An American man who pleaded guilty to bringing 20 rounds of ammunition into Turks and Caicos will not have to serve jail time. Bryan Hagerich, 39, received the good news Friday during a sentencing hearing. CBS News Pittsburgh reporter Jessica Guay has the latest.
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Ryan Watson, an American tourist detained in Turks and Caicos after officials there discovered ammo in his luggage, is speaking out. Watson, who is out on bail after being arrested, tells CBS News he was not aware of the ammo in his possessions.
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MINNEAPOLIS — The fatal shooting of three first responders in Burnsville in February raised questions about gun rights. The killer couldn’t legally have a gun or ammo because of a prior conviction for a violent felony — but he did file a petition to the courts to overturn his lifetime ban. A Dakota County judge said no in 2020.
One-thousand-four-hundred-forty-eight petitions were filed over the last five years in Minnesota. The courts approved more than half of them, all from people who wanted to get back their right to have a gun and ammo in Minnesota, including Troy Horning.
“I think it just goes to show you know, that you’re giving people a second chance,” Horning said.
Even though it’s considered a lifetime ban, it isn’t for everyone. To get a better understanding of the data, we focused on Dakota County. WCCO found since 2019, 109 people there tried to have their gun rights restored. Of those, 72 succeeded.
Their rights were taken away for convictions involving drug offenses, assault, theft and terroristic threats.
Inside these petitions are their pleas for restoration.
LaShaun wrote, “I have paid my debt back to society.”
Another, “I am an upstanding citizen who cares about my community.”
Anna said, “I went to treatment in December of 2010 and have been sober since.”
Horning’s drug offense was 20 years ago.
“So just to show that how much I’ve changed. You know what I’m saying? You know, I’ve opened a business now — GQ Stucco and Stone and I’ve done tremendous stuff, gave back to the community, donate money to churches and stuff like that,” Horning said.
Many whose petitions were approved cited hunting as their driving force. Others wanted a gun for personal protection or simply just wanted the right to have one.
“It’s people that have been law-abiding. You know, grown up enough and understand enough the responsibility of carrying a live firearm,” Horning said when asked who deserves to have their rights restored.
Over the past five years in Dakota County, judges denied petitions for at least 10 people, including Shannon Gooden. He ended up getting guns illegally, then used the weapons to fire more than 100 rifle rounds at first responders in Burnsville, killing three and injuring another.
“First of all, are they being truthful and honest?” senior judge Jerome Abrams said when asked what he takes into consideration when looking at a petition.
He sat on the bench in Dakota County for a decade.
“How do people get into this? And it’s a time and place type of thing. Did they do it when they were younger, did they do it when they were older, you look very carefully at this notion. Was a firearm used in whatever circumstance gave rise to this ban on firearms,” Abrams said.
Judges may grant a petition, but Abrams says there’s no obligation. They’re guided by the statute and it’s up to petitioners to provide “good cause” in order to be approved.
“You know it when you see it. It’s situational, so what is good cause? It’s something that’s legally sufficient but usually, the filter you apply is on is, the fancy legal word for it is circumspection. That is you want to be wary, you want to be careful,” Abrams said.
Petitions we saw denied had a similar theme: The original charge involved a gun, the person remains a threat to public safety, not enough time has passed or there are recent charges.
A judge denied Anthony Wallace’s petition last year.
“It’s not remaining law-abiding,” Wallace said. “Had some other things since, but not serious things.”
He thinks errors in his file contributed to his denial.
In the paperwork, the judge noted, “Even if those … are subtracted” his threat to public safety remains.
Jennifer Mayerle happily returned to Minnesota and WCCO, where she began her career as an intern. The Emmy and Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist joined WCCO as a reporter in May 2014. She also anchors “WCCO Saturday Morning” from 8-9 a.m.
Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano slammed Gov. Glenn Youngkin on guns, using the word “boneheaded” when describing the governor’s recent vetoes.
The lead prosecutor in Fairfax County, Virginia, slammed Gov. Glenn Youngkin on guns, using the word “boneheaded” when describing the governor’s recent vetoes.
While Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, a Democrat, said he was pleased that the Republican governor did not veto a bill that would create new restrictions related to firearms that have a serial number that has been scratched off. He told WTOP that Youngkin “did make a lot of, in my opinion, boneheaded decisions when it comes to common-sense gun laws.”
Descano said he felt that the governor “made really, really poor decisions” related to firearms.
The governor’s office fired back.
“The commonwealth’s attorney in Fairfax County routinely sides with criminals over victims in Virginia and undermines public safety in Fairfax,” said Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter. “The governor signed public safety bills that will make it harder for criminals to use guns in the commission of a violent act and protect the right of law-abiding Virginians to keep and bear arms.”
Specifically, Descano took issue with Youngkin vetoing legislation that would allow a judge to prevent someone’s significant other from possessing a gun if that person is convicted of assault and battery.
Under current law, only spouses or direct family members can be banned from having a gun due to domestic abuse.
Descano and others who want to change the law have labeled it “the boyfriend loophole.”
Another one of Youngkin’s vetoes Descano took issue with involved a bill that would create a program meant to train law enforcement on proper procedures when it comes to carrying out the red flag law.
The red flag law gives police and the courts the authority to remove guns from people who pose a threat to themselves or others.
“I’m concerned that the governor vetoed some common-sense gun bills that are public safety-focused, that would really help prosecutors like myself build safer communities and get guns out of the hands of dangerous people,” Descano said.
In a statement, Youngkin said the bills he signed would help protect public safety and the bills he amended have the potential to make it harder for criminals to use guns.
The ones he vetoed would trample on citizens’ constitutional rights, the governor said.
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While the issue has not moved forward in the Senate, the Florida House on Friday passed a controversial bill that would lower the minimum age from 21 to 18 to buy rifles and shotguns.
The Republican-controlled House voted 76-35 along almost-straight party lines to pass the bill (HB 1223), which would reverse a decision that raised the minimum age after the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people.
Federal law bars people under 21 from buying handguns. Democrats on Friday repeatedly cited the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting as they opposed the bill.
Rep. Robin Bartleman, D-Weston, said lawmakers should not “renege” on a promise the Legislature made when it passed the higher minimum age as part of a broader school-safety bill.
“Shame on us,” Bartleman said. “We told the citizens of Florida that we were going to protect them.”
But bill sponsor Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, pointed to Second Amendment rights and people needing to defend themselves.
“I’m not worried about our schools. Our schools are safe in Florida. We’ve heard it was the gold standard,” Payne said. “What I’m worried about is my kids, my grandkids and your kids that can’t defend themselves because we’re restricting their rights.”
Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, has repeatedly said the Senate doesn’t have a similar bill, meaning the proposed age change will not pass during this year’s legislative session. Rep. Linda Chaney, R-St. Pete Beach, Rep. Chip LaMarca, R-Lighthouse Point, Rep. Vicki Lopez, R-Miami, and Rep. Cyndi Stevenson, R-Saint Johns, joined Democrats in voting against the bill Friday.
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court says a township ordinance that limits firing guns to indoor and outdoor shooting ranges and zoning that significantly restricts where the ranges can be located do not violate the Second Amendment.
The justices ruled Feb. 21, 2024, for Stroud Township and against Jonathan Barris, who challenged the gun restrictions. Barris drew complaints from neighbors after building a gun range on his property in the Poconos.
In 2011, the township adopted an ordinance restricting gunfire to indoor and outdoor gun ranges, as long as they were issued zoning and occupancy permits.
A township ordinance that limits firing guns to indoor and outdoor shooting ranges and zoning that significantly restricts where the ranges can be located does not violate the Second Amendment, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
The man who challenged Stroud Township’s gun laws, Jonathan Barris, began to draw complaints about a year after he moved to the home in the Poconos in 2009 and installed a shooting range on his 5-acre property. An officer responding to a complaint said the range had a safe backstop but the targets were in line with a large box store in a nearby shopping center.
In response to neighbors’ concerns, the Stroud Township Board of Supervisors in late 2011 passed what the courts described as a “discharge ordinance,” restricting gunfire to indoor and outdoor gun ranges, as long as they were issued zoning and occupancy permits. It also said guns couldn’t be fired between dusk and dawn or within 150 feet of an occupied structure — with exceptions for self-defense, by farmers, by police or at indoor firing ranges.
The net effect, wrote Justice Kevin Dougherty, was to restrict the potential construction of shooting ranges to about a third of the entire township. Barris’ home did not meet those restrictions.
Barris sought a zoning permit after he was warned he could face a fine as well as seizure of the gun used in any violation of the discharge ordinance. He was turned down for the zoning permit based on the size of his lot, proximity to other homes and location outside the two permissible zoning areas for ranges.
A county judge ruled for the township, but Commonwealth Court in 2021 called the discharge ordinance unconstitutional, violative of Barris’ Second Amendment rights.
In a friend-of-the-court brief, the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office aligned with the township, arguing that numerous laws across U.S. history have banned shooting guns or target practice in residential or populated areas.
Dougherty, writing for the majority, said Stroud Township’s discharge ordinance “is fully consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” He included pages of examples, saying that “together they demonstrate a sustained and wide-ranging effort by municipalities, cities, and states of all stripes — big, small, urban, rural, Northern, Southern, etc. — to regulate a societal problem that has persisted since the birth of the nation.”
In a dissent, Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy said Barris has a constitutional right to “achieve competency or proficiency in keeping arms for self-defense at one’s home,” and that the Second Amendment’s core self-defense protections are at stake.
His voice, along with other mass shooting victims, was used to create messages for the “Shotline” campaign.
The website lets you pick a victim, and then search your zip code, and send an AI-generated voice message right to your local politicians.
ABC13 anchor Mayra Moreno spoke to Uziyah’s father, Brett Cross. He said the goal is to flood all local politicians with these messages in hopes of changing gun laws. He also said how he felt the first time he heard his son’s message:
“I bawled, and I just listened to it over and over because this is the only thing I got back since May 24. This is the only time that I have heard him since then, and that was 632 days ago,” he said. “Our children’s voices were taken away when they lost their lives, and now we’re able to recreate them and use them to call on these politicians who you know have been hearing us but not listening to us.”
Eyewitness News reached out to the company behind this campaign and has not heard back. It is sponsored, in part, by the youth group that was formed after the Shooting in Parkland six years ago.
Opening statements got underway Thursday in the trial of Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the teen gunman who opened fire at Michigan’s Oxford High School in 2021, killing four students. Crumbley and her husband are both charged with involuntary manslaughter, accused by prosecutors of purchasing for their son the gun used in the shooting, as well as ignoring warning signs of mental health issues. Elaine Quijano has more.
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Wayne LaPierre is stepping down from the National Rifle Association after more than three decades as the leader of the gun rights advocacy group.
The decision came as LaPierre, 74, faces an impending legal showdown in New York, where jury selection has already begun in a civil lawsuit filed by Attorney General Letitia James, who has accused top officials of the organization, including LaPierre, of diverting millions of dollars for their personal use.
At the helm of the NRA since 1991, LaPierre, the group’s executive vice president and CEO, said his exit will take effect on January 31.
“With pride in all that we have accomplished, I am announcing my resignation from the NRA,” LaPierre said in a statement released by the NRA. “I’ve been a card-carrying member of this organization for most of my adult life, and I will never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom. My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever.”
James’ lawsuit against the NRA, LaPierre and others is scheduled to start on Monday, with LaPierre among those expected to testify.
LaPierre and three others are accused of illegally diverting tens of millions of dollars from the NRA and spending the nonprofit’s funds on vacations and other questionable expenditures.
James responded to LaPierre’s announced resignation by calling the development “an important victory” that “validates” her office’s claims against him. “We look forward to presenting our case in court,” the attorney general said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The suit filed by James in 2020 seeks to ban LaPierre and others from serving in leadership roles of any not-for-profit or charitable organization doing business in New York, which would effectively bar them from involvement with the NRA.
The New York-based group filed for bankruptcy protection in 2021 and sought to move its headquarters to Texas. But a federal judge blocked the move, opening the door for New York prosecutors to proceed with their case.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a California law that would have banned carrying firearms in most public places, ruling that it violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and deprives people of their ability to defend themselves and their loved ones.
The law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September was set to take effect Jan. 1. It would have prohibited people from carrying concealed guns in 26 places including public parks and playgrounds, churches, banks and zoos. The ban would apply whether the person has a permit to carry a concealed weapon or not. One exception would be for privately owned businesses that put up signs saying people are allowed to bring guns on their premises.
U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney granted a preliminary injunction blocking the law, which he wrote was “sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.”
The decision is a victory for the California Rifle and Pistol Association, which sued to block the law. The measure overhauled the state’s rules for concealed carry permits in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which set several states scrambling to react with their own laws. That decision said the constitutionality of gun laws must be assessed by whether they are “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
“California progressive politicians refuse to accept the Supreme Court’s mandate from the Bruen case and are trying every creative ploy they can imagine to get around it,” the California association’s president, Chuck Michel, said in a statement. “The Court saw through the State’s gambit.”
Michel said under the law, gun permit holders “wouldn’t be able to drive across town without passing through a prohibited area and breaking the law.” He said the judge’s decision makes Californians safer because criminals are deterred when law-abiding citizens can defend themselves.
Newsom said he will keep pushing for stricter gun measures.
“Defying common sense, this ruling outrageously calls California’s data-backed gun safety efforts ‘repugnant.’ What is repugnant is this ruling, which greenlights the proliferation of guns in our hospitals, libraries, and children’s playgrounds — spaces, which should be safe for all,” the governor said in a statement Wednesday evening.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta also decried the ruling, saying he was planning to appeal it.
“If allowed to stand, this decision would endanger communities by allowing guns in places where families and children gather,” Bonta said in a statement. “Guns in sensitive public places do not make our communities safer, but rather the opposite. More guns in more sensitive places makes the public less safe; the data supports it. I have directed my team to file an appeal to overturn this decision. We believe the court got this wrong, and that SB 2 adheres to the guidelines set by the Supreme Court in Bruen. We will seek the opinion of the appellate court to make it right.”
Newsom has positioned himself as a national leader on gun control while he is being increasingly eyed as a potential presidential candidate. He has called for and signed a variety of bills, including measures targeting untraceable “ghost guns,” the marketing of firearms to children and allowing people to bring lawsuits over gun violence. That legislation was patterned on a Texas anti-abortion law.
Carney is a former Orange County Superior Court judge who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2003.
WASHINGTON ― Attorneys for President Joe Biden’s son argued in federal court Monday that charges against Hunter Biden over a gun purchase in 2018 violate the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The filing bases its argument on the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court’s expansion of 2nd Amendment protections last year, creating an odd synergy between Hunter Biden and the gun-loving Republicans in Congress looking to impeach his father, whom they have claimed was involved in his son’s foreign business dealings.
Hunter Biden was indicted in September for illegally owning a gun in 2018 after he lied on a federal form that asks gun buyers whether they’re on drugs. He admitted in a 2021 memoir that he was habitually using crack cocaine at the time.
On Monday, Biden’s legal team told a federal judge that a ruling last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen made federal laws about gun ownership and drug use obsolete.
“Quite simply, asking about Mr. Biden’s status as a user of a controlled status is constitutionally irrelevant to whether he can be denied his Second Amendment right to gun ownership,” his attorney Abbe Lowell said in a motion to dismiss the gun charges.
Monday’s motion is one of several filings challenging Biden’s prosecution by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney who has been investigating Hunter Biden for five years. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland named Weiss as a special counsel in the case in September after the collapse of a plea deal addressing the gun purchase violation as well as tax charges.
In the other briefs, Lowell argued that the plea deal should remain in effect and that it was unconstitutional for Garland to name Weiss as a special counsel partly because Congress hasn’t appropriated funds for his office. (Garland has also appointed a special counsel to pursue charges against former President Donald Trump.)
“These charges are unprecedented, unconstitutional and violate the agreement the U.S. Attorney made with Mr. Biden and DOJ’s own regulations,” Lowell said in a statement. “This is not how an independent investigation is supposed to work, and these charges should be dismissed.”
Lowell’s legal arguments also reflect a broader public relations strategy that has Hunter Biden lashing out at his critics. He said in a podcast interview published last week, for instance, that Republicans are trying to “kill” him in order to destroy his father’s presidency. The constant negative attention from Republicans and the media, Hunter Biden said, made it that much harder to avoid relapsing into drug addiction.
“What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to kill me, knowing that it will be a pain greater than my father could be able to handle, and so therefore destroying a presidency in that way,” Biden said.
As for the gun charges, Lowell cited last year’s Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, in which the court declared that gun restrictions are unconstitutional unless they can trace their origins to some time between the signing of the Bill of Rights and the end of the Civil War.
Lower courts have cited the Bruen ruling to throw out a wide array of gun control laws, ranging from age restrictions on handgun purchases to the federal law barring felons from possessing firearms. The Bruen standard made it so hard to ensure that gun restrictions would pass constitutional muster that some reform-minded legislators avoided trying to pass gun laws this year.
Laws restricting drug users from possessing firearms are uniquely ripe for a court challenge. The wave of state-level marijuana legalization has created a situation in which many otherwise law-abiding gun owners become felons under federal law if they consume marijuana that is legal in their state.
As Hunter Biden’s legal team noted Monday, a federal appeals court ruled in August that the ban on drug users was unconstitutional.
The court’s ruling in that case, USA v. Zackey Rahimi, could offer more guidance for how lower courts should interpret Second Amendment arguments like the one raised in Hunter Biden’s case in the future.
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The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could overturn a decades-old law preventing people under domestic abuse restraining orders from owning guns. Jan Crawford takes a look at what overturning the law could mean.
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The shooting has led to renewed calls from President Biden for Congress to pass legislation banning semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, and enact universal background checks, though such measures are unlikely to be considered by the GOP-led House.
Still, Mr. Biden has repeatedly implored the divided Congress to act and on Thursday, he declared “this is the very least we owe every American who now bears the scars — physical and mental — of this latest attack.”
In Maine, state lawmakers considered several measures this year that would have strengthened the state’s gun laws, though unsuccessfully.
The Maine House approved in June a measure that would have tightened background checks for private gun sales, but the proposal failed in the state Senate. The state House this summer also passed a bill that would have banned bump stocks and other rapid-fire modification devices, but it, too, was rejected by the Maine Senate.
Legislation that would’ve imposed a 72-hour waiting period after a gun sale was rejected by both chambers of the Maine legislature.
A Maine law enacted in 2015 allows people who are at least 21 years old to carry a concealed handgun without a permit. Those between the ages of 18 and 20 are required to have a permit to carry concealed, according to state law.
But it remains illegal to have a gun in public places including courthouses, state parks, Acadia National Park, schools, federal buildings and the state capitol area in Augusta, and on private property where it’s barred by the owner. Guns are also prohibited in “establishments licensed for on-premises consumption of liquor” if the establishment has signs posted that bar or limit firearms, which patrons are likely to see, or if a patron has a gun while intoxicated.
People who have been involuntarily committed to a hospital because they were found to be a danger to themselves or others are prohibited from having firearms without a permit under Maine law, as are those who have been convicted of a crime punishable by at least a year in prison. For gun sellers that are not licensed dealers, there is no law requiring a background check on the buyer of a firearm.
Maine allows for the purchase of certain assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, and does not have on the books an extreme-risk protection order law. Also known as red-flag laws, the measures allow law enforcement or family members to seek an order from a judge to temporarily restrict a person’s access to guns if they’re deemed to be a risk to themselves or others.
The Illinois Supreme Court has upheld the state’s ban on the sale or possession of the type of semiautomatic weapons used in hundreds of mass killings nationally.
In a 4-3 decision Friday, the high court found that the Protect Our Communities Act does not violate the federal Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the law nor the state constitution’s bar on special legislation.
The court also decreed that state Rep. Dan Caulkins, a Decatur Republican, and like-minded gun-owners who brought the lawsuit had earlier waived their claims that the law infringes on the Second Amendment to own firearms and could not raise it before the Supreme Court.
The Second Amendment claim is alive, however, in several federal lawsuits filed in southern Illinois, later consolidated and awaiting appeals court action.
The law bans dozens of specific brands or types of rifles and handguns, .50-caliber guns, attachments and rapid-firing devices. No rifle is allowed to accommodate more than 10 rounds, with a 15-round limit for handguns. The most popular gun targeted is the AR-15 rifle, which can be found in at least 25 million American households, according to 2021 research by Georgetown University.
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the Protect Our Communities Act hours after lawmakers sent it to him in a lame-duck session in January, months after a shooter using a high-powered rifle killed seven and injured dozens on Independence Day 2022 in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. The new law set off a firestorm of criticism from gun-rights advocates, including county sheriffs who were nearly unanimous in signing a statement that they would not zealously enforce the law.
Bolstered by the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case that determined Americans have a right to carry weapons in public for self-defense, Caulkins and other gun owners say the semiautomatic ban clearly violates the right to possess guns. But they also claim it violates the Constitution’s right to equal protection of the law and a state constitution provision banning “special legislation” when a “general law is applicable.” A lower court agreed in March.
The lawsuit alleges the law was unequally applied because anyone who had a semiautomatic weapon on the date the law took effect could keep it, although they’re restricted in selling or transferring such weapons. They must register their guns with the Illinois State Police by Jan. 1, 2024.
The ban also exempts law enforcement officers, including those retired, and on-duty military. Critics argued many civilians have more experience and training in handling semiautomatic weapons than law enforcement officers.
Democrats, who control all levers of the state’s legislative and executive branch, also have a 5-2 majority on the state Supreme Court.
Several other lawsuits against the ban filed in federal court were consolidated and are awaiting action in an appeals court. It’s possible the Illinois high court’s action would answer questions posed in the federal queries.
In a statement Friday, Pritzer said he was “pleased” with the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision.
“This is a commonsense gun reform law to keep mass-killing machines off of our streets and out of our schools, malls, parks, and places of worship,” he said. “Illinoisans deserve to feel safe in every corner of our state—whether they are attending a Fourth of July Parade or heading to work—and that’s precisely what the Protect Illinois Communities Act accomplishes. This decision is a win for advocates, survivors, and families alike because it preserves this nation-leading legislation to combat gun violence and save countless lives.”
He survived the Parkland school shooting that claimed 17 lives in 2018. Five years later, former student-turned-activist David Hogg says he wants to use his advocacy to get more young people into political office.
“Obviously, what happened in Parkland to me and my classmates is a huge motivator for why I’m doing this work,” Hogg told CBS News. “That’s what got me involved in politics.”
Activist David Hogg appears in a social media video announcing the launch of the “Leaders We Deserve” organization.
YouTube/Leaders We Deserve
Hogg founded the group with Kevin Lata, who served as campaign manager for Rep. Maxwell Frost, of Florida, the first Gen Z member of Congress.
“There is a pathway for winning as a young person,” Lata said. “We’ve done it, and we are trying to export that and elect a new generation of young people to office.”
According to the group, Gen Z and millennials make up 45% of the electorate, but only hold 21% of state legislature seats. The Leaders We Deserve PAC and SuperPAC will work with 15-30 candidates under the age of 30 in key states such as Florida, Texas and Georgia.
“Whether it’s abortion bans, whether it’s weakening gun laws, it’s not coming from the federal government. It’s coming from Tallahassee. It’s coming from Austin. It’s coming from state capitals around the country,” Hogg told CBS News. “This is not just an outside game. You’re not just pushing politicians to hold them accountable to their promises and make them better but we also need to have the inside game.”
The group, which counts “Tennessee Three” state representative Justin Jones among its board members, eventually hopes to build a pipeline of young leaders to run for higher state or federal office. It will work with prospective candidates on campaign strategies — everything from fundraising to endorsements.
“When you’re first starting out when you’re running for office, part of the challenge is you don’t really have as much fundraising connections, political connections, just the know-how of the basics of running a campaign,” Lata said.
Lata and Hogg worked together on Frost’s 2022 congressional campaign. Hogg previously co-founded March for Our Lives, a youth-driven movement that organized one of the largest anti-gun violence protests in Washington following the Parkland massacre.
“There’s so many charismatic, brilliant young people that have come from March For Our Lives and have now started running for office, like Maxwell, and there’s so many more that I think can come,” Hogg said. “That’s why I’m doing this, it’s to help build that pathway.”
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee voted on Thursday to expel two Democratic legislators who joined a protest on the House floor last week after a deadly school shooting in Nashville. On March 30, protesters gathered at the State Capitol, and Democratic Reps. Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson led a chant of “power to the people” from the House floor.
On Thursday, lawmakers first voted 72-25 to expel Jones, 27, one of the youngest members of the legislature. The resolution to expel Johnson failed by one vote, 65 to 30. But Pearson, 28, was also expelled, in a 69-26 vote. The GOP supermajority had accused the representatives of breaking house rules on conduct and decorum.
“A state in which the Ku Klux Klan was founded is now attempting another power grab by silencing the two youngest Black representatives,” Jones said after the votes.
Tennessee Representatives Justin Pearson, Gloria Johnson and Justin Jones walk through a crowd of supporters at the Tennessee State Capitol as Republicans who control the Tennessee House of Representatives prepare to vote on whether to expel the three Democratic members for their role in a gun control demonstration at the state House last week, in Nashville, Tennessee, April 6, 2023.
NICOLE HESTER/THE TENNESSEAN/USA/Reuters
Johnson was asked why she thought she’d been spared while her two Black colleagues were not.
“It might have to do with the color of our skin,” she told CNN.
“This is not about expelling us as individuals. This is your attempt to expel the voices of the people from the people’s house. It will not be successful,” Jones said before the vote. “Your overreaction, your flexing of false power has awakened a generation of people who will let you know that your time is up.”
The forced expulsion of lawmakers from any state legislative body in the U.S. is extremely rare. The Tennessee House had previously expelled only eight lawmakers — six of them Confederate racists in the 19th century for refusing to affirm the citizenship of formerly enslaved Black people, one in the 20th century for a conviction of bribery, and one in the 21st century for sexual misconduct.
“Today’s expulsion of lawmakers who engaged in peaceful protest is shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent,” President Biden said in a statement Thursday night. “Rather than debating the merits of the issue, these Republican lawmakers have chosen to punish, silence, and expel duly elected representatives of the people of Tennessee.”
Each of the lawmakers facing expulsion was given time to speak ahead of the vote.
“The world is watching Tennessee,” Jones said. “What is happening here today is a farce of democracy. What’s happening here today is a situation in which the jury has already publicly announced the verdict.”
Jones said he was speaking for young voters in his district “terrified” by mass shootings and criticized the house for not expelling other members who had confessed to crimes or misbehaved in their roles.
Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, listens to remarks on the floor of the House chamber in Nashville on Thursday before a vote to expel him along with two other representatives over a gun control protest.
George Walker IV / AP
Johnson, a retired teacher, called allegations that she was yelling and pounding the podium during the protest “false.” She also recounted her own experiences with a school shooting.
“I have to raise the voice of the people in my district. My folks sent me here because I’m a fighter,” Johnson said.
Johnson, 60, defended her younger colleagues facing expulsion before the votes, saying, “we have to welcome this younger generation, who might do it a little bit differently, but they are fighting for their constituency.”
In his remarks before the vote, Pearson invoked the civil rights movement and civil disobedience, saying the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of putting “consciousness above rule.”
“We have heard from thousands of people asking us to do something about gun violence,” Pearson said. “What it is in the best interest of our people is ending gun violence.”
“This country was built on a protest,” he added in his emotional opening remarks. “You who celebrate July 4, 1776, you say to protest is wrong.”
Ahead of the votes, Republican Rep. Johnny Garrett criticized the three lawmakers and moved to have a seven-minute video showing the lawmakers on the floor during the protest played. The showing of the video was fought by Democrats, who questioned its relevance, provenance and the benefit of showing it.
The video showed Johnson, Jones and Pearson speaking on the house floor, using a bullhorn to amplify their voices. Some legislators were gathered behind them, and protestors could be heard in the background. Democrats questioned the video, because filming on the floor violates house rules, with Democratic chairman Rep. John Ray Clemmons calling it hypocritical that the person who made the video would not be punished the same way Johnson, Jones and Pearson were.
The expulsion votes garnered national attention, with Tennessee Republicans facing intense political criticism. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused the lawmakers of focusing on rebuking Democrats and “shrugging in the face of yet another tragic school shooting while our kids continue to pay the price.”
Three children and three teachers were killed at a school shooting at the private Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. The shooter was armed with multiple weapons and was killed by police within minutes of the attack being reported.
“What did the Republican legislators do? They’re trying to expel these three Democratic legislators who joined in the protest,” Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday.
Several votes took place ahead of the vote to expel the legislators. Those votes were on bills including HB322, to harden schools with locked doors and drills, which was passed 95 to 4, with the “Tennessee Three” and one other Democrat voting no. House Bill 1051, which would expand mental health benefits across the state, passed with 97 yeas and no nay votes. The House also passed bills to increase school security and an amendment that would implement a mobile panic alert system that would allow first responders to communicate in real time was also voted on.
Pearson challenged the bills and said that they did not go far enough.
“Are you saying children will go to school and these resource officers will have AR-15s on them?” asked Pearson. “This is a part of what I think is a symptomatic problem of not addressing root causes. The root cause that each of us have to address is this gun violence epidemic due to the proliferation of guns.”
Bo Mitchell, another Democrat, compared the bills to using “pain meds to treat cancer,” pointing out that the United States is an outlier in regards to school shootings and “mass killings.” Cheers from outside the chamber could be heard as he spoke.
