Jennifer and James Crumbley were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.
James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of the teenager who killed four classmates in a mass shooting at Oxford High School in 2021, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison on Tuesday.
The Crumbleys were charged with four counts of voluntary manslaughter for the deaths of Justin Shilling, 17; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; and Hana St. Juliana, 14.
The Crumbleys bought their then-15-year-old son, Ethan Crumbley, a gun as a Christmas gift, despite numerous signs that he was troubled and depressed. He used the gun to kill four of his classmates and wound seven others in November 2021.
Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews said she exceeded the sentencing guidelines, in part, because the parents continue to defend their actions leading up to the shooting.
“Parents are not expected to be psychic, but the convictions are not about poor parenting,” Matthews told the Crumbleys during sentencing. “These convictions confirm repeated acts or lack of acts that could have halted a runaway train.”
Prosecutors alleged the parents knew their son had been troubled for years when they bought him the gun. They also failed to divulge that their son had a gun when they were called to the school after a teacher found a note that included a drawing of a gun, blood, and the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”
Instead of taking their son home for the day, they urged school officials to keep him in class.
Before sentencing, Jennifer Crumbley, wearing a black-and-white striped jail uniform, diminished the role she played in her son’s actions and accused prosecutors of unfairly maligning her and her husband.
“I’ve been criticized that I don’t show emotion, I’m not sympathetic, I don’t cry enough,” Crumbley said. “But alone I grieve. If you were to look into me internally, you would find I have died from the inside. I will be in my own internal prison for the rest of my life.”
Ethan Crumbley was charged as an adult with first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Dec. 8. He also pleaded guilty to injuring six other students and a teacher. During his sentencing, he was soft-spoken and apologetic and called for the maximum penalty.
Before his sentencing, James Crumbley, wearing an orange jumpsuit, stood up, removed his glasses, and read a written statement addressed to the families of the victims.
“I am sorry for your loss as a result of what my son did,” James Crumbley said. “I cannot express how much I wish that I had known what was going on with him or what was going to happen because I absolutely would have done a lot of things differently.”
The Crumbleys were given credit for the more than 850 days they have already served in jail.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald asked the judge to exceed the sentencing guidelines because of the “devastating impact of their gross negligence that was foreseeable.”
“We don’t give power or authority to victims to decide or render a verdict,” McDonald told the judge before sentencing. “But we should not and cannot sanitize their pain or the weight of the impact.”
According to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, the man and woman were also discovered to have felony warrants out of Placer County and were booked into a Sacramento County jail. Video Above: Sentence handed down in Placer County fentanyl-related death
On Wednesday, deputies said two people gave them fake identities after contacting them during a “call for service.”
Two people were arrested on Wednesday and were found to have multiple drugs, drug paraphernalia, and guns in their possession. (Credit: Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office)
“Upon further investigation, a records check revealed that both the man and woman had felony warrants out of Placer County,” the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said.
Deputies later searched a motor home belonging to the two people where they found the guns and fentanyl.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office also posted a photo to social media that shows multiple phones, cash, and drug paraphernalia that seemed to indicate the intention of selling the fentanyl. All items were seized by deputies along with the guns and fentanyl.
According to the California Department of Public Health, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
The state department adds that fentanyl-laced drugs are “extremely dangerous” because it is nearly impossible to tell if other drugs have been laced with the substance and can’t be detected through sight, smell, or taste.
FILE – A security official walks in front of the entrance to the national headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Jan. 23, 2014, in Washington. New data from the bureau shows that 68,000 illegally trafficked firearms in the U.S. came through unlicensed dealers who aren’t required to perform background checks over a five year report that was released Thursday, April 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — New data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives shows that 68,000 illegally trafficked firearms in the U.S. came through unlicensed dealers who aren’t required to perform background checks over a five year report.
The report released Thursday was the first in-depth analysis of firearm trafficking investigations in more than 20 years.
Justice Department officials say 54% of the illegally trafficked firearms in the U.S. between 2017 and 2021 were from unlicensed dealers.
The second-highest share of firearm-trafficking cases investigated by ATF was straw purchases, when someone buys a gun for a person who can’t get it legally themselves.
From Third Circuit Judge Cheryl Krause’s dissent from denial of rehearing en banc yesterday in Lara v. Commissioner; Judges Shwartz, Restrepo, Freeman, Montgomery-Reeves, and Chung also voted to rehear the case en banc, but didn’t write an opinion or join Judge Krause’s:
When they ratified the Second Amendment, our Founders did not intend to bind the nation in a straitjacket of 18th-century legislation, nor did they mean to prevent future generations from protecting themselves against gun violence more rampant and destructive than the Founders could have possibly imagined. At a minimum, one would think that the states’ understanding of the Second Amendment at the time of the “Second Founding”—the moment in 1868 when they incorporated the Bill of Rights against themselves—is part of “the Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation” informing the constitutionality of modern-day regulations.
Indeed, since the Supreme Court tethered their constitutionality to the existence of historical precedent in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), we and the other Courts of Appeals have consistently looked to Reconstruction-era, as well as Founding-era sources, and, even as the Supreme Court has acknowledged the “ongoing scholarly debate” about their relevance, it too has relied on Reconstruction-era sources in each of its recent major opinions on the right to bear arms. Notably, the Supreme Court is expected within the next few months, if not weeks, to issue its next seminal opinion, clarifying its historical methodology in the absence of Founding-era analogues.
Yet despite our own precedent acknowledging the relevance of Reconstruction-era sources, our recognition in an en banc opinion just last year that the Supreme Court relies on both Founding-era and Reconstruction-era sources, and an imminent decision from the Supreme Court that may prove dispositive to this case, the panel majority here announced— over Judge Restrepo’s compelling dissent—that all historical sources after 1791 are irrelevant to our Nation’s historical tradition and must be “set aside” when seeking out the “historical analogues” required to uphold a modern-day gun regulations. The panel majority then held—based exclusively on 18th-century militia laws and without regard to the voluminous support the statutory scheme finds in 19th-century analogues—that Pennsylvania’s prohibition on 18-to-20-year-old youth carrying firearms in public during statewide emergencies is unconstitutional.
The panel majority was incorrect, but more importantly, it erred profoundly in the methodology to which it purports to bind this entire Court and with far-reaching consequences. Against this backdrop, we should be granting Pennsylvania’s
petition for en banc review, supported by 17 other states and the District of Columbia as amici, or at least holding it c.a.v. pending the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Rahimi. But instead, over the objection of nearly half our Court, we are denying it outright.
I respectfully dissent from that denial for four reasons. First, without en banc review, the panel majority’s pronouncement cannot bind future panels of this Court. We have held Reconstruction-era sources to be relevant in decisions both before and after Bruen so, under our case law and our Internal Operating Procedures, en banc rehearing is necessary before any subsequent panel can bind our Court to a contrary position. Second, en banc review would allow us to apply the proper historical methodology, which would compel a different outcome in this case. Third, en banc review is necessary for error correction: Even if we limit ourselves to Founding-era sources, the panel failed to recognize that legislatures in that era were authorized to categorically disarm groups they reasonably judged to pose a particular risk of danger, and Pennsylvania’s modern-day judgment that youth under the age of 21 pose such a risk is well supported by evidence subject to judicial notice. And fourth, the majority’s narrow focus on the Founding era demands rehearing because it ignores the Supreme Court’s recognition that “cases implicating unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological changes may require a more nuanced approach.” For each of these reasons, discussed in turn below, en banc review should be granted….
Through the combined operation of three statutes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania effectively bans 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying firearms outside their homes during a state of emergency. Madison Lara, Sophia Knepley, and Logan Miller, who were in that age range when they filed this suit, want to carry firearms outside their homes for lawful purposes, including self-defense…. The words “the people” in the Second Amendment presumptively encompass all adult Americans, including 18-to-20-year-olds, and we are aware of no founding-era law that supports disarming people in that age group. Accordingly, we will reverse and remand….
The Commissioner … [argues] that, “[a]t the time of the Founding—and, indeed, for most of the Nation’s history—those who were under the age of 21 were considered ‘infants’ or ‘minors’ in the eyes of the law[,]” “mean[ing] that they had few independent legal rights.” True enough, from before the founding and through Reconstruction, those under the age of 21 were considered minors.
Notwithstanding the legal status of 18-to-21-year-olds during that period, however, the Commissioner’s position is untenable for three reasons. First, it supposes that the first step of a Bruen analysis requires excluding individuals from “the people” if they were so excluded at the founding. That argument conflates Bruen‘s two distinct analytical steps. Although the government is tasked with identifying a historical analogue at the second step of the Bruen analysis, we are not limited to looking through that same retrospective lens at the first step. If, at step one, we were rigidly limited by eighteenth century conceptual boundaries, “the people” would consist of white, landed men, and that is obviously not the state of the law.
Second, it does not follow that, just because individuals under the age of 21 lacked certain legal rights at the founding, they were ex ante excluded from the scope of “the people.” As then-Judge Barrett explained, “[n]either felons nor the mentally ill are categorically excluded from our national community.” But “[t]hat does not mean that the government cannot prevent them from possessing guns. Instead, it means that the question is whether the government has the power to disable the exercise of a right that they otherwise possess.”
Third, consistency has a claim on us. It is undisputed that 18-to-20-year-olds are among “the people” for other constitutional rights such as the right to vote, freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, government petitions, and the right against unreasonable government searches and seizures…. [W]holesale exclusion of 18-to-20-year-olds from the scope of the Second Amendment would impermissibly render “the constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense … ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.’”
Municipalities lack authority to regulate the possession of firearms and certain weapons in quintessential public spaces, such as parks, trails, and sidewalks. A statute enacted in 2023, L.B. 77, deprives municipalities of regulatory authority over the possession of firearms or other weapons. And municipalities cannot use their common law proprietary authority to evade this regulatory restriction. Additionally, a blanket ban on firearms possession in such spaces would infringe constitutional rights under the Second Amendment and the Nebraska Constitution.
This year, the Legislature passed L.B. 77, which, after becoming law, significantly changes the way the possession, carriage, and sale of firearms and other weapons are regulated in Nebraska. Relevant here, L.B. 77 declared the regulation of the “ownership, possession, storage, transportation, sale, and transfer” of weaponry to be a “matter of statewide concern” and stripped municipalities of nearly all regulatory authority in that space. In the wake of L.B. 77’s passage, several Nebraska municipalities [including Omaha and Lincoln] have issued executive orders that purport to restrict or ban the possession of weaponry on property the municipality owns or controls. These orders include public buildings (such as courthouses), and in some cases expand beyond buildings to include quintessential public places that are usually held open to the public at large, such as parks, trails, and sidewalks.
You have asked whether existing law “prevent[s] Nebraska municipalities from regulating the possession of firearms and other weapons in public spaces, e.g., public parks, trails, and sidewalks.” It does. You have also asked whether additional legislation would be necessary to prevent municipalities from regulating weapon possession in these places. None is needed. Municipal action— regardless of the form it takes (enacted ordinance, executive order, informal policy, etc.)—that restricts or bans the possession of weaponry in quintessential public spaces, like those public places identified in your opinion request (parks, trails, sidewalks, and the like), violates at least two rules of law.
First, L.B. 77 forbids municipalities from “regulat[ing] the … possession [[and] transportation … of firearm or other weapons, except as expressly provided by state law.” The public spaces identified in your request are not public buildings or like areas where municipal corporations can properly exercise significant common law “”proprietary’ authority; as such, restrictions on weapon possession in places such as parks, trails, and sidewalks necessarily are regulatory in nature. No matter the form of the restriction nor the way in which it is described, these prohibitions are in conflict with L.B. 77.
Second, there is an individual constitutional right to bear arms in public secured by the constitutions of the United States and the State of Nebraska. Thus, even if a municipality possessed and could properly exercise proprietary authority over quintessential public spaces such as parks, trails, and sidewalks, a total ban or significant restriction on the possession of weaponry would violate those constitutionally protected rights.
That said, not every exercise of municipal proprietary authority that restricts firearm or other weapon possession is unconstitutional. Both Bruen and Heller recognized that there are some “sensitive places” where it is constitutionally permissible for the possession of weapons to be “altogether prohibited.” “Courthouses” along with “legislative assemblies” and “polling places” have been offered as examples, Bruen, 597 U.S. at 30, as have “schools and government buildings.” The precise scope of the doctrine remains unsettled: Bruen rejected an overly broad conception—any location where “people typically congregate and where law-enforcement … professionals are presumptively available”—but left the task of outlining a “”comprehensive definition” to a later date….
[T]he fact that one portion of an executive order or other municipal action is unconstitutional does not necessarily render that action unlawful in its entirety. Many public buildings where government business is conducted can be fairly described as “public places;” some, like courthouses, are even presumptively open to members of the public. But there are many obvious and material differences between a courtroom and a public park or trail or sidewalk. That a municipality cannot constitutionally ban the possession of firearms or other weapons in a park or on its sidewalks does not mean that weapons must be allowed in the public gallery of a courtroom or other sensitive place.
Because your question is addressed to public spaces such as parks, trails, and sidewalks, not public buildings, this Opinion does not address where the “sensitive places” line exactly lies, which is a subject of ongoing jurisprudential and scholarly debate. Because state law already prohibits municipalities from regulating firearm possession, it suffices for present purposes to note that the sensitive places doctrine is but one of several possible reasons why constitutional limitations on the possession of weaponry may differ across various locations that can fairly be described as a “public space.” …
Existing law prevents Nebraska municipalities from regulating the possession of firearms or other weapons in public spaces like those identified in your opinion request, namely “public parks, trails, and sidewalks.” Municipalities have sharply limited proprietary authority over these spaces, and L.B. 77 deprived municipalities of all regulatory authority over the possession of weaponry. Consequently, municipalities have no lawful means of restricting or prohibiting the possession of firearms or other weapons there.
Furthermore, the right to publicly bear arms for self-defense provides a constitutional backstop that would preclude a blanket prohibition on weapon possession in those spaces, regardless of whether a municipality sought to implement such a restriction or prohibition by way of regulation or through an exercise of its common law proprietary authority.
TEWKSBURY — An investigation by the Tewksbury Police Narcotics Unit led to the arrest of an alleged drug dealer from Lawrence, and the seizure of narcotics, a firearm, ammunition, and nearly $7,300 in cash, according to authorities.
Jan Paul Baerga-Mariani, 29, was arraigned on Tuesday in Lowell District Court on a number of drug and gun charges. Judge Zachary Hillman held the Lawrence resident without bail pending a 58A dangerousness hearing, scheduled on Wednesday.
The Tewksbury Police Department said Baerga-Mariani is a fugitive from justice on three outstanding warrants from courts in Lowell and Lawrence. He is also being held on a full extradition warrant for a domestic violence case out of a court in Puerto Rico.
According to police, detectives found Baerga-Mariani in possession of nearly 210 grams of cocaine, and two pill bottles containing prescription drugs for which he is allegedly not prescribed.
Police also alleged finding him with a 9mm handgun with a serial number that had been removed. The weapon was loaded with a 13-round magazine. Police said they also uncovered in Baerga-Mariani’s possession more than three dozen loose 9mm bullets, a 10-round magazine containing five rounds, and a 15-round magazine containing eight rounds.
According to court documents, he also had $7,282 cash, which was attributed to drug-sale proceeds and seized.
“This is a great example of solid detective work and interagency cooperation by our local drug task force. I am grateful for the hard work by all involved,” Tewksbury Police Chief Ryan Columbus said in a press release about the arrest. “Special thanks to the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office and NEMLEC SWAT for their assistance.”
Baerga-Mariani is charged with trafficking in 200 grams or more of cocaine, possession of a large capacity firearm in the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm with a defaced serial number in the commission of a felony, two counts of possession of a large capacity feeding device, possession of ammunition without a firearm identification card, possession of a Class E substance, carrying a firearm without a license, and carrying a loaded firearm without a license.
Baerga-Mariani’s attorney, Christopher Spring, was not immediately available for comment.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X, formerly known as Twitter, @aselahcurtis
After a May mass shooting at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, a comedian raised a familiar claim about gun violence in the U.S.
Bryan Callen, a podcast host, said that the U.S. is No. 3 among 193 countries in gun violence, but if not including “the five cities with the most gun violence” — which he named as Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and St. Louis — it would significantly change the rank.
“If you were to take them out of the equation, we would not be the third, we would be the 189th. That’s pretty significant,” Callen said.
The Instagram video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The 193 countries that Callan mentions match the number of United Nations member states. We found no worldwide gun violence ranking with that number of countries.
The claim is similar to a meme that has been circulating since at least 2015 that we rated Pants on Fire!
Subtracting the total number of firearm homicides across the five cities mentioned would reduce the 2022 U.S. gun homicide rate from 5.0 deaths per 100,000 people to 4.5 per 100,000. That means it wouldn’t reduce the rate enough for the U.S. to be on the lowest end of a global gun violence ranking.
PolitiFact contacted Callen for comment but did not hear back.
Where the U.S. ranks for firearm homicides
There are many ways to measure gun violence rates across countries, so the U.S. ranking varies. Most criminologists use the number of shootings-per-100,000-people metric to account for differences in population size.
The 2019 Global Burden Disease study includes the most recent and complete worldwide data on gun violence rates, and the number of countries and territories it includes is most similar to the number in Callen’s claim. In the study of 204 countries and territories, the U.S. ranked third for overall number of deaths caused by physical violence by firearm, behind Brazil and Mexico. When filtering by the rate per 100,000 people, the U.S. ranked 32nd.
In the 2019 study, the U.S. gun homicide rate was 3.96 deaths per 100,000 people. Three years later, in 2022, when the COVID-19 pandemic had driven up violent crimes, including homicides, the FBI reported that the U.S. gun homicide rate was 5.0 deaths per 100,000.
If subtracting gun homicides in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and St. Louis from the 2022 data, the U.S. gun homicide rate would decrease to 4.5 deaths per 100,000 people.
Gun homicide data for 2022 for all countries is not yet available. But based on 2022 data about 43 countries collected by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime — which did not include the U.S. — a U.S. gun homicide rate of 4.5 per 100,000 people would put the country in 13th place, higher than 31 other countries, if it were included. That means the U.S. would not rank at the very bottom of a global list, as the Instagram post claims.
Another dataset supports that conclusion. A 2021 report by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations said the U.S. ranked seventh out of 65 high-income countries and territories for the rate of firearm homicides per 100,000 people.
By comparison, other high-income countries have extremely low gun homicide rates per 100,000 people, including Singapore (0.01), Korea (0.02) and the United Kingdom (0.04). The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations report shows that all but 14 of the 65 high-income countries have firearm homicide rates lower than 1.0.
“Plenty of researchers have parsed the data and concluded that the U.S. homicide rate is a gross outlier among high-income countries and even much poorer countries and this shows up overwhelmingly in firearm homicide rates,” Daniel Webster, distinguished research scholar for the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, wrote in an email to PolitiFact.
Even among datasets from the same year, there are differences. The 2019 Global Burden of Disease study estimated 13,001 deaths in the U.S. from physical violence by firearm, and the FBI reported 10,258 firearm homicides the same year. The FBI figures come from crime data voluntarily reported by participating law enforcement agencies nationwide, and the Global Burden of Disease figures come from more than 280,000 data sources including hospitals, governments, surveys and other worldwide databases.
Subtracting the five cities from the data
Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group, analyzed the FBI’s 2022 gun violence data and found that 20 cities, including the five mentioned in the Instagram post, accounted for 50% of U.S. gun homicides.
The FBI reported 16,800 fatal gun homicides in the U.S. in 2022, which translates to a national rate of 5.0 deaths per 100,000 people.
The number of firearm homicides in those five cities totaled 1,816 in 2022. Subtracting that total from the overall count would lower the national firearm homicide rate from 5.0 deaths per 100,000 people to 4.5 per 100,000 people.
Each of the five cities listed in the Instagram video had firearm homicide rates higher than the national rate:
St. Louis: 66.7 per 100,000 people (highest rate among more than 500 U.S. cities)
Detroit: 44 per 100,000 (fourth highest rate)
Philadelphia: 30.8 per 100,000 (13th highest rate)
Chicago: 19.7 per 100,000 (27th highest rate)
Los Angeles: 7.7 per 100,000 (134th highest rate)
Two of the cities cited are in states with looser gun restrictions
In the Instagram video, Callan said the five cities he cites have “the strictest gun controls.” The best available data is state level rather than city level, and it shows that two of the five cities are in states with looser gun restrictions.
Everytown ranks states’ gun law strength by assigning points based on policies’ impact. States get more points for what Everytown considers to be foundational laws, including those requiring background checks and/or purchase permits; concealed carry permits; secure storage or child access prevention; “extreme risk” or laws limiting access to guns for people in crisis; and for having no “shoot first” laws, also called “stand your ground.”
Everytown ranked all states, with No. 1 having the toughest gun restrictions. Here’s how the states ranked where the five cities named in the Instagram video are located:
California (ranked first): Five of five foundational laws.
Illinois (ranked third): Five of five foundational laws.
Pennsylvania (ranked 17th): Two of five foundational laws.
Michigan (ranked 20th): Four of five foundational laws.
Missouri (ranked 38th out of 50): Zero foundational laws.
Everytown’s analysis found that Illinois is bordered by states with much weaker gun laws, such as Indiana, and that many guns recovered in Illinois were purchased out of state.
“We could also point to New York, which has even tighter gun (regulations) and a gun homicide rate less than the national average,” said Philip Cook, Duke University public policy studies professor.
Our ruling
An Instagram post claimed that if you removed gun-related homicides in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and St. Louis, the U.S. would rank 189th out of 193 countries in gun violence.
Based on 2022 FBI data, removing the firearm homicides from those five cities would decrease the U.S. firearm homicide rate from 5.0 deaths per 100,000 people to 4.5 per 100,000.
There is no complete global gun homicide data for 2022 yet, but based on 2022 data from 43 countries — which did not include the U.S. — a U.S. rate of 4.5 deaths per 100,000 people would put the U.S. in 13th place, higher than 31 other countries, if it were included. That means the U.S. would not rank at the very bottom of a global list.
A 2021 report also showed the U.S. ranked seventh out of 65 high-income countries and territories for the rate of firearm homicides per 100,000 people. The countries at the bottom of the list have extremely low gun homicide rates, including Singapore (0.01), Korea (0.02) and the United Kingdom (0.04).
The burden of proof is on the speaker, and the available evidence does not support this claim.
A map claiming to show levels of gun violence across the United States says that states with more guns have lower levels of gun violence. But data shows that states with more gun ownership have higher rates of firearm deaths.
Instagram users shared an image of the map with text that read, “97% of all guns are in the red territory. 97% of all gun violence is blue.”
Portions of the map appeared to be divided by counties, with most of the blue regions where 97% of gun violence is allegedly occuring in areas of Democratic-led states such as California, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Vermont, Virginia and Washington
(Screenshot from Instagram)
The red regions, which purport to show where “97% of all guns are,” were largely in Republican states such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, Arkansas and Tennessee. But some blue-marked counties were in Republican states such as Texas and Florida.
This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The graphic did not cite what statistics were used to create the map. But the map is not related to gun violence statistics. As Lead Stories found, it was created by a Medium blogger to show the results by congressional district of the 2016 presidential election between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump.
David Hemenway, director of Harvard University’s Injury Control Research Center and a firearm injury prevention expert, said there is no data on the number of firearms in each county, as the map suggests.
Because most states do not require gun owners to register their firearms, firearm registrations do not signal how many guns are in each state, reports Giffords Law Center, a nonprofit promoting gun safety legislation created by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., after she was shot during a 2011 mass shooting.
Charles Branas, director of Columbia University’s Center for Injury Science and Prevention and a member of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium, said because there is no data collected on county-based gun ownership across the U.S., researchers will use gun manufacturing data and gun-related suicide rates as proxies for gathering region-specific gun ownership data.
The map also does not specify the type of gun violence. Branas said gun deaths are separated into three basic categories: homicide, accidental death and suicide.
The Gun Violence Archive collects data on firearm injuries and fatalities. Its database shows that in 2024, there have so far been 18 firearm injuries and eight firearm deaths in Massachusetts and 151 gun injuries and 98 gun deaths in Louisiana. Massachusetts has a population of more than 7 million people, and Louisiana has a population of more than 4.5 million people according to U.S. Census data.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which publishes the most reliable statistics on gun deaths, shows that in 2022 Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico and Alabama were the states with the highest firearm death rates, and Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey and New York had the lowest gun death rates.
Those statistics show the map’s claims are reversed, with states that it purports to have the lowest levels of gun violence having the highest levels of gun deaths.
Branas said the map shared on social media “doesn’t coincide with anything else we’ve seen.” A report on U.S. gun violence in 2021 by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found that states with the highest gun death rates “tend to be states in the South or Mountain West, with weaker gun laws and higher levels of gun ownership, while gun death rates are lower in the Northeast, where gun violence prevention laws are stronger.”
Cass Crifasi, co-director of Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, echoed Branas’ assessment: “There is no evidence to support the claim that more guns equals less violence,” Crifasi told PolitiFact. “In fact, the opposite is true. In places with higher levels of gun ownership, we see higher rates of gun deaths.”
Crifasi said several factors contribute to gun violence, with the biggest being easy access to guns. Gun violence is more prevalent in areas with social vulnerability, she said.
Hemenway pointedtomultiplestudies, some of which he authored, that show U.S. households with guns have a higher likelihood of homicides, accidental gun deaths and suicides than U.S. households without guns.
The map also appeared to show that regions with large populations have higher gun violence. PolitiFact previously found that if only gun homicides are examined, big cities do account for a disproportionate amount of gun deaths.
But Branas said there are more gun suicides than there are gun homicides annually in the U.S. “In the past 20 years there’s been such a growth in suicides, that the risk in our small towns of gun death broadly, mostly driven by gun suicides, is now higher than the risk of gun death in our big cities,” Branas said.
A Harvard’s School of Public Health report looked state-by-state at the median percentage of households with guns and rates of suicides. It found that the three states with the highest gun prevalence, Wyoming, Montana and Alaska, were also in the top four states with the highest suidice rates. The report also found that the nine states with the lowest gun prevalance also had the lowest suicide rates.
None of the experts that PolitiFact consulted with had seen the data to which the map on Instagram referred.
We asked 97Percent, a nonprofit that connects gun owners and researchers to reduce gun deaths, to ask if it was familiar with the image and claim. Spokesperson Stephanie Cunnane said 97Percent had no connection to the map and called the graphic misleading, partly because it identifies Hawaii and Massachusetts as having high levels of gun violence although those states have the nation’s lowest gun violence rates.
We rate the claim that states that have 97% of guns are the states with the least amount of gun violence False.
UPDATE, Feb. 27, 2024: This fact-check has been update to include information about the origin of the map image. The rating is unchanged.
Genesse Ivonne Moreno entered a Houston megachurch on Super Bowl Sunday and began firing an AR-style rifle at worshippers, police said. Investigators were still piecing together details from the violent scene — celebrity pastor Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church — when social media claimsfocused on the shooter’s gender.
“The Lakewood Church shooter was transgender,” the popular Libs of TikTok X account posted Feb. 12. “He went by the name ‘Genesse’ and previously ‘Jeffrey.’” The post included what appeared to be part of a criminal record listing numerous aliases, some of which were male names. The post has 1.2 million views as of Feb 22.
(Screenshot of X post)
Some users on X claimed Moreno, 36, was a trans woman, others claimed she was a trans man. Fox News included the detail in a headline, writing in a story that the shooter was “born as a man.” (Fox News has since changed the headline and story).
A day after the Feb. 11 attack, the Houston Police Department acknowledged reports that Moreno had used the alias Jeffery Escalante, but Cmdr. Christopher Hassig, who leads the police department’s homicide division, said in a press conference that “through all of our investigation to this point … she has been identified this entire time as female … so we are identifying her as Genesse Moreno, Hispanic female.”
Hassig also said there was a sticker on the weapon that said “Palestine” and police uncovered “anti-semitic writings” during their investigation.
Moreno died at the scene after exchanging gunfire with two off-duty police officers. Two other people were injured, including Moreno’s 7-year-old son, The Associated Press reported.
The claim that Moreno was transgender prompted a flurry of posts from conservative influencers stating that this incident signaled that the LGBTQ+ movement was transforming youth into violent terrorists.
“One thing is VERY clear: the modern LGBTQIA+ movement is radicalizing activists into terrorists, and it’s only getting worse,” conservative influencer Benny Johnson wrote on X on Feb. 12.
Libs of TikTok described a “trans terrorist epidemic” and wrote on X that “the LGBTQ movement is turning activists into violent extremists.”
A year ago, we examined similar claims following a deadly shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee, school. Extremism and domestic terrorism experts told PolitiFact they knew of no widespread threats of growing radicalization or violence from the trans population.
A year later, the experts’ views remain the same.
No evidence the LGBTQ+ movement is turning youth into terrorists
Experts said data shows far-rightextremism — not LGBTQ+ violence — is increasing and outpaces terrorism from other perpetrators.
In 2020, the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a nonprofit policy research organization, analyzed 893 terrorist incidents (attempted and foiled) from 1994 to 2020 and found that “right-wing attacks and plots accounted for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States,” in that period. In 2019, they accounted for almost two-thirds of all incidents, researchers said.
The report defined “right-wing terrorism” as “the use or threat of violence by sub-national or non-state entities whose goals may include racial or ethnic supremacy; opposition to government authority; anger at women … and outrage against certain policies, such as abortion.”
In 2021, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and “militia violent extremists” present the most lethal threat. People who are racially or ethnically motivated, it found, are “most likely to conduct mass-casualty attacks against civilians” and militia violent extremists typically target law enforcement and government personnel.
A database maintained by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a University of Maryland research center, tracked 3,203 violent and nonviolent extremists from 1948 to 2021 and found they are most often male, young, single and motivated by “far-right” ideologies.
Experts don’t have the same concerns about LGBTQ+ “radicalization.”
“Is there a serious threat by (transgender people) in terms of violence?” said Victor Asal, a University at Albany political science professor. “If you compare it to extremist right wingers and all sorts of other extremists, I think the answer is very easy. And the answer is no.”
Adam Lankford, a University of Alabama criminology professor, said although many kinds of violent extremism were discussed during a working group he attended at the FBI’s law enforcement training academy, “there was no concern raised about crimes committed by people based on their gender identity.”
Asal said there have been a few examples of violenttransactivism. “But compared to other organizations, and more importantly, compared to other groups, this is infinitesimal,” he said.
Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, said violence against LGBTQ+ people is a greater worry.
“The closest thing that there is to a threat involving the LGBT community is the deeply concerning spike in threats targeting that community,” Lewis said.
In May 2023, ABC News reported the Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement agencies that threats of violence against the LGBTQ+ community were increasing. DHS’ website says that “these threats are increasingly tied to hate groups and domestic violent extremists.”
Ideological groups that tend to engage in violence frequently promote anti-LGBTQ+ views, said Mia Bloom, a communications professor and extremism expert at Georgia State University: “That’s the one thing that all the groups have in common.”
The Williams Institute, a public policy research group on sexual orientation and gender identity topics at the University of California, Los Angeles, found in 2021 that transgender people are four times likelier to be victims of violent crime than people whose gender aligns with the gender assigned to them at birth. In 2022, the institute found that LGBTQ+ people are nine times likelier than non-LGBTQ+ people to be victims of violent hate crimes, which include those “motivated by bias,” that involve hate language or symbols, or “some confirmation by police as evidence that the incident was a hate crime.”
Do trans shooters perpetrate a disproportionate number of mass shootings?
“Per capita violent trans extremists have to have become the most violent group of people anywhere in the world,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote in a post sharing the Libs of TikTok post about Moreno. “The amount of shootings they have completed or attempted likely pales in comparison to any other radical group based on how small a group they are. Can’t be close!”
As evidence of a pattern, Severalsocialmediausers posted a list of shootings since 2018 that they claim were committed by people who identified as transgender or nonbinary.
Iowa school shooter: trans/genderfluid (Iowa, 2024)
Lakewood Church shooter: trans (Texas, 2024)
The modern LGBTQ+ movement is radicalizing our youth into becoming violent extremists.” posted Libs of TikTok on Feb. 12. State names and years were added by PolitiFact for context.
In four of the six cases cited, the perpetrators died in the attack. Determining shooters’ gender identity after they die often involves piecing together clues from social media accounts or conversations the shooters had with friends and family.
PolitiFact could not independently confirm that all six shooters identified as transgender or nonbinary. The two who are still alive have confirmed their transgender and nonbinary identities. Two of the four who died following the shootings were transgender, police or friends have said.
A third suspect who is now dead has been linked to social media posts and accounts with LGBTQ+ flag emojis, he/they pronouns, and the hashtag “genderfluid.” And police are identifying Moreno as female.
But experts cautioned that the larger context of gun violence and shootings show this list is misleading.
There is no standard for defining and tracking gun violence. Some analyses base it on how many people die during an incident; others include the number of people injured; some track gun violence incidents that unfolded in public. Most databases do not track whether shooters were transgender.
The Gun Violence Archive, which collects data on mass shootings in which four or more people were shot and/or killed in a single event, counted 3,399 mass shootings from 2018 to Feb. 15, 2024. The earliest incident in the six shootings social media users cited happened in September 2018 in Aberdeen, Maryland — three people were killed by a 26-year-old whose family members and friends said struggled with mental illness and identified as transgender.
Even if all six shooters identified as transgender, that is six out of 3,399 incidents, or 0.17%. Survey data from 2022 estimates transgender adults compose about 0.5% to 1.6% of the nation’s adult population.
This is an imperfect calculation. Not all six shootings listed by X users would qualify as a mass shooting under the Gun Violence Archive’s definition because, in the Lakewood Church shooting, fewer than four people were shot. And there may be more mass shooters who would identify as transgender that social media users haven’t cited.
A narrower way to analyze this would be to look at the number of active shooter incidents, in which one or more people are engaged in killing or trying to kill people in a populated area. This way of tracking focuses on location and intent rather than injuries or fatalities. The FBI, which tracks theseincidentsannually, said there were 206 active shooter incidents from 2018 to 2022, 2023 data has not yet been released.
If you take the three of the six shootings that happened from 2018 to 2022 and compare them with active shooting incidents tracked by the FBI, they would make up 1.46% of all incidents.
An epidemiological analysis of active and public mass shooters Lankford and others conducted in 2021 found that public mass shooters are most often young and male. Not all mass shooters are motivated by extremist ideology, but they are likelier to be single, unemployed and have previous military experience than the general population, the study said.
“To start worrying that somebody who’s trans is going to do mass shootings,” said Laura Dugan, a human security and sociology professor at Ohio State University, “that’s just not a concern, given the vast number of people who are not trans who do mass shootings.”
(FOX40.COM) — The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said it arrested a man on Saturday who was found with a loaded gun, an imitation handgun, and several Sacramento County Sheriff’s uniforms along with a stolen vehicle.
Deputies said that based on the weapons and clothing found, along with the car’s resemblance to law enforcement vehicles, they are concerned that the man may have been impersonating a Sacramento County deputy.
“Detectives are conducting a follow-up investigation and are seeking the public’s assistance in locating possible victims that may have been contacted by Whitley impersonating a member of the Sheriff’s Office or any other law enforcement officer,” the sheriff’s office said on X. “These crimes breach public trust with law enforcement are treated as a serious threat.
The stolen white Ford Crown Victoria that Sacramento County sheriffs disabled after a high-speed chase on Saturday night. (Image Credit: Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office)
Around 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, Sacramento County deputies found a white Ford Crown Victoria near Watt Avenue and Peacekeeper Way in North Highlands. According to SCSO, the car was stolen.
When deputies tried to stop the car, the driver, 36, led them on a high-speed chase for about 15 minutes, SCSO said. “Deputies were able to employ the PIT maneuver, disabling the vehicle. [The suspect] attempted to flee from the vehicle on foot, but was quickly apprehended by a Sheriff’s K9 unit,” sheriff’s officials added.
A search of the stolen Ford revealed a loaded shotgun, an imitation handgun, and several Sacramento County Sheriff’s uniforms and other clothing with sheriff’s insignias, the sheriff’s office said.
“[The suspect] has a lengthy criminal history and has no affiliation with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office or any other law enforcement agency,” SCSO said.
In the aftermath of the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade shooting, some social media users wondered why local authorities and news outlets have not released certain information about the juvenile suspects.
One of them was Kyle Rittenhouse, who was 17 when he was arrested in the high-profile fatal shootings of two men during a 2020 protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was acquitted of charges in 2021.
“I am trying to comprehend why the government was quick to reveal my name after I defended myself, but they still haven’t released the names of the Kansas City shooters,” Rittenhouse posted Feb. 20 on X.
Authorities charged four people, two adults and two minors, in connection with the Feb. 14 shooting in Kansas City, Missouri.
Severalothersocialmediausers besides Rittenhouse saw a double standard between the details released in this shooting — the adult suspects are Black, while the juveniles’ races are unknown — and other high-profile, but noncriminal, incidents involving white minors. They mentioned Nick Sandmann, a high schooler whose encounter with a Native American man went viral in 2019, and Holden Armenta, a 9-year-old who was criticized by the news outlet Deadspin for wearing black and red face paint and a Native American headdress to a 2023 Chiefs game.
All of these cases involved different circumstances that determined whether identifying information about the minors was released. For example, Missouri law does not allow for juvenile defendants to be identified, except in more severe criminal cases, while Wisconsin law treats all 17-year-olds as adults in criminal prosecutions.
Regardless of whether local authorities release identifying information about minors, four journalism ethics experts told PolitiFact that newsrooms must consider the ethics of publishing such details.
What we know about the Kansas City shooting
The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office said an argument and gunfire broke out at the Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade, leaving one woman dead and 22 other people, most of them children, injured.
Lyndell Mays, 23, and Dominic M. Miller, 18, were arrested on charges of second-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.
On Feb. 16, before the adult suspects were publicly identified, Jackson County Family Court said two juveniles were arrested on gun-related and resisting arrest charges. No further details about the juveniles have been released.
Juvenile court records are typically not disclosed to the public under Missouri law.
“They shouldn’t have their lives derailed because of one bad decision,” said Clark Peters, a University of Missouri associate professor specializing in criminal and juvenile justice.
The ultimate decision to identify a juvenile suspect in Missouri lies with the juvenile court judge, Peters said.
If juveniles are charged with a felony, such as murder, a judge may decide to prosecute them as an adult. In this case, a judge may decide to allow identifying information about minors to be publicly released.
The two juveniles involved in the Kansas City shooting have not been charged with felonies. The Jackson County Family Court said additional charges were expected as the local police investigation continues, but the court did not say who may be charged or what the charges may be.
What happened with Rittenhouse and the other minors?
Rittenhouse claimed he acted in self-defense when shooting three people during a night of protests in Kenosha. In November 2021, a jury found him not guilty on counts of first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree attempted intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment.
Rittenhouse was prosecuted as an adult under Wisconsin law, which requires all 17-year-old criminal defendants to be charged and prosecuted as adults. In adult court, the criminal defendant’s name is publicly released at the time of arrest.
In Sandmann’s case, there was no crime. His name rose to national prominence because of a 2019 viral video that showed an encounter between Sandmann, then a Covington Catholic High School student, and a Native American protester.
Sandmann sued several news organizations, including The Washington Post, USA Today publisher Gannett Co. and CNN, for damages following media coverage of the event. Sandmann privately settled with The Washington Post and CNN; the lawsuit involving Gannett was dismissed.
Armenta also went viral online because of a photo taken of him during a Chiefs football game. Soon after, Deadspin ran a story accusing Armenta — without naming him — of wearing blackface. Deadspin included a photo of Armenta showing only half his face, which was covered in black paint. (The other half not seen in the photo was painted red.)
The child’s family is suing Deadspin for defamation. Deadspin has since updated the story to remove the photo and mentions of Armenta.
The ethics around naming children in news stories
When deciding to name a minor suspect, news organizations should weigh a person’s right to privacy and the public’s right to know, said Kellie Stanfield, an associate professor of broadcast journalism at the University of Missouri.
John Watson, an associate professor of communications law and journalism ethics at American University, said this is especially important to prioritize minimizing harm when children are involved.
“The potentially massive and long-term harm to children is probably never ethically justified given that they should not be held to the same standards of publicized accountability as newsworthy adults,” Watson said.
Experts said some of the questions journalists should consider are:
Does the public need to know the minor’s identity? Why or why not?
Would shielding the minor’s identity lead to public harm?
Does releasing the minor’s identity give readers a deeper understanding of the context of the story?
“Each circumstance, obviously, is different and might change what a journalist would ultimately decide to do. But the key thing … is to remind oneself that we are dealing with human beings and not just reporting information,” said Aly Colón, a media ethics professor at Washington and Lee University.
Journalists should also be transparent with the public about this decision-making process, said Kathleen Culver, professor and director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Oftentimes, newsrooms can be so insular. We’re just having these discussions of ethics among ourselves, rather than inviting people from the outside into the conversation,” Culver said. “If you are transparent with your audience about why you make those decisions, it’s going to result in more trust of your organization, not less.”
Finding shell casings can be extremely difficult. A Los Angeles Police Department officer not authorized to speak to the media tells WIRED they’ve spent “hours” searching for bullet casings. Just because officers don’t find evidence of gunfire, they say, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
While SoundThinking says its alerts are reviewed by its Incident Review Center before being sent to the police, in Pasadena, officers who investigated ShotSpotter alerts reported that the suspected gunfire was sometimes something else entirely: a car backfiring, construction noise, or fireworks, Knock LA reported.
Chris Baumohl, an EPIC Law Fellow and coauthor of the petition to the DOJ, tells WIRED that our findings confirm what the nonprofit wrote in their petition in September: that ShotSpotter surveillance disproportionately occurs in communities of color. He also alleges that the technology primes police to go into minority communities believing that shots are fired, whether accurate or not. The result, Baumohl argues, is that community members are more likely to be picked up on bench warrants, misdemeanors, and for other reasons unrelated to guns.
In February, a leaked internal report from the State’s Attorney’s Office in Illinois’ Cook County, where Chicago is located, found that nearly a third of arrests stemming from a ShotSpotter alert had nothing to do with a gun, Baumohl points out. On February 13, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, a vocal critic of ShotSpotter, said the city won’t renew its contract with SoundThinking.
According to SoundThinking’s Chittum, the idea that police show up to ShotSpotter alerts ready to make arrests is speculation based on a few high-profile incidents. Instead, he argues that ShotSpotter provides law enforcement with accurate data to engage the community safely. “It allows police to knock on a door and tell residents, ‘Hey, we got a report of gunfire, we are just checking to see if everyone is OK. Did you hear anything? Did you see anything? If you do, please call us; we care, and we’ll come.’”
Ultimately, Chittum argues, ShotSpotter is simply a tool. When used correctly it can help police-community relations. “It’s up to the police to decide how they use it,” he says.
But what happens on the ground often paints a more complicated picture than what Chittum describes. WIRED reviewed body camera footage and police records of a 2022 ShotSpotter arrest in Cincinnati. According to the records, at 8:21 pm on New Year’s Eve, police officers were dispatched to an area where two loud sounds were picked up by SoundThinking sensors. When the officers arrived, they quickly detained a tall man in a blue hoodie and black jacket who was standing near the corner where the technology had indicated gunfire.
According to police records, there were nine officers on the scene that night. Body camera footage shows one of the officers rifling through the man’s pockets as others milled around. Some pointed their flashlights at the ground or in the windows of parked cars. Others chatted, speculating about the potential whereabouts of bullet casings.
“I’m glad we could come out and help,” a sergeant watching the man being searched tells the officer standing next to him.
Police never found a bullet casing, gun, or bullet hole. They arrested the man anyway. After running his name through their on-car computer, they discovered he had warrants out for his arrest. He had failed to appear in court for traffic violations.
Additional data analysis by Matt Casey, data science content lead at Snorkel AI, a firm that helps companies with AI projects and builds custom AI with its data development platform.
Kansas City authorities announced charges Feb. 16 against two juveniles in connection with the mass shooting at a Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl celebration that killed one woman and injured 22 more.
The 16th Circuit Court of Jackson County’s Juvenile Officer did not release the names of suspects facing gun-related and resisting-arrest charges, which is typical for juvenile cases. But that didn’t stop social media accounts from running with a fictitious suspect name.
Several Instagram posts shared a photo of a man detained by police and claimed the suspect was named “Sahil Omar.” These posts went on to say he was living in the country illegally.
“At least one of Kansas City shooters identified as Sahil Omar, a 44 year old illegal immigrant,” said the photo caption of a man in a reddish orange jumpsuit detained by police. “Biden has failed to protect America from an invasion and terrorism.”
Missouri state Sen. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, reshared a post claiming “Sahil Omar” was the shooter; Brattin implored President Joe Biden to “CLOSE THE BORDER!” State Sen. Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg, also wrote on X that “at least one of the alleged shooters is an illegal immigrant.”
The Instagram posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
Despite the backstory, this name is a frequent hoax that follows mass shootings.
The original photo, taken by Agence France-Presse, did not identify the person detained in the aftermath of the disrupted Kansas City Chiefs victory celebration.
Social media posts have previously linked a person named “Sahil Omar” to other fatal incidents in recent months.
In December 2023, the name Sahil Omar was also falsely connected to a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, shooting that killed three faculty members and injured another. Police identified the suspect as Anthony Polito, a 67-year-old business professor, who died in a shootout with officers.
A fistfight between two Excel Academy students escalated into a shooting this week, sending people running for cover and setting neighbors around the Denver public high school on edge.
The fight-turned-shooting happened at around 12:15 p.m. Monday in the 3100 block of West Colorado Avenue, around the corner from Excel Academy, a pathway school that is designed to help students who are behind on credits get back on track for graduation.
Two students and their families were involved in the fight, Principal Cynthia Navarro wrote in a letter to parents Monday.
“At no point were our students or staff inside the building ever in danger,” she wrote.
The shooting comes as Denver Public Schools faces increased public scrutiny over its handling of gun violence among students, particularly in the wake of last year’s shooting at East High School in which a 17-year-old student wounded two school administrators.
People who live near Excel Academy said during a Denver Police Department neighborhood meeting Wednesday that they’ve raised concerns about the school for years — particularly around nuisance issues like students parking across driveways, littering or drag racing in the streets — and questioned whether school officials were doing enough to protect students and residents.
On Monday, two young women met in the street to fight while a crowd of about a dozen people watched, according to video of the incident reviewed by The Denver Post. Most appeared to be high-school-aged, but there were at least two adults in the mix, said Cyan Santillana, who witnessed the fight. One of the adults was encouraging the fight, she said.
After a couple of minutes of fighting, at least one of the people watching drew a gun and fired shots, the video shows. The crowd scattered, with people diving behind cars or into alleys for cover. A single adult man was shot in the incident and survived, Denver police said.
No arrests had been made by Wednesday and police did not answer questions about the man’s condition or about the shooting.
Fights in the neighborhood, which abuts Federal Boulevard, are not entirely uncommon, Santillana said, but this was the first time she could remember shots being fired.
“It’s getting to the point where something definitely needs to be done now,” she said. “There are kids in this neighborhood, there is an elementary school right down the street, and there was this active shooting right in front of the houses.”
She added that most of the 250 students at Excel Academy don’t cause problems, but that the small group who do “give the school a bad rap.” One student just happened to be walking by when the shooting happened and had to run for cover, Santillana said.
The shooting took place during the school’s lunch hour, when many students were out of the building enjoying warm weather, said Scott Pribble, spokesman for Denver Public Schools. The fight prompted a 20-minute “secure perimeter” at the school, during which staff and students stayed inside and locked exterior doors, Navarro said in the letter to parents.
Pribble said there’s no indication that any of the involved students had a gun on school grounds before the shooting happened. He declined to discuss whether the involved students faced discipline like suspension or expulsion, adding that the disciplinary process takes time.
Between 2018 and April 2023, Denver police responded to 59 incidents involving guns at 31 Denver public schools, data provided by the police department shows. About half of those incidents involved possession of a gun, and just over a quarter involved menacing. Only three incidents were considered aggravated assaults involving a firearm, according to the data.
None of the 59 gun-related incidents happened at Excel Academy, the data shows.
The school with the highest number of police responses to incidents involving guns was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early College in Green Valley Ranch, with five police responses. Police handled three incidents at East High School during the more than five-year span, including the March school shooting.
The meta for the best guns in Modern Warfare 3has developed considerably since launch, and has evolved significantly since the Feb. 7 rollout of Season 2.
From the get-go, there were a plethora of guns to choose from in the latest Call of Duty because every gun from Modern Warfare 2 was also made available, alongside a host of new weapons. We’re not including those as there are far too many to choose from, and for the most part, the new MW3 guns are stronger anyway.
So if you’re looking to dominate MW3 multiplayer in Season 2, look no further than these 10 guns.
Modern Warfare 3 best guns to use in Season 2
The best weapons in Modern Warfare 3 are as follows:
MCW (assault rifle)
Rival-9 (SMG)
WSP Swarm (SMG)
RAM-7 (assault rifle)
BAS-B (battle rifle)
RAM-9 (SMG)
HRM-9 (SMG)
Holger 556 (assault rifle)
XRK Stalker (sniper rifle)
SVA 545 (assault rifle)
Believe it or not, the MCW is still the best gun in Modern Warfare 3 and has been since launch. It’s the most jack-of-all-trades gun you’ll find, as you can kit it out for long-range engagements — which our suggested attachments below are apt for — or to deal with enemies in close quarters if needed.
However, the list has been shaken up a little with the introduction of some new guns and balance changes through Season 1 and Season 2, skyrocketing the Rival-9 (the best SMG in Modern Warfare 3) into second place. The WSP Swarm isn’t far behind it, though, and the RAM-7 is still a solid assault rifle despite its significant recoil.
The BAS-B is by far the best battle rifle and the optimal choice if you want to engage in much longer distance firefights, while the RAM-9 and HRM-9 were seasonal additions that have quickly found their place in the meta. The Holger 556 is still very strong, the XRK Stalker sniper rifle is the best choice for any marksmen or quick-scopers, and the SVA 545 excels thanks to its ability to shoot the first two bullets almost simultaneously.
(As an aside, for anyone returning to this list from Season 1, the AMR9 and Riveter have both been dropped in favor of the Rival-9 and RAM-9, and the HRM-9 has been added to round the list out to a solid 10 entries.)
Let’s go through our updated selections for the best guns in Modern Warfare 3 one-by-one.
1. MCW (assault rifle)
Image: Activision via Polygon
Kicking things off is the MCW, which is unlocked at rank 44. Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t have real weapon names, so the MCW is best known as the ACR from previous installments. Which is all to day, the MCW is a very reliable assault rifle that is fully automatic, with consistent range, recoil, and damage.
Essentially, with the right attachments, the MCW becomes a laser beam. Any of the heavy barrels do the job — we’d recommend the 16.5” MCW Cyclone Long Barrel — along with any vertical grip, though we found the Bruen Pivot to be the best (which requires leveling the SVA 545 to level 12 first). As for the rest of the attachments, an optic is always a good shout for enhanced visibility, alongside any combination of muzzle/stock/rear grip that assist with recoil control and bullet velocity.
For more on how to kit out this weapon, see our dedicated MCW loadout page.
2. Rival-9 (SMG)
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision via Polygon
The Rival-9 wasn’t considered to be one of the best guns in MW3 on launch, but it has quickly risen to the top thanks to its fast fire rate. It packs a huge punch when you get up close and personal. As the meta has developed, running and gunning has solidified itself as a very strong style of play, particularly in Season 2.
Bearing that in mind — that you won’t often be engaging with enemies beyond a few meters away — you want to manage the recoil to an extent while also maintaining the weapon handling and mobility. We recommend the Rival Vice Assault Grip in the rear grip attachment slot, along with the Rival IGS-800 Barrel to deal with most of the recoil issues. Make sure you also stick the 9mm High Velocity ammunition on to deal the most damage.
3. WSP Swarm (SMG)
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision via Polygon
Next up we have the WSP Swarm, the second SMG on our list of the best guns in Modern Warfare 3. This gun is seriously powerful, but as you’d expect given its machine pistol form, it has a boatload of recoil. This means it suits a very aggressive style of play, and while the Akimbo attachment may be tempting to dual-wield hip-fire these bad boys, we’re going for something a little more reliable.
Your entire aim should be to reduce the recoil while also not hindering the mobility too much, so look for muzzle and/or barrel attachments that strive toward that goal. Much like the RAM-7 below, the WSP Swarm has a very fast rate of fire, so you can’t go wrong with an extended magazine either. You definitely don’t need an optic though, as the iron sights are absolutely fine and, to be honest, you’ll often find yourself hip-firing — if you can reduce the hip fire spread with any attachments, even better.
4. RAM-7 (assault rifle)
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision via Polygon
The RAM-7 was introduced in Season 1 and quickly found itself as a mainstay in the meta. It kicks like a mule but deals some serious damage. As such, you don’t want to kit it out for extremely long range, but it is one of the best choices at short to mid range for an assault rifle. A barrel or muzzle attachment that ideally silences the gun and helps with damage at range is key.
Alongside this, we recommend putting on an extended magazine thanks to how quickly the gun fires, then aiming to strike a balance between mobility, handling, and damage for the rest.
Tweak the attachments until you find the exact fit that works for you, or check out our guide to the best RAM-7 loadout in MW3.
5. BAS-B (battle rifle)
Image: Activision via Polygon
All the weapons in this list are fairly similar: fully automatic guns that are best at varying ranges. The BAS-B is no different. The first and only battle rifle on the list, this is the gun you want to switch to if our MCW build above still doesn’t have enough range for you. It doesn’t fire quite as quickly as the MCW, but each bullet packs way more of a punch, and once you have some recoil-managing attachments on there, you can put a longer-range optic on it, such as one of the 2.5x options.
When you’re in the opening levels of using the BAS-B though, we have just a few recommended attachments. The Bruen Venom Long Barrel is a no-brainer thanks to the range it adds, and the 30-round mag — or the 45-round once you unlock it — ensures you can mow down multiple enemies without needing to reload. We’d also recommend the Ravage-20 Heavy Stock, which you unlock once the BAS-B has reached level seven.
For more on how to kit out this weapon, see our dedicated BAS-B loadout page.
6. RAM-9 (SMG)
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision via Polygon
The RAM-9 was introduced at the start of Season 2, and is the newest weapon on this list of the best guns in Modern Warfare 3. It’s another SMG with a rapid fire rate, but the recoil can be managed a little better than the Rival-9 above, so this is better suited for slightly longer engagements. The must-use attachments are the ZEHMN35 Compensated Flash Hider muzzle attachment and the HVS 3.4 Pad stock thanks to how they assist with recoil.
Make sure you equip an underbarrel grip of some description too — our recommendation is the SL Skeletal Vertical Grip — and we found a rear grip also does the job, ideally the Retort 90 Grip Tape. The iron sights are usable here, but if you’d rather equip an optical sight for better visibility, any red dot sight will work.
For more explanation on these attachment choices and details on the best class to use with this SMG, check out our dedicated RAM-9 loadout guide.
7. HRM-9 (SMG)
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision via Polygon
The final SMG on the list, the HRM-9 with our build is actually very strong at a slightly further distance than you’d expect most SMGs to be effective. With that in mind, the Sonic Suppressor S muzzle attachment is a godsend as it buffs the bullet velocity, damage range, and it makes you undetectable by radar when firing.
It does mean the recoil control takes a minor hit though, so you want to use other attachments that help bring that back up. Any underbarrel grip geared towards that will do the job — our choice is the VX Pineapple — along with a rear grip and stock attachment. We’d recommend an optical sight here too, though a basic one like the Slimline Pro or Slate Reflector is good enough.
Our full HRM-9 loadout guide has more details on how to best utilize this SMG and the attachments to kit it out with.
8. Holger 556 (assault rifle)
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision via Polygon
Next up, we have the Holger 556, which is unlocked at level 37. Now, to be frank, there’s not a whole lot special about the Holger; it’s a reliable, fully automatic assault rifle that isn’t quite as good as the MCW or RAM-7. However, if you remember (and loved) the G36C from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, this is very reminiscent of that.
As always, you’ll want to focus on recoil management and damage output when kitting out the Holger. Find barrel, muzzle, and underbarrel attachments that assist with that, then stick your optic of choice on and you’ll be good to go. It has a higher base damage but slower fire rate than both the MCW and SVA, so bear that in mind when finding the best attachments.
9. XRK Stalker (sniper rifle)
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision via Polygon
With its introduction in Season 1, the XRK Stalker took the crown from the Katt-AMR to be the best sniper rifle in Modern Warfare 3, and that’s thanks to its impressive damage and mobility, making it the prime choice for those quick-scopers among you. This is a position it’s held through the launch of Season 2.
Your goal needs to be to improve the ADS speed, re-chambering speed, and sprint to fire speed so you can pull up your gun and one-shot enemies with ease. To this end, we’d recommend having the No Stock stock attachment, alongside the Light Bolt and FT Match Grip. You should also equip an optic that isn’t quite so zoomed in as the default, as you’re unlikely to be sniping at range.
The SVA 545 is the first assault rifle you’ll unlock in the game, so while you’re grinding for the MCW and AMR9, it’s the one you want to be using. As soon as you unlock create-a-class you can equip it, and it comes with one very interesting perk: the first shot fires two bullets, almost simultaneously. This isn’t just the first shot of the magazine though; if you tap fire, you can ensure every shot is a twofer. It’s not overpowered or anything, but it is a nifty trick if you can get the hang of it.
As is always the case with assault rifles, you’ll want to manage the recoil on this, so we recommend an underbarrel grip such as the VX Pineapple, a barrel attachment that can improve the range and damage, and other attachments that support recoil management. It’s one of the only guns in the game with decent iron sights though, so you don’t need to stick an optic on it.
At least six people are missing after a massive fire erupted at a Pennsylvania home amid a shooting that injured two police officers, according to local authorities.
Around 3:50 p.m. Wednesday, police responded to a report of an 11-year-old girl being shot at a home on Lewis Avenue in East Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. When officers arrived at the scene, a shooter inside the home opened fire, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said in an evening press conference.
The two officers were each shot once and are both in stable condition, the district attorney said. However, police and firefighters have been unable to enter the residence—initially due to active shooter protocol, then because of the blaze—and fear multiple victims may have been inside when the home went up in flames, Stollsteimer said during the news conference shared online by local station WCAU.
“We are afraid there might be more than one person in that house,” Stollsteimer said. “We know the victim’s family had a lot of people living in that house, including children. We are aware that there are at least six to eight people who are unaccounted for from that family. It is our terrible fear that they may (have been) inside that house when it was burned.”
“We are hopeful that that is not true,” the district attorney continued. “But we will not know until tomorrow morning.”
Stollsteimer said that he could not confirm the identities of those involved but said the individuals unaccounted for included children.
At least six people are unaccounted for after a fire erupted at a Pennsylvania home amid a shooting that inured two police officers, according to local authorities. At least six people are unaccounted for after a fire erupted at a Pennsylvania home amid a shooting that inured two police officers, according to local authorities. Getty
Newsweek reached out via email on Wednesday night to Stollsteimer and the East Lansdowne Police Department for comment and an update on the case.
“We’re not going to make entry into that house until we know that the fire is under control and that it’s safe for those officers to go in there,” Stollsteimer said during an earlier news conference. “We don’t want another single officer hurt tonight in Delaware County.”
During the chaos, officers from three separate agencies responded to the scene and were “immediately met by gunfire,” Stollsteimer said, adding that the two officers who were shot were “dragged out of danger” by other officers, he said.
At some point, the house that the shooter was in caught fire, according to the district attorney, who added that firefighters were unable to battle the blaze due to the bullet assault.
“Officers were taking gunfire,” Stollsteimer said. “Police officers and the fire department who were out there, there was still shots coming out at the beginning of this fire scene.”
Local media reported that the entire block near the home was evacuated as first responders, including a SWAT team and additional police and firefighters, arrived at the scene.
It was unclear what time the gunfire stopped but the blaze was under control, yet still smoldering on Wednesday night, according to Stollsteimer.
Authorities were unsure if the shooter was still inside the house or if the initial report of an 11-year-old girl being shot was accurate, the district attorney said.
“We don’t know who was in the house, we don’t know who the shooter was, we don’t know how many people are in there, we don’t know their status, we don’t know if they’re alive,” Stollsteimer said.
There won’t be more information until crews enter the home on Thursday morning, he added.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Nearly six years after a 19-year-old fatally shot 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida Republicans are pushing to lower the legal age for buying rifles and other long guns back to 18.
Lawmakers in 2018 raised the purchase age to 21 following revelations that Stoneman Douglas shooter Nikolas Cruz had legally purchased the AR-15-style weapon he used in the attack.
Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina was killed in the shooting, testified against lowering the age. “Our current law is working,” he said during a Jan. 30 Criminal Justice Subcommittee hearing in Tallahassee. “I implore each of you to remember that law is written in the blood of the victims, including my beautiful daughter, Gina.”
Jayden D’Onofrio, 19, also spoke against the bill, recalling that he was in middle school nearby when Cruz attacked the high school. “Consider the facts,” D’Onofrio said, “18-to-20-year-olds are three times more likely to commit gun homicides.”
Several speakers repeated D’Onofrio’s claim before the subcommittee advanced HB 1223 along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. (It has one more committee before it can be heard on the House floor.)
We wondered: Does data show the age cohort having that high of a propensity to fatally use firearms against others? And if so, why?
Data shows younger Americans are likelier to commit fatal shootings
Crime data in the United States is notoriously incomplete, but experts agreed that general trends from state and FBI data show people ages 18 to 20 — and in many datasets people in their early-to-mid 20s — are likelier to commit deadly shootings than other age groups.
Gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety said in a June fact sheet that “data show that 18-to-20-year-olds commit gun homicides at triple the rate of adults 21 and older.”
The group’s media office said researchers arrived at that calculation using the FBI’s supplementary homicide report and the U.S. Census American Community Survey from 2016 to 2020. Everytown’s researchers said they considered variables in the FBI data, including crime type, weapon and offender’s age. Researchers then used census population data to estimate each age group’s rates of committing a fatal shooting. (In most datasets, “firearms” includes both long guns and handguns.)
Federal law requires people to be 21 to buy handguns, but some states permit buying long guns as young as 18. Florida’s law, and the proposed bill, is centered on long guns, which include rifles, carbines, shotguns and submachine guns. The AR-15 semi-automatic rifle falls under this category.
After an 18-year-old shot and killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022, Cassandra Crifasi, research and policy director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, discussed how much likelier people in that age group are to commit violent acts.
“We know that 18-to-20-year-olds have some of the highest risk for gun homicide perpetration, so this is a risky group when they have firearms,” Crifasi said. “But very few states have done anything to address gun access among this age group.”
Jeff Asher, a data analyst with expertise in evaluating criminal justice data, looked at data from Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Supplementary Homicide Report. The report’s 2020 figures (the most recent year with complete data) showed that 18-to-20-year-olds were identified as perpetrators in fatal shootings at “three times the rate of 16-year-olds” and about “three times the rate of a person in their 30s,” he said. They were the offenders at nearly twice the rate of people in their 20s, Asher found.
Daniel Webster, distinguished research scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, told PolitiFact that FBI data on murders and nonnegligent manslaughters that he has studied over the years show 18 as the peak age for homicide offenders, followed closely by 19 and 20. In 2021, about 81% of homicides involved firearms, according to Pew Research Center.
“It’s not a direct measure, precisely, but it’s a pretty darn good proxy,” Webster said.
James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has maintained a database on U.S. homicides dating back to 1976, said he’s found that the rate of gun homicides starts to increase around age 14, and peaks around age 20.
Fox looked at homicide data from 2016 to 2020 and found that 18-to-20-year-olds comprise 4% of the U.S. population, but commit 17% of gun homicides and 16% of gun homicides by rifle.
“Gun homicides are particularly youth-dominated,” Fox said. “I would like to see the age (for purchasing firearms) be 25, which would be consistent with the data and what we know about brain development. At least, it should be the same as handguns, which is 21.”
Brain development, societal factors may be behind the spike, experts say
The human brain doesn’t finish developing until people are in their mid-to-late 20s. The prefrontal cortex, the brain region responsible for executive control, including skills such as planning, prioritizing and making well-reasoned decisions, is one of the last parts to mature.
Criminologists, gun researchers and health policy experts have long said that this lack of development is a primary driver of impulsive behavior among young people. Laws that raised the legal drinking age for alcohol to 21, they said, arose out of data that showed there was inherent riskiness in allowing 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds easy access to alcohol.
“People that age can be impulsive, impatient and imprudent, and will often make actions without fully thinking about the consequences for themselves, much less their victims,” Fox said.
The time period is key. The structure of high school is gone, Webster said, presenting a transitional period in which many people in this age group can act in dangerous, impulsive ways. It’s also cultural, he said, as the vast majority of gun homicides are committed by young men who are often trying to demonstrate that they aren’t weak, and are willing to be violent.
“You’ve got cultural reasons, you’ve got biological reasons, you’ve got changing social positions,” Webster said. “All of this makes this group far more vulnerable to doing really dangerous things.”
PolitiFact Copy Chief Matthew Crowley contributed to this report.
A quiet crowd held a vigil Thursday evening along the narrow street at the spot where Senn High School student Daveon Gibson was shot and killed the day before. Gibson, 16, was walking with two other Senn students, who were shot and wounded.
Bouquets of white, pink and yellow flowers lay on a pink heart drawn on the sidewalk with chalk. “You Matter to Us” was chalked next to the heart.
More than 50 people gathered to remember Gibson of Humboldt Park, starting the night with a prayer. Edgewater neighbors and friends joined to tell stories and advocate for safer streets for students walking to and from the high school in the Edgewater neighborhood on the North Side.
Peg Dublin did not witness the shooting Wednesday, but she told the crowd how her daughter-in-law, who lives nearby, held Daveon in her arms after he was shot, as he was dying. Her daughter-in-law was “not doing well” and was still shaken by the tragedy, Dublin said.
“She held him in her arms until he died, and she will never be the same again, as will the family never be the same again,” Dublin said.
The three victims were walking in the 1200 block of West Thorndale Avenue, just east of Senn High School, when gunmen inside a vehicle got out and opened fire on the teens around 4 p.m. Wednesday. The shooting has been ruled a homicide, according to the Chicago Police Department. But by Thursday evening, there were no suspects in custody as detectives were still investigating.
During the vigil, Dublin called on the community to help protect students walking in the neighborhood, particularly the stretch of Thorndale Avenue between Senn High School and the Thorndale CTA “L” stop, which many students take after school.
“I feel like if we can create a safe passage, we can show these kids that we care,” Dublin said.
In the hours leading up to the 30-minute vigil, there was a strong police presence along that stretch of Thorndale Avenue, with several Chicago police cars and uniformed officers standing on the sidewalk.
Matt Sweetman, pastor of Trinity Church and a father of two boys,14 and 16, called on fathers to step up to protect young boys from gun violence on the streets of the city.
“Men need to take a strong interest in the lives of young boys and young boys that come from broken situations,” he said. “That is one thing that maybe some of us can do.”
The shooting occurred in front of the doorsteps of Trinity Church, and Sweetman’s two sons were five minutes down the block when they heard shots. His 16-year-old son played basketball with Daveon but did not know the student closely, he said.
Sweetman encouraged the crowd of Edgewater residents to come forward with details to the police.
He then led them in singing “Amazing Grace” as they held candles.
Several participants said they went to Senn High School and described a school community filled with good kids.
“The light will never go out in this community,” said Andrea Raila, who lives in the area and attended summer school at Senn.
After the service wrapped up, people milled around, hugging each other and stopping to sign a cardboard stand with “Daveon” before walking home.
The shooting came nearly a week after two teens were fatally shot after leaving high school in the Loop. There was no evidence the shootings were related, according to CPD
From Nelson v. State, decided today by the Florida Court of Appeal, in an opinion by Judge Jordan Pratt, joined by Judges Eric Eisnaugle and John Harris:
This appeal presents the question whether a trial court may rely on a defendant’s lawful firearm possession in sentencing him. We conclude that it may not. Courts deprive defendants of due process when they rely on uncharged and unproven conduct during sentencing, and this principle holds especially true where the uncharged conduct is the lawful exercise of a constitutional right….
Defendant had been convicted of selling marijuana and related charges. Then,
At the sentencing hearing, the court entertained argument from both Nelson and the State, with Nelson urging the court to impose 36 months, and the State urging the court to impose 87.23 months. During its argument, the State presented two photos of firearms found in Nelson’s home, noting that “a possible murder a couple of months ago that was probably related to the sale of cannabis” had occurred in Citrus County. However, the State did not argue that Nelson himself was in any way connected to the murder, and it conceded that it did not bring any firearm-related charges against him.
After hearing a brief rebuttal argument from Nelson’s counsel, the court announced his sentence. The court applied the discretionary trafficking enhancement and sentenced Nelson to 87.23 months of incarceration on counts 1 and 2 (to run concurrently). Immediately after pronouncing this sentence, the court stated: “And what hurts you the most, Mr. Nelson, was … the photographs of the guns. They did not charge with those. I did not take that into account; but why you did this, I do not know.” The court then imposed three-year sentences on the remaining felony counts, with the sentences to run concurrently with the concurrent 87.23-month sentences….
Impermissible, the court said:
Trial courts generally enjoy wide discretion in sentencing convicted defendants within the range of sentences established by the Legislature. However, “an exception exists, when the trial court considers constitutionally impermissible factors in imposing a sentence.” Reliance on constitutionally impermissible factors deprives a defendant of due process and therefore constitutes fundamental error. As relevant here, “[a] trial court’s consideration of unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct in sentencing constitutes a due process violation.” In short, just as “[d]ue process prohibits an individual from being convicted of an uncharged crime,” it also prohibits him from being sentenced for one based on “unsubstantiated allegations.” [The court cites various Florida state precedents throughout this paragraph. -EV]
This basic principle of due process carries no less force when the uncharged conduct is the lawful exercise of a constitutional right. Both the Florida and federal constitutions guarantee the fundamental, preexisting right to keep and bear arms….
At sentencing, the State presented no evidence to establish that Nelson’s possession of firearms within his home contravened the law. The State did not claim that any law prohibited Nelson from possessing firearms at the time of his arrest, much less point to such a law that would pass muster under the Second Amendment. Nor did it charge him with any firearm-related offense.
The State introduced no evidence establishing that Nelson possessed his firearms within the home to further his illicit activities or for any other unlawful purpose. Indeed, at sentencing, the State affirmatively conceded that it had not charged Nelson with armed trafficking, as the firearms were not found near the cannabis. Moreover, Nelson had no prior convictions. In short, not only did the State decline to charge Nelson with a firearm-related offense; the State failed to argue, much less establish by evidence, that his firearm possession constituted anything other than the lawful exercise of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms “in defense of hearth and home.” …
The court’s statements indicate that it may have relied upon Nelson’s lawful firearm possession in imposing his sentence, and the State has failed to carry its burden to show otherwise. By declaring that “the photographs of the guns” were “[w]hat hurts [Nelson] most,” the court suggested that it weighed Nelson’s lawful firearm possession against him. At best, the State [in arguing that the court didn’t consider the lawful firearms possession] has shown that the court made two contradictory statements: one that it took the firearm possession into account, and one that it did not. That showing does not suffice. “[W]e cannot ignore the nature and extent of the trial court’s discussion of irrelevant and impermissible factors during the sentencing hearing.” “Because the court’s comments could reasonably be construed as basing the sentence, at least in part, [on impermissible factors], and because we cannot say that the sentence would have been the same without the court’s impermissible consideration of [that factor],” we must “vacate appellant’s sentence and remand for resentencing before a different judge.”
If due process prohibits a trial court from relying on “uncharged and unproven crimes” when pronouncing a sentence, then, a fortiori, it prohibits a trial court from relying on the lawful exercise of a constitutional right. The State has failed to carry its burden to show that the sentencing court did not rely, at least in part, on Nelson’s lawful exercise of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Accordingly, we vacate Nelson’s sentences, remand these cases for resentencing, and direct the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court to reassign the cases to a different judge for the resentencing.
Victoria E. Hatfield O’Brien Hatfield Reese, P.A.) represents Nelson.
BUCKHANNON, W.Va. (WBOY) – A man was arrested in Upshur County over the weekend after deputies seized three-quarters of a pound of marijuana and six guns.
The Upshur County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post that on Saturday, Dec. 30, it executed a search warrant at a home on Glady Fork Road, which is between Weston and Horner.
William Lacey
During the search, deputies seized three-quarters of a pound of marijuana, six firearms and several prescription pills, the post said. William J. Lacey was arrested following the search and charged with:
Felony Transporting Controlled Substance into the State
Felony Possession with Intent to Deliver Marijuana
Misdemeanor Being a Felon in Possession of Firearms
Misdemeanor Possession of a Controlled Substance
A photo shared by the Upshur County Sheriff’s Office shows that the guns seized included five rifles and a handgun.
Items seized while executing a warrant on Glady Fork Road on Dec. 30 (Courtesy: Upshur County Sheriff’s Office)
Lacey is being held in the Tygart Valley Regional Jail.
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