigation, including distributing information about community-based services available to residents in the Brooklyn Homes area, which he described as a public housing facility.

    Yvonne Booker, a resident of Brooklyn Homes, told CNN affiliate WBAL she’s lived in the area for three decades and feels the gun violence has reached a breaking point.

    “It’s kind of hard for me. I’m a mother. They need to stop. It’s too much. I’ve been to so many funerals in this community,” Booker said.

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  • How AI can help prevent gun violence

    How AI can help prevent gun violence

    How AI can help prevent gun violence – CBS News


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    A museum in Florida is using AI to try to detect guns and identify possible shooters as quickly as possible. Manuel Bojorquez takes a look at the technology.

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  • What are red flag laws — and do they work in preventing gun violence?

    What are red flag laws — and do they work in preventing gun violence?

    Extreme risk protection orders, more commonly referred to as “red flag” laws, have been passed across the country as a means to prevent gun violence — but there are many questions about what these laws involve and how well they work. 

    Until 2018, just five states had adopted red flag laws. The number of states implementing such laws surged after the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. 

    The nonprofit group Everytown for Gun Safety has been a big advocate for these laws. They’re vital to preventing gun violence, said Chelsea Parsons, Everytown’s director of implementation.

    “They provide a proactive opportunity to prevent tragedies,” she said. “You don’t have to wait for somebody to commit a crime when there are clear warning signs that this person having access to firearms poses a clear risk.”

    Here’s what to know about red flag laws and their impact on gun violence.

    What are red flag laws?

    These laws allow people to petition for the temporary confiscation of an individual’s firearms if that person is deemed to be a risk to themself or to others. 

    Petitioners first ask a judge to issue a confiscation order. They present evidence about the risk they believe the individual poses. The judge decides when to issue an order. 

    “The basic idea behind these laws is that they allow a court to order a firearm to be temporarily taken away from a person who presents an immediate risk to themselves or others,” said Joseph Blocher, co-director of Duke University’s Center for Firearms Law. 

    Who can petition for a firearm to be removed?

    Laws about who can petition vary from state to state. In some states, coworkers, employers, teachers, doctors and family and household members can file petitions for gun removal. But Parsons said in most states it’s still largely law enforcement officers who can petition for the orders, sometimes referred to as ERPOs, for extreme risk protection orders. 

    “It can be an extremely intimidating process to go to court on your own, file a petition like this during a moment of intense crisis,” Parsons said. 

    The organization recommends policymakers focus on the needs of petitioners outside of law enforcement to make sure the process is accessible. 

    Everytown maintains a list of state laws and who is permitted to petition for a firearm to be removed in each state.

    Are red flag laws constitutional?

    Critics argue red flag laws go against the Second Amendment. While there have been Second Amendment challenges to these laws, they’ve each failed, Blocher said.

    In Hope v. State, the Connecticut Appellate Court in 2016 concluded that the state’s firearm removal law does not violate the Second Amendment because “it does not restrict the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of their homes.”

    There have also been challenges based on due process. 

    “Normally when you’re deprived of some constitutional interest, like possession of a gun, you are entitled to notice and a hearing and those kinds of things,” said Blocher. “Red flag laws permit these emergency orders to be entered without, necessarily, a full hearing. So I think people want to know, is there enough process here to protect people from being wrongfully deprived of their guns?”

    Which states have them?

    More than 20 states, along with Washington, D.C., have passed red flag laws as of June 2023. They are:

    • California
    • Colorado
    • Connecticut
    • Delaware
    • District of Columbia
    • Florida
    • Hawaii
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Maryland
    • Massachusetts
    • Michigan (going into effect early in 2024)
    • Minnesota (going into effect early in 2024)
    • Nevada 
    • New Jersey
    • New Mexico
    • New York
    • Oregon
    • Rhode Island
    • Vermont
    • Virginia
    • Washington

    How quickly can an order be issued and what happens next?

    There are two types of orders: emergency, or ex parte, orders and final orders, according to the Giffords Law Center, a research organization that advocates for more restrictive gun control measures. 

    The emergency order can be issued without the gun owner present during the court hearing, Blocher said. The order is usually short term and lasts a week or two. Another hearing then happens with the gun owner present to make their case. 

    Based on the judge’s ruling at the second hearing, someone’s gun can be removed for a longer duration. The final order lasts for a year in most states. At that point, it can either expire or be renewed. Gun owners can also request hearings to have their firearms returned. How often they can petition the court depends on the state the individual lives in. 

    What problems have states experienced with implementation and enforcement?

    In Colorado, where a red flag law was signed in 2019, nearly half of the state’s counties declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries. 

    The shooter who opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle inside Colorado Springs’ Club Q last year, killing five people and wounding 17 others, had previously been arrested for making threats. The state has a red flag law, but no ERPO was filed. In Colorado, law enforcement, family and household members, certain medical professionals and certain educators can file petitions, according to Everytown.

    “The sheriff in El Paso County has previously said he would not use the state’s ERPO law except in ‘exigent’ circumstances,” Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at Giffords Law Center, said. 

    Victims’ families and survivors of the shooting there have said they plan to sue the sheriff’s office for failing to block the shooter from buying guns before the attack. The El Paso County Sheriff’s has not responded to repeated CBS requests for comment on the issue, but the official policy on the issue is still that deputies will not petition for an ERPO “unless exigent circumstances exist, and probable cause can be established pursuant to 16-3-301 C.R.S that a crime is being or has been committed.”

    “It is the policy of the Sheriff’s Office to respect and protect the constitutional rights of all those we serve,” according to the department’s policy posted online. “The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office will ensure that the rights of people to be free from unreasonable search and seizures, and to receive due process of law, are safeguarded and maintained.”

    Other states face problems because of a lack of coordination and investment, Anderman said.

    Why are some states not considering red flag laws?

    Some feel red flag laws infringe on the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, who represents Idaho, which does not have a red flag law, has said he’s working on ways to address gun violence “without abridging Second Amendment rights.”

    Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, also a Republican, has said he supports the ability of states to make their own ERPO laws, but does not support them federally. Texas does not have a red flag law. Cruz has said red flag laws “pushed by Democrats and gun control advocates” are designed to deprive Americans of fundamental rights. 

    Across the U.S., Blocher has found many are concerned about being wrongfully deprived of their guns without trial. 

    “I think there’s a misconception that these extreme risk protection orders are a criminal punishment. They’re not,” he said. “They’re like a restraining order and those are civil.”

    What about a federal law?

    There’s no federal red flag law, but in February, the Justice Department announced it would be sending out more than $230 million to help states and the District of Columbia administer red flag laws and other crisis-intervention programs. Biden also signed legislation in June 2022 making it easier for states to put red flag laws into place. The bill includes incentives for states to pass red flag laws. 

    Neither Blocher nor Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, believe a federal red flag law is likely. 

    “The focus is really on not necessarily moving toward a federal law but improving these laws at the state level,” Willinger said.

    Aliza Chasan

    Aliza Chasan is a digital producer at 60 Minutes and CBS News.

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  • Federal judge slams Supreme Court in gun case while reluctantly ruling in favor of convicted felon | CNN Politics

    Federal judge slams Supreme Court in gun case while reluctantly ruling in favor of convicted felon | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge in Mississippi ruled in favor of a convicted felon in a gun case on Wednesday while simultaneously slamming a recent landmark Second Amendment decision that expanded gun rights and changed the framework lower courts must use as they analyze firearm restrictions.

    In his ruling, Judge Carlton Reeves, an Obama appointee who has previously been critical of the Supreme Court decision, dismissed a federal criminal case against a man prosecuted for possessing a firearm despite a past felony conviction prohibiting further gun ownership. The apparent reluctant decision announced by Reeves in his 77-page opinion included a blistering assessment of recent Supreme Court precedent pertaining to guns and public safety.

    At issue was a case involving Jessie Bullock, a Mississippi man who was previously imprisoned for approximately 15 years after being convicted for aggravated assault and manslaughter following a bar fight in 1992.

    Bullock was indicted 26 years later after being found to be a past felon in possession of a firearm, according to the ruling, but petitioned for his case to be dismissed following a landmark Supreme Court ruling last summer.

    That decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, changed the framework judges must use to review gun regulations and determined that modern-day laws restricting gun ownership are only constitutional if similar regulations were in place when the Constitution was drafted.

    Going forward, Justice Clarence Thomas said that a gun law could only be justified if it is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

    Last November, Reeves released a scorching order expressing frustration with the high court’s new historical legal standard, insisting it had inflicted confusion upon lower courts, and ordered the Justice Department to brief him on whether he needs to appoint an historian to help him decipher the landmark opinion.

    “This court is not a trained historian,” Reeves wrote last year.

    “The justices of the Supreme Court, as distinguished as they may be, are not trained historians,” he continued.

    “And we are not experts in what white, wealthy and male property owners thought about firearms regulation in 1791,” he said.

    In response to Reeves’ request to the Justice Department for clarity, the Biden administration last year defended a federal statute barring felons from possessing firearms and urged the court not to hire an historian, arguing that the government should win the case without such an intervention.

    In his decision Wednesday dismissing the case against Bullock, Reeves acknowledged the government was in the “unenviable position” of pointing to certain past laws barring felons from possessing firearms, but nevertheless ruled that the Justice Department had not met the burden required to show laws barring felons from possessing firearms met the Bruen decision’s historical test.

    But Reeves repeated his past complaints blasting the entire process courts must now use to determine whether a present-day law had a historical analogue at the time of the founding of the nation.

    “Judges are not historians,” he once again wrote. “We were not trained as historians. We practiced law, not history. And we do not have historians on staff.”

    Reeves also appeared to criticize the very notion of deciding modern laws through the lens of colonial times.

    “Bruen shows us that originalism is now the Supreme Court’s dominant mode of constitutional interpretation,” he wrote. “This Court is not so sure it should be.”

    Reeves added, “This Court is also not sure that ceding this much power to the dead hand of the past is so wise.”

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  • At least 12 killed in shootings over holiday weekend

    At least 12 killed in shootings over holiday weekend

    At least 12 killed in shootings over holiday weekend – CBS News


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    At least a dozen people were killed and more than 100 others hurt in a series of mass shootings over the holiday weekend. A Juneteenth celebration in Illinois turned deadly Sunday when multiple people opened fire, killing one and injuring 22 more. CBS Chicago’s Charlie De Mar reports.

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  • 1 dead, at least 20 hurt in a shooting at a Juneteenth celebration in Willowbrook, Illinois, police say | CNN

    1 dead, at least 20 hurt in a shooting at a Juneteenth celebration in Willowbrook, Illinois, police say | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    At least 20 people were injured and one person has died in a shooting overnight, according to police, in what witnesses say was a Juneteenth celebration turned deadly.

    The shooting took place around 12:30 a.m. in a parking lot in Willowbrook, about 21 miles west of Chicago. Witnesses say people were gathered in the area to celebrate Juneteenth.

    Some of the injured were transported to hospitals by ambulance and others walked in, DuPage County Deputy Sheriff Eric Swanson told reporters Sunday.

    At least 12 ambulances responded to the scene, Ostrander said.

    Ten patients were transported to four hospitals with injuries ranging from graze wounds to more serious gunshot wounds, and two people were in critical condition, Joe Ostrander, battalion chief of the Tri-State Fire Protection District said earlier.

    The motive behind the shooting is unclear and it is still an active investigation, Swanson said.

    It joins a growing list of celebrations interrupted by gunfire, like the graduation ceremony in Virginia, the NBA championship celebration in Colorado and the birthday party in California, all in the last month.

    The incident is now one of 310 mass shootings in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

    After the 2022 shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, less than 40 miles from Willowbrook, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law a ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines in the state. The ban faced immediate legal challenges, but the Supreme Court refused an emergency request from gun rights advocates to block the ban in May.

    “This shooting shows that even states with strong gun laws like Illinois are not immune from gun violence due to our incredibly weak federal laws and weak laws in neighboring states.” Kris Brown, president of Brady, the country’s oldest gun violence prevention organization, said in a statement.

    “Unfortunately, because of the gun industry’s influence on our lawmakers, there is no place in America that’s safe from gun violence,” Brown said.

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  • Gavin Newsom Has a Radical Idea for Tackling Gun Violence: Amend the U.S. Constitution

    Gavin Newsom Has a Radical Idea for Tackling Gun Violence: Amend the U.S. Constitution

    California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced a novel— and longshot— push for gun control to address the country’s ongoing crisis of mass shootings and deadly violence: a constitutional amendment that would impose federal restrictions on gun ownership and ban assault weapons. “This is an existential crisis,” Newsom told NBC News’ Jacob Soboroff, in an interview that aired on the Today Show Thursday.

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    “It’s absolute insanity,” he added in a separate interview with Politico, referring to the daily drumbeat of gun violence in America. “And the biggest and most insane thing we can do is the same old BS and just point fingers. So let’s give this a shot.”

    To be clear, it’s extremely unlikely the proposed 28th amendment— which would raise the minimum purchasing age to 21, impose universal background checks and waiting periods, and prohibit the sale of assault weapons— will come to fruition, even as the country suffers a record-breaking wave of mass gun violence this year. As Soboroff notes, it would require two-thirds of states to pass the amendment to trigger a constitutional convention, and three-quarters of states would need to approve it to enact it. That’s a tall order in a country where 22 states are entirely under the control of a GOP that has baked 2nd amendment absolutism deep into its party platform. But Newsom’s move could apply new pressure, both at the federal and state level, for common sense gun reform that polls show most Americans support. 

    “This initiative will literally be a catalyst for other states to follow,” California State Senator Aisha Wahab told Politico. 

    America has already suffered more than two dozen mass shootings this year, according to an Associated Press/USA Today database, in addition to the everyday violence, accidents, and suicides that roil communities across the country. While President Joe Biden last year signed the most substantial gun safety bill in decades last year, federal reform has been limited by Republicans. Blue states like California, Illinois, and New York have worked to strengthen their regulations. But their efforts have been undermined by lax gun laws in neighboring states and by the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority further expanded gun rights in a high-profile ruling last year.

    “We’re sick of being on the defense and throwing up our hands,” Newsom told Politico. “We want to go on the offense and be for something and build a movement that’s bottom up, not top down.”

    While getting even half of America’s states on board for the proposal will be an uphill battle, it will at least be a new rallying point for the gun control movement. “We cannot stand idly while courts roll back our work and diminish the ability of our Legislature to keep Californians safe,” Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who is spearheading the amendment with Wahab, said in a statement. “This bold but fair resolution calls on other states to join us in protecting some of the most effective ways of reducing gun violence.”

    Eric Lutz

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  • Biden Marks Anniversary Of Uvalde Massacre By Renewing Call For Stricter Gun Control

    Biden Marks Anniversary Of Uvalde Massacre By Renewing Call For Stricter Gun Control

    President Joe Biden on Wednesday marked one year since the massacre at a school in Uvalde, Texas, by again calling on lawmakers to pass long-awaited gun safety measures.

    On May 24, 2022, a teenage gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. The incident remains Texas’ deadliest school shooting of all time, and reignited nationwide anger over gun violence and lax firearm regulations.

    The president delivered a speech on the somber anniversary as first lady Jill Biden looked on, with the two surrounded by 21 white candles bearing the names of the victims.

    “Standing there in Uvalde, Jill and I couldn’t help but think that too many schools, too many everyday places, have become killing fields in communities all across every part of America,” Biden said, recalling his visit to the border town a year earlier. “In each place, we hear the same message: ‘Do something. For God’s sake, please do something.’”

    Law enforcement came under severe criticism for its response to the shooting. A report by Texas lawmakers revealed that nearly 400 heavily armed officers from federal, state and local agencies were on the scene, but that they waited more than an hour before confronting and killing the gunman. Officers also prevented parents who gathered by the school from retrieving their children inside, and at times got physical with them for expressing anger at authorities’ inaction.

    Currently, a state-level criminal probe into the hesitant police response is still ongoing, and Uvalde authorities continue to withhold public records related to the shooting. Some Uvalde families have filed lawsuits against gun manufacturers and law enforcement.

    “It’s time to act. It’s time to make our voices heard — not as Democrats or as Republicans, but as friends, as neighbors, as parents, and as fellow Americans,” Biden said. “Because today, guns remain the number-one killer — the number-one killer — of children in America.”

    A month after the tragedy, Biden had signed the country’s most sweeping gun safety bill in decades, which included stricter background checks.

    But the president this week renewed his calls for lawmakers to pass legislation that permanently bans AR-style firearms and high-capacity magazines, establishes universal background checks and a national “red flag” law, requires safe storage of firearms, and ends gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.

    “How many more parents will live their worst nightmare before we stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden said.

    The president and supporters of gun safety reforms — including Uvalde parents — have tried multiple times to advance such proposals, only for conservative legislators to block them. With the GOP-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate each having a slim political majority in Washington, it’s unlikely that the U.S. Congress will pass what Biden is calling for.

    In Texas’ Republican-controlled state Legislature, lawmakers in the past year have rejected almost every proposal to improve gun safety. GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has also shut down talks of stricter gun laws — the same response he had after several other mass shootings in his state.

    “Since Uvalde, our country has experienced a staggering 650 mass shootings,” the president said. “We can’t end this epidemic until Congress pass some commonsense gun safety laws and keep weapons of war off our streets and out of the hands of dangerous people, [and] until states do the same thing.”

    He added: “I know for a long time it’s been hard to make progress. But there will come a point where our voices are so loud, our determination so clear, that we can no longer be stopped. We will act.”

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  • A man told officers at the CIA headquarters gate, ‘I’m here and I have a gun,’ law enforcement source says | CNN

    A man told officers at the CIA headquarters gate, ‘I’m here and I have a gun,’ law enforcement source says | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A man now under arrest walked up to the CIA Headquarters’ gate Tuesday and allegedly said, “I’m here and I have a gun,” a law enforcement source told CNN.

    Uniformed federal officers turned him away and notified Fairfax County, Virginia, police of his description, the source said Wednesday.

    He later was arrested and charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property, police said. He was identified as Eric Sandow, 32, of Gainesville, Florida.

    Sandow said he was headed to the CIA and had an AK-47 and another weapon in his vehicle as he was arrested Tuesday at Dolley Madison Preschool in McLean, Virgnia, after he trespassed on school grounds around 11 a.m., police said.

    The preschool is less than 1.5 miles from CIA Headquarters and about a 10-minute drive to major Washington, DC, landmarks, including the National Mall.

    “He requested access to the (preschool) building facilities to use the restroom, which was denied by school staff,” Dolley Madison Preschool said in a statement Wednesday. “At no point did he gain physical entrance to the school building.”

    Fairfax County police were then called to the scene. “While speaking with him, he made statements he had weapons inside his car located on school property,” the police department said Wednesday in a statement.

    “Officers searched the car and found two weapons, an AK-47 and a pistol, along with magazines and ammunition.”

    Sandow was arraigned Wednesday morning in Fairfax County General District Court, a court official said.

    He was being held Wednesday without bond, police said. It was not immediately clear whether Sandow had legal representation.

    “It does not appear he was acting in conjunction with anyone else,” Fairfax County police said. “Sandow did not make any threats and the weapons never left the vehicle.”

    Sandow does not appear to have a lengthy criminal history, public records show. He was charged with misdemeanor domestic battery in 2014 and did not declare a political party with his voter registration.

    Law enforcement lauded an alert person who summoned them Tuesday to the day care.

    “We’re grateful to the community member who did the right thing and called us,” police said. “We’d like to remind our community to report suspicious activity as you never know what you may prevent by making that call.”

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  • White House expands its playbook for responding to mass shootings in the year after Uvalde | CNN Politics

    White House expands its playbook for responding to mass shootings in the year after Uvalde | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    When news broke of a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, one year ago, President Joe Biden was on his way back from Tokyo following a major international summit.

    Biden watched the news unfold on Air Force One, feeling, like others, horrified and heartbroken for the families, and deciding in that moment to speak upon returning to the White House, a White House official told CNN.

    Moments after landing, a somber Biden – who had been in the Obama White House during the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School – walked into a briefing in the Oval Office and prepared an address he delivered that evening in the Roosevelt Room.

    “I had hoped, when I became president, I would not have to do this again,” Biden said as he started the speech. He later visited Uvalde.

    Over the last year, Biden has signed legislation called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law and implemented two dozen executive actions to try to reduce gun violence. And on Wednesday, Biden will again deliver remarks to mark the one-year remembrance of the Uvalde shooting.

    But in that same time span, hundreds more mass shootings have gripped communities nationwide.

    Mass shootings have become so common in the United States that the White House has framed their approach as akin to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s hurricane response. Behind the scenes, administration officials have been developing ways in which the federal government can respond in the short and long term after a mass shooting, recognizing the physical, mental and economic ramifications.

    “I think we’ve learned that the needs of these communities are really intense, and they also last long after the immediate hours and days after a mass shooting. If a hurricane devastates a community, you get that immediate White House response, but you also get FEMA deployed on the ground to provide direct services and support to survivors,” one source told CNN.

    This recognition of the long after-effects of mass shootings has prompted discussions within the White House about additional measures, including earlier this month, when Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice gathered the first meeting of Cabinet officials and senior staff to discuss steps forward in responding to mass shootings, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

    The reality officials were up against in that meeting came into sharp focus again less than 24 hours later, when another mass shooting unfolded – that time, in Allen, Texas.

    “I don’t think we could feel more urgency than we did on [that] Friday. I think people feel this very deeply. We now work with so many communities that have experienced shootings. It’s devastating, of course, when another gets added to the list,” the source told CNN.

    The Buffalo, New York, shooting last year at a local grocery story was an example of a tragedy that had unanticipated effects as it left a mostly Black community without a crucial grocery store for a period of time.

    “For too long, when we’ve thought about mass shootings and gun violence in general, we’ve only thought about the individuals hurt or killed. What this administration does is certainly attend to survivors and the families of those who have been hurt, but they have a realization that a mass shooting or gun violence in general ripples through the community,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told CNN.

    An operation kicks into gear within the walls of the White House the moment an alert pops up of a potential mass shooting.

    The White House Situation Room and the National Security Council work with the Justice Department and other law enforcement, as well as the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, to track down information and gather the facts as they emerge. Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall will then brief Biden on what’s known about the situation and the weapon used, according to a White House official, acknowledging that it can be a fluid situation.

    The Domestic Policy Council, meanwhile, assesses patterns and whether there are new lessons to be gleaned and considered in policy making. And the intergovernmental affairs team also races to reach out to the mayor’s office or other local officials to provide a point of contact at the White House.

    Biden’s advisers keep him updated along the way. But the exasperation felt by White House officials after each mass shooting has been reflected in Biden’s statements, which have started with: “Once again.”

    In an op-ed this month, Biden touted the work done by this administration, but called on Congress to do more.

    “But my power is not absolute. Congress must act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring gun owners to securely store their firearms, requiring background checks for all gun sales, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability,” he wrote.

    White House officials have also been sober about the political realities Democrats face with the current makeup of Congress, where Republicans in control of the House have rejected Biden’s calls for an assault weapons ban. Even when both chambers of Congress were controlled by Democrats during the first two years of Biden’s term, an assault weapon ban gained little traction, in part because of a 60-vote threshold necessary to advance bills through the Senate.

    After three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville in March, Biden asserted that he’s done all he can to address gun control and urged members on Capitol Hill to act.

    Many Republicans in Congress, including those in positions of leadership and in the Tennessee delegation, had either been reluctant to use the deadly violence in Nashville as a potential springboard for reform or they outright rejected calls for additional action on further regulating guns, arguing that there isn’t an appetite for tougher restrictions. Some Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, slammed House Republicans for their disinterest.

    Advocacy groups have welcomed Biden’s executive actions and the administration’s response in the wake of a shooting, but stress there’s room for more.

    “It’s part of what moves the needle. Seeing the movement at the federal level is encouraging,” said Mark Barden, co-founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund. “It’s something. It’s not everything. It’s not enough. We certainly need more.”

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  • 5/16: CBS Evening News

    5/16: CBS Evening News

    5/16: CBS Evening News – CBS News


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    Police release details on victims of New Mexico shooting; Taylor Swift surprises fan who helped hundreds find bone marrow donors

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  • Police release details on victims of New Mexico shooting

    Police release details on victims of New Mexico shooting

    Police release details on victims of New Mexico shooting – CBS News


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    Three elderly women were killed in a shooting in Farmington, New Mexico, on Monday, authorities said. Two of the victims were a mother and daughter. Omar Villafranca has more.

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  • GOP frontrunner for NC governor mocked school shooting survivors and once justified shooting protesters | CNN Politics

    GOP frontrunner for NC governor mocked school shooting survivors and once justified shooting protesters | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the current Republican favorite to be the party’s nominee for governor in 2024, has a long history of remarks viciously mocking and attacking teenage survivors of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, for their advocacy for gun control measures.

    In posts after the shooting, Robinson called the students “spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN,” “spoiled little bastards,” and “media prosti-tots.”

    Robinson, whose political rise as a conservative Internet personality started when a clip of him speaking at a city council meeting in April 2018 went viral, as he was speaking against a proposal to cancel a local gun show after the Parkland shooting. He also began attacking the Parkland survivors after they launched the “March for Our Lives” movement that called for new gun control measures, comparing the students to communists.

    Robinson’s comments about the school shooting survivors were frequently personal, mocking their appearance and intelligence. In one post on Facebook, Robinson shared a photo of several students posing for photos, with the caption, “the look you get when you let the devil give you a ride on a river of blood to ’15 minutes of Fameville.’”

    In another comment on Twitter in April of 2018, Robinson shared several crying laughing emojis in response to a post that blasted conservatives who mocked the survivors, writing that when children “got sassy,” adults needed to make sure the “CHILDREN knew their place.”

    Robinson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    As Robinson became known for his fierce defense of gun rights, he was frequently featured in videos and promoted by the National Rifle Association. Robinson leveraged his often viral and unapologetic Facebook posts to win his party’s nomination for the state’s lieutenant governorship in 2020, winning the race to become the state’s first Black lieutenant governor.

    Though the position is largely considered a ceremonial role – and the state has a Democratic governor because the jobs are elected separately – Robinson has now set his sights on the top job. Roy Cooper, the current Democratic governor, is term-limited, and Robinson would likely face Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general, a Democrat finishing out his second term.

    CNN’s KFile examined his mostly unreported remarks, as the candidate is coming under renewed scrutiny in his bid for the governor’s mansion. Robinson, who frequently posted in defense of law enforcement, often attacked left wing protesters, going so far as defending the shooting of students at Kent State protesting the Vietnam War in May 1970, commonly known as the “Kent State Massacre.”

    Robinson said such a response deserved to be emulated today.

    “The shooting that happened at Kent State now, I don’t know how much you know about that shooting at Kent State, but people have got to understand it,” Robinson said on one podcast in 2018. “We have the constitutional right to peacefully assemble. Now peacefully assemble does not mean you could throw bricks at National Guardsmen, bust out windows and block traffic. Once you cross that line into violence and the disruption of public transportation and public services and start blocking the entrances of a federal building, you are no longer a protester.”

    “You are are now a criminal and you need to be dealt with like a criminal,” he continued. “And we need some politicians in office in some of these cities that’s gonna let people know from the get-go, you go in the street and block traffic, if you block buildings, if you destroy property, you are going to be dealt with swiftly and harshly. We are not going to tolerate it. That is exactly the message that needs to go out to these people. You wanna apply for a permit to protest at the park, that’s fine, but it’s gonna be peaceful and you’re not going to bother anybody, and you’re not going to destroy anything. If you do, you will be dealt with harshly and swiftly.”

    Though there were violent clashes between local police and protesters in the days leading up to the shooting, the Nixon administration-established President’s Commission on Campus Unrest said that the shooting was unjustified, writing in a 1970 report, “Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified.”

    Robinson was also frequently critical of the “March for Our Lives” rally itself, calling it, “a march of pawns in Washington today” and mocked attendees.

    One photo shared by Robinson mocked an attendee at the “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington, DC, saying the college-aged student needed to “put that sign down and go read a book dummy” and “They live. They breathe. They’ll procreate. #funnybutscary.”

    His harshest rhetoric was saved for then-18-year-old Parkland activist David Hogg, calling the student a “commie stooge,” in a post that also mocked 18-year-old Parkland student X Gonzáles as “that bald chick,” referring to the pair as “stupid kids.”

    In another post on Facebook, less than two weeks after the shooting in 2018, Robinson shared the laughing crying emoji with a photoshopped chyron on a picture of Hogg on MSNBC with the title “Media Hogg,” and a day later shared a crude photoshop of the student’s face on body of Boss Hogg from “The Dukes of Hazzard” calling the student “just as corrupt as the TV character.”

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  • US woman arrested in Sydney after airport staff find a golden gun in her luggage | CNN

    US woman arrested in Sydney after airport staff find a golden gun in her luggage | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    An American woman has been arrested in Sydney after arriving on a flight from Los Angeles with 24-carat gold-plated handgun packed in her luggage.

    The 28-year old woman, who arrived in Sydney on Sunday, did not hold a permit to import or possess a firearm in Australia, the Australian Border Force (ABF) said in a statement.

    Australia has some of the world’s toughest rules on gun ownership, and it’s illegal for a person to “intentionally” import firearms without prior approval. The maximum penalty for this offense in Australia is 10 years’ imprisonment.

    The woman, who was not identified in the statement, appeared before a local court Monday and received bail. The status of her visa and continued stay in Australia is subject to the courts. Depending on the outcome, she could be removed from the country, according to the ABF.

    ABF Commander Justin Bathurst said the arrest spoke to the diligence of the force’s officers and sophistication of the country’s detection technology.

    “ABF officers are committed to protecting our community by working with law enforcement partners to prevent items like unregistered firearms getting through at the border,” Bathurst added in the statement.

    Australia is often held up as an example of how decisive action gun control can succeed in reducing deaths from firearms.

    The country implemented sweeping gun-control measures after a lone shooter murdered 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in April 1996.

    Rapid-fire rifles and shotguns were banned, gun owner licensing was tightened and remaining firearms were registered to uniform national standards alongside a hugely successful nationwide buy-back and amnesty scheme.

    Gun violence has reached record levels in the United States, which is the only nation in the world where civilian firearms outnumber people. In Australia, there are approximately just 14 guns for every 100 people, compared to 120 per 100 in the US, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS).

    The US also has more deaths from gun violence than any other developed country per capita. The rate in the US is eight times greater than in Canada, 22 times higher than in the European Union and 23 times greater than in Australia, according to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) data from 2019.

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  • CBS Weekend News, April 23, 2023

    CBS Weekend News, April 23, 2023

    CBS Weekend News, April 23, 2023 – CBS News


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    U.S. embassy staff and families evacuated from Sudan; Theme restaurants make comeback in California

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  • String of innocent mistakes lead to shootings

    String of innocent mistakes lead to shootings

    String of innocent mistakes lead to shootings – CBS News


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    There has been a rash of shootings that followed small mistakes, like pulling into the wrong driveway or a ball rolling into a neighbor’s yard. Mark Strassmann takes a look at how those shootings are affecting the country.

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  • 10 members of same family killed in mass shooting in South Africa

    10 members of same family killed in mass shooting in South Africa

    Seven women and three men – all from the same family – were fatally shot outside the South African city of Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal, police said on Friday. The youngest victim was a 13-year-old boy.

    Gunmen stormed the family’s homestead in iMbali township early in the morning hours, police said, and hours later, they confronted four men participating in a “cleansing ceremony” conducted by a traditional healer less than two kilometers away from the crime scene, police said.

    A male suspect was killed and two male suspects were arrested following a shootout with police. One suspect is in the hospital under police guard with injuries sustained during the gunfire, police said. Three firearms were recovered from the scene and police are searching for one suspect who escaped during the shootout.  

    Police thanked the Pietermaritzburg community for “assisting police in KZN family mass murder breakthrough.”

    Guns are the leading cause of murder in South Africa, with 30 people killed daily by guns, according to a report by Gun Free South Africa, a not-for-profit advocating for reduced gun violence. 

    The majority of murders in South Africa are not crime-related, but result from arguments and misunderstandings, the report found. 

    Gun availability makes it easier for these disputes to end in violence, the report found. There are 4,500,000 licensed guns in South Africa, the report found.

    Cara Tabachnick

    Cara Tabachnick is a news editor for CBSNews.com. Contact her at cara.tabachnick@cbsinteractive.com

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  • Opinion: Top secrets come spilling out | CNN

    Opinion: Top secrets come spilling out | CNN

    Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.



    CNN
     — 

    In 1917, British analysts deciphered a coded message the German foreign minister sent to one of his country’s diplomats vowing to begin “unrestricted submarine warfare” and seeking to win over Mexico with a promise to “reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona” if the US entered the world war. When it became public, the Zimmerman Telegram caused a sensation, helping propel the US into the conflict against Germany.

    “Never before or since has so much turned upon the solution of a secret message,” wrote David Kahn in his classic 1967 history of secret communications, “The Codebreakers.” The Germans had taken great pains to keep their intentions confidential, and the codebreakers in London’s “Room 40” had to do a lot of work to decipher the telegram.

    Their efforts stand in stark contrast to the ease with which secrets came tumbling out of a Pentagon intelligence network when 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard cyber specialist Jack Teixeira allegedly posted hundreds of documents on a Discord chatroom known as “Thug Shaker Central.” The disclosures likely won’t start a war, but they could prove extremely damaging to the US and several of its allies, including Ukraine.

    Teixeira is one of more than one million people who have Top Secret clearance. “The Pentagon has already started taking steps to limit the number of people who have access to such sensitive information,” wrote Brett Bruen, a former US diplomat and Obama administration official. “But much more can be done. … Why do so many people, especially those working short stints in government, have access to information that can shape the fate of nations and their leaders?”

    Writing in the Financial Times, Kori Schake saw “some good news.”

    “While specific details will be incredibly valuable to Russia and other adversaries, these are not bombshell revelations: journalists had already reported Ukrainian ammunition running low; peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv were never likely; allies have long been aware that the US eavesdrops on them; and the disparaging assessment of Ukraine’s forthcoming offensive may prove no more accurate than previous predictions were.” These will not prove as damaging as the Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning disclosures.

    But, she warned, “Technology making data ever more portable, distribution more global and communications more bespoke will make it easier to amass information and distribute it — either privately or publicly.”

    04 opinion cartoons 041523

    06 opinion cartoons 041523

    In less than a week, the two Democrats expelled from the Tennessee House for their participation in a gun control protest were sent back to office by local officials.

    Writing for CNN Opinion, Rep. Justin Pearson noted, “This should be a chastening moment for revanchist forces in Tennessee’s legislature and across the country. Over the long haul, the undemocratic machinations employed to oust us from office are destined to fail. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once famously said that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. Events this week demonstrated, more than ever, that this is indeed the case…”

    “Over two-thirds of Americans — including four out of 10 Republicans — support the kind of common sense gun safety laws that Rep. Jones, Rep. Johnson and I were protesting in favor of, in the wake of the senseless March 27 Covenant School massacre.”

    “And yet, calls for common sense gun reform measures fall on deaf ears in our legislature where a Republican supermajority is wildly out of step with most people’s values.”

    The politics of gun control have shifted, argued Democratic strategist Max Burns. The NRA’s internal struggles have weakened its influence while Democrats in office, who once feared touching the issue of guns, are increasingly speaking out. And they are making some progress in enacting new state laws, Burns noted.

    “The American people decisively support Democratic proposals for addressing the scourge of gun violence. Political watchers who criticized Democrats for talking too much about abortion during the 2022 midterm elections later ate crow after that once-dreaded culture war topic topped the list of voter concerns nationally…

    “Biden and the Democrats have the rare opportunity to build yet another winning coalition out of an issue once viewed as political poison.”

    01 opinion cartoons 041523

    On Friday, the Supreme Court issued an order that temporarily ensured access to a key drug used in many medication abortions. The move gave the justices more time to consider the issue after a Texas federal judge suspended the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill 23 years ago.

    “If abortion opponents are successful, access to the pill — reportedly used in more than half of abortions in the United States — will be severely undercut,” wrote Michele Goodwin and Mary Ziegler.

    “Beyond the dangerous precedent this sets for challenges to other important FDA-approved drugs that some political factions don’t like, the case is an alarming expression of the way right-wing activists are using junk science to bypass the will of the American public and restrict abortion…”

    “There are no grounds for challenging mifepristone’s approval, especially 23 years after the fact. The drug received extensive review — more than four years — before FDA approval. Moreover, claims that mifepristone threatens the health of those who take it are unfounded. The drug has a better safety record for use than Viagra and penicillin. Notably, it was available and used for years without incident in Europe.”

    In 1986, Nicholas Daniloff, the Moscow bureau chief for US News & World Report, was seized by Soviet authorities and locked up in Lefortovo prison. He was the last American journalist to be arrested in Russia before last month’s detention of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who like Daniloff, speaks Russian fluently. Gershkovich has been charged with espionage but US officials have concluded that he was “wrongfully detained.”

    As David A. Andelman noted, Daniloff’s detention in prison lasted for 13 days before he was put under house arrest and then eventually swapped for an accused Soviet spy. In a conversation with Andelman, Daniloff recalled his reaction when he was imprisoned. “I felt claustrophobic, and I felt like I wanted to get out of there immediately. Of course, there was no chance of that. The door slams, and you have all these thoughts and feelings that run through you, and then you settle down and you realize you’re going to be hanging around that cell for some time.”

    Gershkovich’s family in Philadelphia received a letter, handwritten in Russian, from the reporter Friday.

    “I want to say that I am not losing hope,” he noted. “I read. I exercise. And I am trying to write. Maybe, finally, I am going to write something good.”

    The Amazon series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” returns this month for its fifth and final season — and David Perry is here for it. The series brings back memories of visiting his grandparents Irma and Mordy in their “tiny rent-controlled Greenwich Village apartment,” an experience that helped shape his Jewish identity.

    “As a Jewish historian,” Perry wrote, “I worry about the tension between preserving the memory of past hardships while not locking our entire history into a tale of oppression. The moments of peace and joy are as vital as the moments of violence. In fact, it’s the periods of peace, of success, of interfaith community, that reveal the terrible truth about the violence: it wasn’t inevitable. People could have made different choices…”

    “A show like ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ lets me revel in my personal New York Jewish heritage while also getting a little break from all the worry. It’s a warm, funny, sexy, extremely Jewish …. comedy that hits me straight in my glossy childhood memories. That isn’t to say the show isn’t also problematic — it most certainly is.”

    In the latest installment of CNN Opinion’s “Little Kids, Big Questions” series, 10-year-old Ronan wonders if animals are capable of being smarter than humans. With the help of the John Templeton Foundation, which is partnering on the project, the answer came from Jane Goodall, world renowned for her work with chimpanzees.

    “One of the attributes of intelligence is the ability to think and solve problems. In the early 1960s, I was told that this was unique to humans, and only we could use and make tools, only we had language and culture,” Goodall said. “But more and more research has proved that many animals are excellent at solving problems. Many use tools, and many show cultural differences. Some scientists believe that whales and dolphins are communicating with what may be a real language.”

    “Although the difference between humans and other animals is simply one of degree, our intellect really is amazing. …bees can count and do math, and that just shows how much we still have to learn about animal intelligence. But humans can calculate the distance to the stars.”

    05 opinion cartoons 041523

    Earlier this month, a Texas jury convicted Daniel Perry of murder for fatally shooting a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020. The jury deliberated for 17 hours and decided Perry’s action couldn’t be excused under the state’s “stand your ground” law. Prosecutors argued Perry had instigated the incident and they introduced into evidence messages that suggested the shooting was not a spur-of-the-moment act but a premeditated one.

    On the evening of the jury verdict, Fox News host Tucker Carlson criticized the decision and told viewers he had invited Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on the show to ask if he would consider pardoning Perry. Others on the right called for Abbott to issue a pardon, and the governor soon responded with an announcement that he would do just that, as long as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended that Perry should be granted one.

    “Trial verdicts are determined by judges and juries,” wrote Dean Obeidallah. “What Abbott is doing is not just wrong, it’s dangerous. His pardon, when it comes, is not what the rule of law looks like.”

    02 opinion cartoons 041523

    Two of the likeliest candidates for president in 2024 haven’t officially committed yet.

    President Joe Biden says he intends to run again but has delayed making a formal announcement. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is making all the moves a presidential contender usually makes, including hawking his new book and visiting New Hampshire, but he hasn’t joined fellow Republicans including former President Donald Trump, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson in declaring.

    “DeSantis, who was neck and neck with the former president just a few months ago, may have lost a step or two in more recent polling. But his track record of successful governance in Florida should force GOP voters to think long and hard about what version of their party they want to put forward,” observed Patrick T. Brown.

    “A third Trump presidential nomination would indicate that Republican primary voters may prefer style over substance. But if they are serious about not just making liberals mad but advancing actual policy, GOP voters should consider other names, starting with the Florida governor.”

    Even without an official announcement by the president, wrote Julian Zelizer, the Biden-Harris campaign is very much under way. “By choosing to lie low while Republicans are gearing up for 2024, Biden is employing his version of what has become known as the ‘Rose Garden Strategy,’ whereby the incumbent campaigns by focusing on the business of being president and showing voters that he is the responsible figure in the race.”

    “The president’s understated strategy makes room for Republicans to stoke chaos, tear each other apart and make unforced errors while he remains above the fray for as long as possible. This strategy makes the GOP the focus of the election, allowing Biden to reinforce his message from 2020: do voters want someone who will govern and act in a serious manner or do they want a circus?”

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    Elliot Williams: The justice system Trump and other white-collar defendants see is different than what most accused criminals get

    Phoebe Gavin: The hard lessons I learned the first time I was laid off

    Meg Jacobs: ‘Air’ celebrates those who do the hard work and get rewarded

    AND…

    Jill Filipovic recently took a domestic flight in South Africa. “Passengers and airport staff alike were friendly and polite. The airplane seat offered enough room for both of my legs and both of my arms. We took off on time and landed early. My shoes stayed on the whole time I was at the airport.”

    It was a vivid reminder of what’s possible in air travel — and of what’s usually lacking.

    Take the security system: “More than 20 years after Sept. 11, 2001, only passengers who pay for the privilege can avoid removing their shoes and laptops from their bags by submitting their personal information ahead of time and undergoing background checks.”

    Filipovic added, “Admittedly, I do pay — I don’t want to wait in a long security line, walk my stocking feet through a metal detector and have to un- and re-pack the MacBook I’ve carefully crammed into my carry-on. But the existence of pay-to-play shorter-line security options like Clear and TSA Pre-Check make clear that it is indeed possible to pre-screen a critical mass of passengers to avoid the morass of cranky people trying to pull on their shoes while re-packing their electronics.”

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