National politicians and pastors are fuelling the tribal fighting in Papua New Guinea by supplying guns and ammunition, says Enga’s Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka.

Tsaka’s brother was killed a fortnight ago when a tribe on a war raid passed through his clan.

“[My brother] was at home with his wife and kids and these people were trying to go to another village, and because he had crossed paths with them they just opened fire,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Enga unrest reports

Enga has seen consistent tribal violence since the 2022 national elections in the Kompiam-Ambum district. In May last year — as well as deaths due to tribal conflict — homes, churches and business were burnt to the ground.

In February, dozens were killed in a gun battle.

Subsequently, PNG’s lawmakers discussed the issue of gun violence in Parliament with both sides of the House agreeing that the issue is serious.

“National politicians are involved; businessmen are involved; educated people, lawyers, accountants, pastors, well-to-do people, people that should be ambassadors for peace and change,” Tsaka said.

Military style weapons
Military style weapons are being used in the fighting.

Tsaka said an M16 or AR-15 rifle retails for a minimum of K$30,000 (US$7710) while a round costs about K$100 (US$25).

“The ordinary person cannot afford that,” he said.

“These conflicts and wars are financed by well-to-do people with the resources.

“We need to look at changing law and policy to go after those that finance and profit from this conflict, instead of just trying to arrest or hold responsible the small persons in the village with a rifle that is causing death and destruction.

“Until and unless we go after these big wigs, this unfortunate situation that we have in the province will continue to be what it is.”

Tsaka said addressing wrongs, in ways such as tribal fighting, was “ingrained in our DNA”.

Motivation for peace
After Tsaka’s brother died, he asked his clan not to retaliate and told his village to let the rule of law take its course instead.

He said the cultural expectation for retaliation was there but his clan respected him as a leader.

He hopes others in authority will use his brother’s death as motivation for peace.

“If the other leaders did the same to their villages in the communities, we wouldn’t have this violence; we wouldn’t have all these killings and destruction.

“We need to realise that law and order and peace is a necessary prerequisite to development.

“If we don’t have peace, we can’t have school kids going to school; you can’t have hospitals; you can’t have roads; you can’t have free movement of people and goods and services.”

Tsaka said education was needed to change perceptions around tribal fighting.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

National politicians and pastors are fuelling the tribal fighting in Papua New Guinea by supplying guns and ammunition, says Enga’s Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka.

Tsaka’s brother was killed a fortnight ago when a tribe on a war raid passed through his clan.

“[My brother] was at home with his wife and kids and these people were trying to go to another village, and because he had crossed paths with them they just opened fire,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Enga unrest reports

Enga has seen consistent tribal violence since the 2022 national elections in the Kompiam-Ambum district. In May last year — as well as deaths due to tribal conflict — homes, churches and business were burnt to the ground.

In February, dozens were killed in a gun battle.

Subsequently, PNG’s lawmakers discussed the issue of gun violence in Parliament with both sides of the House agreeing that the issue is serious.

“National politicians are involved; businessmen are involved; educated people, lawyers, accountants, pastors, well-to-do people, people that should be ambassadors for peace and change,” Tsaka said.

Military style weapons
Military style weapons are being used in the fighting.

Tsaka said an M16 or AR-15 rifle retails for a minimum of K$30,000 (US$7710) while a round costs about K$100 (US$25).

“The ordinary person cannot afford that,” he said.

“These conflicts and wars are financed by well-to-do people with the resources.

“We need to look at changing law and policy to go after those that finance and profit from this conflict, instead of just trying to arrest or hold responsible the small persons in the village with a rifle that is causing death and destruction.

“Until and unless we go after these big wigs, this unfortunate situation that we have in the province will continue to be what it is.”

Tsaka said addressing wrongs, in ways such as tribal fighting, was “ingrained in our DNA”.

Motivation for peace
After Tsaka’s brother died, he asked his clan not to retaliate and told his village to let the rule of law take its course instead.

He said the cultural expectation for retaliation was there but his clan respected him as a leader.

He hopes others in authority will use his brother’s death as motivation for peace.

“If the other leaders did the same to their villages in the communities, we wouldn’t have this violence; we wouldn’t have all these killings and destruction.

“We need to realise that law and order and peace is a necessary prerequisite to development.

“If we don’t have peace, we can’t have school kids going to school; you can’t have hospitals; you can’t have roads; you can’t have free movement of people and goods and services.”

Tsaka said education was needed to change perceptions around tribal fighting.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

My daughter came into the kitchen early today to tell me her friends were downtown in Auckland at Britomart, the transit hub of New Zealand’s biggest city, and that a construction worker had just run past them saying a man with a gun was shooting people.

I immediately swept all the online news media and saw nothing and was in the process of suggesting to her that maybe her friends were pranking her when it broke on Breakfast TV.

I know the area this shooting occurred in well — I was there a few days ago; most Aucklanders will know it as it is a vital entry point to downtown Auckland. To have a mass shooting event there is utterly outside the norm for Aucklanders.

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As the reverberations and shock ease, there will of course be immediate political fall out.

Before all that though, first, let us acknowledge the uncompromising courage of our New Zealand police and emergency services. We all saw them sprint into that building knowing someone was armed and shooting people.

I am the first to be critical of the NZ Police, but on this day, their professionalism and unflinching bravery was one of the few things we can be grateful for on such a poisoned morning.

Let us also pause and mourn the two who were killed and 10 wounded. These were simply good honest folk going about their day of work and not one of them deserved the horror visited upon them by 24-year-old Matu Tangi Matua Reid.

Now let’s talk about Matu.

Troubling pump-action shotgun access
The media have already highlighted that he was on home detention for domestic violence charges and was wearing an ankle bracelet. This is of no surprise nor shock, many on home detention have the option of applying for leave to work — we do this because those on home detention still need to pay the rent, far more troubling was his access to a pump-action shotgun he didn’t have a gun licence for.

We know he had already been in a Turn Your Life Around Youth Development Trust programme.

Political partisans will try and seize any part of his story to whip into political frenzy for their election narrative and we should reject and resist that.

The banality of evil always tends to be far more basic than we ever appreciate.

There is nothing special about Matu; he is simply another male without the basic emotional tools to facilitate his anger beyond violence. In that regard Matu is depressingly like tens of thousands of men in NZ.

His background didn’t justify this terrible act of violence today and his actions can’t be conflated to show Labour are soft on crime.

Another depressing violent male
Matu is just another depressing male whose violence he could not control. There are tens of thousands like him and until we start focusing on building young men who have the emotional tools to facilitate their anger beyond violence, he won’t be the last.

He has shamed himself.

He has shamed his family.

He has shamed us all.

Today isn’t a day for politics, it is far too sad for that, the politics will come and everyone will be screaming their sweaty truth, but at its heart this is about broken men incapable of keeping their violence to themselves.

What a sorrowful day for my beautiful city.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting really bummed out by all of these mass shootings. One after another, day after day, more than one a day since the beginning of the year. Something has to change. This is America after all. The United States has a long history of dealing with challenging problems.

So, what’s the solution? Simple, rebranding.

America has a long history of rebranding, of changing the terms we use when dealing with unpleasant issues.

When slaughtering Indigenous people and stealing their land started to sound bad, we rebranded. We called it “Manifest Destiny” and said it was about spreading freedom from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This made it sound noble.

Clearly, we Americans have a long history of successfully rebranding difficult issues. Or more accurately, I should say that conservatives have a long and successful history of rebranding troubling issues.

When enslaving and dehumanizing the people stolen from Africa started to get bad press, slave owners knew they had to do something. So they rebranded. They began calling it “The Peculiar Institution.” Peculiar, sort of like your weird Uncle Phil, with his handlebar mustache and old MG, who affects a British accent. Although, as peculiar as old Phil was, he never whipped anyone to death or bred them like cattle.

After the South lost the Civil War, Southerners knew they needed to change the terms of the debate. They knew that if everyone thought they had simply been fighting to maintain slavery they would lose sympathy. They knew they had to do something to preserve any vestige of their traditions (you know, white supremacy). So they rebranded. They starting to refer to the war as “The Lost Cause.” This just sounds mundane, non-offensive. It made it sound not much different than the loss of a hard-fought, though honorable, soccer match. Simply a “Lost Cause,” never mind the fact that they were seeking to preserve the enslavement and systematic brutalization of millions of human beings, or the fact that Confederate soldiers routinely and summarily executed Black Union soldiers on the spot. Reality often is bad, and so sounds bad. Much better to hide behind banality, behind “The Lost Cause.”

When systemic and frequently violent racism in the 1950s started to get bad press, Southerners wisely rebranded it from white supremacy to “States’ Rights.” This sounds so much more noble, and hearkens back to the nation’s founding. Who could argue with a state simply seeking to preserve its own rights?

Perhaps the most recent example of rebranding involves “Parental Rights.” This is how conservatives now sell book bans and restrictions on medical care for transgender youth. After all, what kind of monster doesn’t support the right of a parent to protect and safeguard their own child? “We’re not banning books,” they say, “we’re not discriminating against gay or transgender children,” conservatives add, “we’re simply protecting the rights of parents to safeguard their children.” That just sounds so much better, doesn’t it?

Clearly, we Americans have a long history of successfully rebranding difficult issues. Or more accurately, I should say that conservatives have a long and successful history of rebranding troubling issues.

Now there are nearly daily news reports about mass shootings. And in nearly every news story there is also someone, a liberal politician or a grieving family member, demanding a solution. More often than not they call for restrictions on access to guns.

“Mass Shooting” has such a negative connotation, particularly when paired with “Mass Casualties.” The term is scary, and frankly it almost seems as if the biased liberal media has coined the term to embarrass gun rights advocates, and to make them look callous and uncaring. This must change.

I’ve batted the idea around in my mind for a while now, trying to come up with something more palatable or benign. And I think I’ve finally got it. Here’s my proposal.

Let’s changed “Mass Shooting” to “Second Amendment Celebration.” That shifts the tone from scary to laudatory, and when people hear about it (for example on Twitter at the hashtag “Active Shooter”) it will put a smile on their faces. They will know that somewhere a true patriot is expressing his God-given Constitutional right. This will also change the unwilling victim (“victim” is another downer of a word) from a casualty to a patriot, since they are nobly sacrificing their lives to preserve one of the primary rights in our revered Constitution.

This way, at each mass shooting… sorry, old habits die hard… at each Second Amendment Celebration, Americans can be reminded of what the Second Amendment means to all of us.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Michael Coblenz.

As the U.S. remains on track for a record number of mass killings in 2023, an FBI training video instructing people on how to survive a shooting has gone viral this week.

The video, which the FBI first shared on YouTube in September 2020, is making the rounds on Twitter and TikTok, with posters expressing a mix of incredulity and outrage at the state of U.S. gun control.

"TW: Violence. If you ever need to travel to Purgeland, United [States] of Idiocracy, follow [these] instructions," Rafael Contreras Rodríguez tweeted from Auckland, New Zealand Monday.

The video's message to anyone caught up in a mass shooting is there are three options: "Run, hide, or fight."

"In this FBI training video, customers at a bar are caught in an active shooter event," the FBI's description reads. "By employing the run, hide, and fight tactics, as well as knowing the basics of rendering first aid to others, they are prepared, empowered, and able to survive the attack."

The video includes tips such as, "Running makes you harder to hit... and improves your chances of survival," and, "If we control the weapon, we control the shooter."

"This has to be one of the most disturbing videos I have seen in recent years."

Ultimately, the FBI advises people to run for an exit if possible, hide if there is no safe escape route, and fight only as a last resort.

For those who do choose to fight, the FBI reminds viewers: "You're fighting for your life. Don't fight fair!"

While the video is more than two years old, it is sparking a new wave of reactions days after the second deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. this year. On Saturday, Mauricio Garcia opened fire with an AR-15-style gun on the Allen Premium Outlets mall in Allen, Texas, killing eight, as CNN reported.

"This has to be one of the most disturbing videos I have seen in recent years," Ephraim Gopin tweeted Tuesday. "I am without words. The craziest thing? It was made by THE FBI! The fact that they felt the need to get this out to the public is insane. Sad."

User Kat Abu shared the video under the two words, "broken country."

"I am from Australia—can someone please explain if this is parody or not?" Stu Mac responded.

"It's not," Abu tweeted back.

The video's recirculation comes as the U.S. is on track to reach a record number of mass killings in 2023. A mass killing is defined as an incident in which four or more people—excluding the perpetrator—are killed. According to Gun Violence Archive figures, the U.S. has seen 21 mass killings so far this year, a rate of more than one per week. If this rate continues,The Guardian reported, the country could see 60 by the end of the year.

Another database of mass killings from USA TODAY, Northeastern University, and The Associated Pressputs the number of mass killings for 2023 at 22, the most so early in the year since the database was launched in 2006.

A mass killing does not have to be carried out by guns, but this year, firearms were "almost exclusively" to blame, the APsaid.

This year has also seen a high number of public mass shootings, such as the bloodbath at the Texas mall. In a typical year, there will be six such massacres, but the Allen, Texas, shooting marked the sixth so far for 2023, Northeastern University professor James Alan Fox toldUSA TODAY.

"Those are the kinds of events that make headlines, scare people, and make them look around when they go into a supermarket or retail store," Fox said.

There have also been 208 mass shootings—an incident in which four or more people excluding the perpetrator are killed or injured by firearms—this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. This is the highest for this point in the year since 2016.

California and Texas have witnessed the largest number of these shootings at 17 each. In Texas, which has the most registered guns of any state in the nation, Democratic politicians expressed frustration at gun laws that have only gotten laxer in the state.

"I'm just so tired and hurt and devastated by the continuing mass shootings in this state and in this nation… Eight innocent people are dead—dead by gunfire. Guns again," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said in a video shared on Twitter in response to Saturday's shooting. "Of course, I offer my prayers and concerns for those families who are struggling with the loss of their loved ones. But I also ask the question: 'When are we going to confront the real cause?' And that is a proliferation of guns, guns, guns."

Fox told USA TODAY that the number of mass killings in the U.S. began to rise in 2019, and he attributed their recent increase to an uptick in gun sales as well as the mental and financial strain of the coronavirus pandemic and political polarization. And he thinks these numbers are unlikely to decrease without a significant change.

"Will things go back to a more average level we saw a decade ago? Maybe," Fox said. "But given the condition of America and the weaponry that's available, I wouldn't bet on it."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Olivia Rosane.

Tens of thousands of people in Serbia hit the streets on Monday to demand the resignation of top government officials and a prohibition on violence promotion in the media following a pair of mass shootings in the country that left 17 dead and 21 injured, many of them children.

"I'm here to demonstrate solidarity against the pervasive violence in the media, in parliament, and in daily life... to show my support in the wake of events that have shattered us, and to pay tribute to the lives of the children we have lost," one unnamed person toldAgence France-Presse.

Last Wednesday, a 13-year-old student armed with two of his father's handguns killed eight classmates and a security guard while wounding six other students and a teacher at a school in the capital Belgrade. The next day, a 20-year-old man brandishing an assault rifle and a pistol murdered eight people and injured 14 in a rural area south of the capital.

Monday's protests were organized by opposition parties. They took place in Belgrade, where people marched behind a banner reading "Serbia against violence," and in the northern city of Novi Sad, where participants held a banner declaring "Everything has to stop" and threw flowers into the Danube River to commemorate victims.

In addition to imploring government ministers to resign, demonstrators called for withdrawing the "licenses to the state-controlled mainstream media that promote violence and often host convicted war criminals and crime figures on their programs," The Associated Pressreported. The back-to-back shootings, which shocked residents of the Balkan country, "triggered calls to encourage tolerance and rid society of widespread hate speech and a gun culture stemming from the 1990s wars."

In Belgrade, more than 10,000 people marched in silence and gathered in front of the country's parliament building before proceeding to rally outside government offices.

"We are here because we can't wait any longer. We've waited too long, we've been silent too long, we've turned our heads too long," Marina Vidojevic, an elementary school teacher, told the crowd. "We want safe schools, streets, villages, and cities for all children."

Citing the "cataclysmic tragedy" of last week's school shooting, former Education Minister Branko Ruzic submitted his resignation on Sunday.

The government also launched a crackdown on firearms. As of Monday, "people who own unlicensed guns can start handing them over at police stations without punishment," AP reported. "Other new gun-control measures include a moratorium on new licenses, strict control of existing ones, and the tightening of rules for gun possession, which officials say will leave many current gun owners without weapons."

But for opposition parties, the government's response is insufficient.

"We have to learn anew how to speak to each other and how to create a healthy future... to nurture the beauty of living, of art, science, and humanity," Biljana Stojkovic, a leader of the leftist Together party, said Monday. "The worst among us have been in power for an entire decade, and they imposed the norms of aggression, intolerance, crime, and lies."

Protesters demanded bans on "reality shows known for promoting violence" and "pro-government newspapers that regularly stoke tension with crude articles targeting political dissidents," AFP reported.

In addition, demonstrators called on several top officials to step down, including the interior minister, the head of the national intelligence agency, and President Aleksandar Vucic, whose ruling Serbian Progressive Party party has been accused of becoming increasingly autocratic.

In response, Vucic dismissed the anti-violence demonstrations as "shameful." He condemned the organizers as a "faceless evil... that dares to use a national tragedy for their own interest."

The president made clear that he is prepared to "test his party's popularity in a snap vote, but did not specify a date," Reutersreported. Elections are currently set to take place in 2026.

"I will continue to work and I will never back down before the street and the mob... Whether it will be a reshuffle of the government or an election, we shall see," Vucic declared on television.

Vucic, who vowed to "disarm" Serbia after last week's shootings, emphasized the steps his government is taking to reduce the number of guns.

According to a 2018 estimate by the Small Arms Survey research group, Serbia has the highest rate of gun ownership in Europe, with roughly 39 civilian firearms per 100 people, the vast majority of them unlicensed.

Serbian police said that more than 1,500 illegal weapons were turned in on Monday, the first day of the country's 30-day amnesty period for surrendering guns with no questions asked.

"Vucic announced police checks of registered gun owners," Reuters reported. "Serbia has a deeply entrenched gun culture, and along with the rest of the Western Balkans is awash with military-grade weapons and ordnance in private hands after the wars of the 1990s that tore apart the former Yugoslavia."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sparked widespread outrage Sunday by derogatorily—and incorrectly—referring to five people killed in a Liberty County mass shooting two days earlier as "illegal immigrants."

On Friday evening, a drunk man allegedly shot and killed five people, including an 8-year-old boy, in a Cleveland home after residents asked him to stop shooting his AR-15-style rifle into the air. The gunman then fled the scene of the massacre and has been on the run ever since.

Police identified those killed as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8. All were shot in the head or neck. According toKTRK, two of the slain women were found laying atop three children who were covered in blood but physically unharmed.

"This shooting has nothing to do with immigration status and much to do with your policies."

On Sunday, Abbott offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the suspect, identified as 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza. While the governor said that "our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of the five victims that were taken in this senseless act of violence," he drew nationwide rebuke for referring to the murdered people as "illegal immigrants."

It is believed that all five victims—and Oropeza—are from Honduras. While four of the victims are believed to be undocumented, Velazquez Alvarado's widower said the woman was a permanent U.S. resident and shared a photo of her green card with immigrant rights activist Carlos Eduardo Espina. Abbott's mischaracterization of all five as "illegal immigrants" drew an "added context" disclaimer from Twitter.

"Five human beings lost their lives and Greg Abbott insists on labeling them 'illegal immigrants,'" tweeted former San Antonio mayor and U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro.

\u201cA new low for @GregAbbott_TX, who continues to do nothing to keep #Texas safe from #GunViolence.\n\nGreg, how was an undocumented person able to obtain an AR-15 in the first place? I\u2019ll tell you why. It\u2019s because you and other Republicans have made safe gun laws nonexistent. \n\nI\u2026\u201d

— Senator Roland Gutierrez (@Senator Roland Gutierrez) 1682904076

Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett, a former senior adviser to Castro, wrote on Twitter that "Greg Abbott is so morally bankrupt that he has to make the senseless murder of five people with an AR-15 about 'illegal immigration.'"

"Forty-eight hours after this massacre and this is the craven hackery he comes up with," Hackett added.

The advocacy group Voto Latino asserted that "there is no reason to refer to the five victims—including a child—as 'illegal immigrants.' For Greg Abbott and the GOP, the cruelty is the point."

Abbott, who is currently in his third term as governor, has been criticized for his tough-on-migrants policies, which include increased border militarization and—like his counterparts in Arizona and Florida—for busing migrants to cities and states with sanctuary policies.

Responding to Abbott's Sunday statement, attorney and political commentator Olayemi Olurin tweeted that "the dehumanization here is otherworldly."

\u201cI have been chastised for some of my language on Twitter. @GregAbbott_TX, you are a low life asshole. This shooting has nothing to do with immigration status and much to do with your policies. On behalf of those like my daughter who are victims of gun violence, FUCK YOU!!!\u201d

— Fred Guttenberg (@Fred Guttenberg) 1682905102

"Even in their deaths he can't see undocumented immigrants as human beings," Olurin said of Abbott. "He couldn't think of anything to call a family who'd been murdered but illegal immigrants."

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), a San Francisco-based advocacy group, said in a Twitter thread that "public figures like Abbott leverage their status by using social media to amplify language painting a specific narrative intended to alter the way you view and treat the people around you. The victims here were your neighbors. They were your friends. They were your colleagues."

\u201cPoliticians like Abbott softball their constituents w/ alarmist narratives intended to fill you w/ fear + animosity for people you may not realize you already know + exist around you.\n\nThe end goal is pushing for policies that rely on the success of dehumanization to move forward\u201d

— Immigrant Legal Resource Center (@Immigrant Legal Resource Center) 1682897658

"When we read things like that statement from Abbott and his social media team we are confronted with a choice," ILRC added. "Do we want to live in a world where people are... granted their dignity and humanity even in the face of unimaginable tragedy? Or do we want—this?"

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

A teenage boy rings the wrong doorbell and is shot in the face. A 20-year-old woman is fatally shot when she and her friends pull into the wrong driveway. Two cheerleaders are shot when one accidentally gets into the wrong car. And a six-year-old is shot when kids chase a basketball into a neighbor's yard.

These tragic events seem incomprehensible. But we got a glimpse of an underlying reason for at least one of them, the wrong-doorbell shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl. According to his grandson, the 84-year-old shooter watched a steady diet of Fox News and OAN. He was immersed in a "24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia."

Sadly, far-right politicians and media figures have habitually stoked fear and manufactured moral panics as a political strategy to amp up their base. And it's having an effect: For decades, Gallup polls have consistently found that Americans believe crime is going up, whether it is or not.

The cost of this paranoia-propaganda machine? Real human lives.

The cost of this paranoia-propaganda machine? Real human lives—and poor policy choices that continue to make America an unnecessarily dangerous place to live.

Fear boosts TV ratings for Fox News and clicks for right-wing websites. It elects "tough on crime" politicians, sells guns, and contributes to the proliferation of "stand your ground" and permissive concealed-carry laws. Violent media scares people into answering their doorbells with guns drawn.

None of these things enhances safety.

Contrary to what the gun lobby says, more guns do not keep people and communities safer. Nearly 30 studies rounded up by Scientific American have linked more guns to more crime—not less. Another recent study shows murder rates are much higher in "tough on crime" red states than "soft on crime" blue states. That's been true every year since 2000.

Evidence keeps piling up that dire warnings and more guns don't make Americans safer. What compounds the disaster is that this rhetoric continues to be weaponized against reforms that actually could save lives.

That's one reason we've been unable to move quickly on police and criminal justice reform—even as civil rights advocates call for changes like deploying alternative first responders to reduce the risk of nonviolent 911 calls, like welfare checks or mental health crises, from turning deadly.

The same fear that makes people believe they need to arm themselves also makes them believe that cities need hugely inflated police budgets. There's scaremongering aimed at reform-minded district attorneys, despite evidence that progressive reforms don't increase crime in general or violent crime in particular. The same attacks are aimed at mayors and legislators who want to make changes to policing.

I know—I experienced this first-hand.

When I was mayor of Ithaca, New York, we got much tougher about screening police applicants. Our city council approved a complete overhaul of our police department to prioritize unarmed responses. And the city halted no-knock warrants for suspected drug crimes.

I was routinely called "anti-police" by the far-right wing. But we forged ahead with our forward-thinking approach to public safety and crime remained low—often dramatically lower than in other cities our size.

The recent rash of shootings are horrific at an individual level. At the social level, a critical lesson here is that a climate of fear—and those who benefit politically or financially from it—gives us bad laws, bad politics, and bad behavior that endanger us all.

It's time for that to stop. It's time to turn away from the fearmongers and toward solutions that work.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Svante Myrick .

As the trial begins for the mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed 11 people in 2018, hearts and lives are still shattered from the recent mass shootings at an Alabama birthday party and the Louisville bank. Ongoing are calls for gun reform along with cries to “deal with mental illness” by lawmakers, as happened in Nashville. In the January California shootings, a congresswoman speculated that if older Asian Americans were able to access appropriate mental health treatment, “things could have been different.”

In my work as a psychiatrist who sees many people with serious mental illness, I know that focusing on mental health will not reduce mass shootings. It is extremely rare for a person with mental illness to kill a group of strangers.

Not all mass shootings are random acts of violence. Shooters have been provoked by racism, homophobia, homegrown terrorism and crusades against abortion providers. By definition we do not categorize these “socially deviant behaviors” motivated by political, religious, or sexual reasons as mental illness.

Research tells us that only a small portion of active shooters are diagnosed with a serious mental illness. Schizophrenia, a very debilitating mental illness, has become a symbol for aggression and unprovoked violence. However, the risk of violence in schizophrenia is mediated largely by other factors like substance use.

Risk factors for violence in severe mental illness overlap with risks in the general population. Risk levels can be estimated, but there are no tools to predict who among the higher risk people will commit violence. Nor can we predict when such violence will be triggered. In fact, many shooters were evaluated in the days preceding the incident and sent on their way.

To be sure, the mental state of a shooter is undeniably important. Common characteristics of past mass shooters are poorly controlled moods, impulsivity, poor judgment, and lack of empathy. These characteristics inform risk, irrespective of a diagnosed mental illness. A majority of shooters were reacting to grievances.

Shooters often experience a crisis and show change in their behaviors in the weeks leading to the attack - over half die at the scene of the crime, having never sought mental health treatment. An individual’s past history of violence also matters because it is a strong predictor of future violence.

Mental illness is a term used loosely in common vocabulary. Poor mental health is not the same as having a diagnosable mental disorder. Mental health is a state of mind that changes over time. People cannot be neatly divided into the mentally ill and the mentally well. About half of the U.S. population has had some mental disorder at some point in their lifetime. This means almost half of the country could be labeled as mentally ill and considered more likely to commit violent acts.

Recently, I did a risk assessment for a colleague’s patient. Instead of asking for his diagnosis, I gauged his impulsivity, anger, feelings of vengeance and suicidality, and evaluated for active use of substances that alter mood and impair judgment. Most importantly, I wanted to know if he had access to a weapon. Possessing a weapon is essential to carry a destructive plan to completion - and firearms make it easier to cause destruction on a large scale.

Instead of defaulting to mental illness as the reason for mass shootings, we can look at countries with far fewer gun deaths and mass shootings. Since Australia instituted a massive gun buyback program in the 90s, firearm deaths reduced by half, and no mass killings have occurred since then.

In addition to a buyback program, UK Parliament passed legislation to ban private ownership of certain firearms and to require owners to register their weapons. The number of gun homicides in the U.S. is now more than quadruple in comparison to the UK.

It is obvious on a global scale that more firearm ownerships closely correlate with more firearm deaths. However, there is a deeply entrenched culture of guns in the U.S. Attempts to legislate gun ownership are often noted as an infringement of rights - but reducing gun violence is not the same as promoting gun control.

Stronger firearm policies reduce firearm deaths. But since that is so challenging to implement, research can be part of the solution by engaging local communities to better understand complex gun culture and build knowledge of best practices for gun safety.

Furthermore, there needs to be more federal funds than what was allocated after a partial repeal of the Dickey Amendment. Ultimately, everyday citizens and the highest levels of government need to come together on legislation that reasonably controls gun access and ownership.

Relying on mental health professionals to prevent mass shooters is an exercise in futility that will not save lives or prevent the heartache and trauma caused by mass shootings.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Aniyizhai Annamalai.

When my son was born last spring, I found myself in a strange world, one in which parents—particularly moms—are expected to be perfect and completely in control of every detail of a child's life. Whether it's buying the most non-toxic diapers or deciding on the best baby-feeding philosophies, each with their own line of products, there is an obsessive culture of consumerist perfection about raising a child. Somehow, amidst an increasingly unstable social context, mothers are expected to ensure a child's every moment is crafted with the expertise of a veteran Montessori preschool teacher, a pediatrician, and a consumer product expert all in one. At the back of our minds we know we can't be all these things, but we still try.

In part, it's just marketing. Momfluencers, social media companies, and corporations profit by fueling our parenting anxieties—we've been convinced that if we just consume the right products, our children will grow into little geniuses who never feel pain. And perhaps it's also a coping strategy: It's all too human that, when confronted with massive systemic crises like a pandemic or climate change, parents might turn inward and focus on the things we (think we) can control. Maybe if we buy the right toys or say the gentlest–yet firmest–words, we can shield our kids from the broken world.

I don't mean to disparage the anxiety new parents have over everyday choices. I too have spent too much time on the internet "researching" which sippy cup to buy. I too have wondered if I'm buying the "right" toys. (Spoiler: My son prefers playing with bits of cardboard and my husband's sneakers over virtually any toy.) And I'm not suggesting we neglect our babies and let them scrounge for food while we pursue loftier causes.

It's painful to admit that the decisions of the powerful may shape our children's lives even more than we can. But it's true. And it's why I view activism as part of my job as a parent.

But the time and energy so many of us put into seeking to control every moment and product in our kids' lives is not proportional to the real impact on our children. It doesn't matter if I feed my toddler organic snacks now if in 15 years the climate crisis wipes out our global food system. An Instagrammable play area won't shield my children from the trauma of a society in which school shootings have become a new normal. And even if I become the most perfect mom in the universe, that won't protect my baby from a crumbling social contract or a loss of their civil rights.

To really help our kids, there is a better way for parents to spend our limited extra energy and resources: activism. As individuals, we can't control much about our children's futures. But if we join together with other parents and exercise our collective power, we stand a better chance of ensuring our kids–and all kids–can survive and thrive. It's painful to admit that the decisions of the powerful may shape our children's lives even more than we can. But it's true. And it's why I view activism as part of my job as a parent.

Our children are under assault from all directions. The powerful refuse to divest from fossil fuels, even while young people watch their futures' disappear. Trans children can't access medical care. Teens can't get reproductive care. School children can't read stories with Black and LGBTQ characters. Hate crimes against Black, Queer, Muslim, and Jewish people are escalating. State and local governments are defunding public schools. Children have to walk into school each morning wondering if a gunman might kill them or their friends. In every way, our kids need us to fight for them.

If it sounds overwhelming to confront societal crises on top of the regular demands of parenting, that's because it is. But it's even more overwhelming for our children, who can only be insulated for so long before the fractured world comes crashing in. And when it does, what could be more reassuring than seeing their parents fighting for them? We owe our kids whatever extra time and energy we have—whether it's five minutes or five hours—to work to dismantle the systems that hurt us all.

The good news is you can actually do activism with your kids in ways that are enriching rather than burdensome. The group I work with, Climate Families NYC, plans kid-friendly protests replete with song, costumes, bubbles, and chalk. Our children love doing activism together, and when they hear about climate change in school or on the news, instead of feeling scared, they know they are part of the movement fighting back. Through meetings, playdates, and even direct actions outside Wall Street firms, we've built a community of mutual support.

Imagine if a million moms—and parents and caregivers (because this responsibility should be a shared one)—found an expectation to let go of and instead put the time, energy, and resources they gained into activism. Imagine the world we could build.

Years ago, I asked a close friend who had just had a baby if he felt different now that he was a parent. He said yes, what felt different was that now he was always a little afraid. Love for a child is carrying fear with you every day. But we have a choice of what to do with that fear—let corporations prey on us and our anxieties, siloed in our homes as we desperately try to be perfect, or channel our fears into action and community for the world our children deserve.

No one can do everything, but almost everyone can do something. Find your passion, find your people, and jump in. Like parenting, activism is never perfect, but it's what our kids, and we, really need.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Liat Olenick.

Numerous shootings of people who have mistakenly approached the wrong property have raised alarm among gun control advocates, as the United States faces what one columnist called the effects of a "national experiment in freely giving deadly weapons to anyone who wants one."

Wednesday morning brought the latest news of a young person who was shot after making a common mistake, as a man in the Austin, Texas area was arrested for opening fire on a group of teenage girls after they mistook his vehicle for their own in an H-E-B supermarket parking lot.

Payton Washington, 18, was shot twice and is in critical condition at a nearly intensive care unit, while Heather Roth was grazed by a bullet and was treated at the scene. Roth told reporters that the girls approached the car of the suspect, Pedro Tello Rodriguez, and opened the door before realizing it wasn't theirs.

Rodriguez got out of the car and began shooting at Washington and Roth as well as two other high school students they were with. The girls were members of a cheerleading team with Woodlands Elite Generals and were preparing for the World Championships in Orlando this weekend.

"We are becoming a heavily armed nation, so fearful and angry and hair-trigger anxious that gun murders are now just the way in which we work out our frustrations."

The shooting took place days after 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was fatally shot in Hebron, New York, after mistakenly driving up the wrong driveway with a group of friends while looking for a friend's house. A 65-year-old man named Kevin Monahan has been charged with second-degree murder.

The group had already realized their mistake and turned around when Gillis was shot on Saturday night.

"There were no words exchanged," Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey J. Murphy told reporters. "They were turning around, leaving... there certainly was no threat."

As Common Dreamsreported Monday, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot in the head and arm as he stood on the front porch of a home in Kansas City, Missouri where he believed his younger brothers were. He had mistakenly arrived at the wrong address and the homeowner, Andrew Lester, shot Yarl without "any words" being exchanged, according to prosecutors. Yarl had surgery to remove the bullets and was able to walk out of the hospital on Sunday and is expected to make a full recovery.

Prosecutors say "there was a racial component to the case" involving Yarl, who is Black.

Both Missouri and Texas have so-called "stand your ground" laws which permit people to use deadly force without retreating first if they believe they're being threatened with a crime, including robbery or burglary. Stand your ground laws apply "anyplace where a person has a legal right to be, not just at home," according to The New York Times.

About 30 states have stand your ground laws, and the majority have been enacted in the last 25 years—with Republican lawmakers enabling citizens to use deadly force to protect themselves from criminals even as crime rates significantly declined over the last three decades.

"This is literally the exact path everyone had predicted for years that the Republican obsession with looser gun laws and 'stand your ground' would lead," said podcast host and writer Fred Wellman. "We said it would get innocents killed. They don't care. That's the price we pay for their fear, racism, and guns."

Ari Freilich, state policy director for the gun control advocacy group Giffords Law Center, told The Guardian Wednesday that none of the suspects in the three cases should be permitted to invoke stand your ground laws in their defense.

"There's no state in the country where the existing laws are such that you can lawfully shoot someone for ringing the doorbell at the wrong house," said Freilich, adding that the cases "fit the pattern we've seen over and over again of racist fear intersecting with really widespread unvetted firearm access, combining in our country to make gun violence the leading cause of death by far for young Black men."

While New York does not have a stand your ground law, gun control advocates this week said the same worldview that has driven states to adopt such statutes, and led the U.S. population to amass about 120 privately owned guns for every 100 Americans, was also likely in play when Monahan allegedly shot Gillis.

"This week, this country is convulsed by a series of horrific shootings where mistakes and minor slights are being met by gunfire," said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on the Senate floor on Wednesday. "We are becoming a heavily armed nation, so fearful and angry and hair-trigger anxious that gun murders are now just the way in which we work out our frustrations."

Times columnist Jamelle Bouie said the shootings demonstrate the consequences of the $28 billion gun industry's relentless selling of "the fantasy of blowing away anyone who intrudes on your property."

"Wrong-house shootings are a bleak reminder how many of our fellow Americans are armed and waiting for an opportunity to kill," said writer and historian Peter Manseau. "Expect more in the future: It's what happens when people have been sold weapons as 'home defense' for decades; they are desperate to get what they paid for."

"What 'home defense' has done is put Chekhov's gun in millions of American homes," he added. "Sooner or later, many will go off. And when they do, for the most part they will not be used for actual protection. They'll shoot innocent strangers, or family members, or the gun owners themselves."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Research published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that poverty was linked to at least 183,000 deaths in the United States in 2019 among people aged 15 or older, making inadequate income the nation's fourth-leading mortality driver that year behind heart disease, cancer, and smoking.

“Poverty kills as much as dementia, accidents, stroke, Alzheimer's, and diabetes," said David Brady, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside and the lead author of the new analysis.

"Poverty silently killed 10 times as many people as all the homicides in 2019," Brady continued. "And yet, homicide, firearms, and suicide get vastly more attention."

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, wrote Wednesday that the research underlines the importance of connecting "extremists' inaction" on gun violence to "other forms of policy murder."

The new analysis, co-authored by Ulrich Kohler of the University of Potsdam in Germany and Hui Zheng of Ohio State University, stressed that the U.S. "perennially has a far higher poverty rate than peer-rich democracies," which "presents an enormous challenge to population health given that considerable research demonstrates that being in poverty is bad for one's health."

Poverty, which the study defined as less than half the median U.S. income, was "associated with greater mortality than many far more visible causes in 2019—10 times as many deaths as homicide, 4.7 times as many deaths as firearms, 3.9 times as many deaths as suicide, and 2.6 times as many deaths as drug overdose."

"Because the U.S. consistently has high poverty rates, these estimates can contribute to understanding why the U.S. has comparatively lower life expectancy."

The researchers argued their results indicate that "poverty should be considered a major risk factor for death in the U.S.," which has seen life expectancy decline since 2015—and fall sharply amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"Because the U.S. consistently has high poverty rates, these estimates can contribute to understanding why the U.S. has comparatively lower life expectancy," the researchers wrote. "Because certain ethnic and racial minority groups are far more likely to be in poverty, our estimates can improve understanding of ethnic and racial inequalities in life expectancy."

"The mortality associated with poverty is also associated with enormous economic costs," they continued. "Therefore, benefit-cost calculations of poverty-reducing social policies should incorporate the benefits of lower mortality. Moreover, poverty likely aggravated the mortality impact of Covid-19, which occurred after our analyses ended in 2019. Therefore, one limitation of this study is that our estimates may be conservative about the number of deaths associated with poverty."

The onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 brought about a sharp increase in U.S. poverty as millions of people got sick, were thrown out of work, and lost health insurance.

But federal aid initiatives enacted in response to the public health and economic crisis—from stimulus checks to boosted unemployment benefits to enhanced nutrition assistance—ultimately led to a significant drop in poverty, further bolstering the case that "poverty is a policy choice."

However, many of those poverty-reducing aid programs, including the enhanced Child Tax Credit that sharply slashed poverty among kids in the U.S., have since lapsed or been terminated, threatening to reverse any recent progress.

Brady said in a statement that if the U.S. had less poverty, "there'd be a lot better health and well-being, people could work more, and they could be more productive."

"All of those," he added, "are benefits of investing in people through social policies."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

As Tennessee's Republican-controlled House of Representatives prepared to vote on a bill that would allow teachers to carry guns in schools, hundreds of faith leaders and other demonstrators rallied outside the state Capitol in Nashville to protest gun violence and demand lawmakers enact firearm control legislation.

Led by Bishop William Barber II, the "Moral Monday" rally preceded debate by Tennessee state lawmakers over H.B. 1202, which would empower faculty members with enhanced carry permits to carry concealed handguns on school grounds, including in classrooms.

"Have these deaths scared us to life yet?"

Participants in the Moral Monday march carried mock caskets and an urn representing victims of last month's mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, in which three 9-year-old children and three adults were murdered. Other demonstrators carried signs with messages including "Faith without action is dead" and "Every day, 120 people in America are killed with guns."

"Have these deaths scared us to life yet?" Barber asked the audience gathered at McKendree United Methodist Church in downtown Nashville. "It's simply insane to watch our children get killed and look to guns for an answer."

"It's never about just one issue," the Repairers of the Breach and Poor People's Campaign co-chair continued. "You are here today and you care about banning assault weapons and dealing with guns. You can't say you care about that and you're willing to be on the frontline about that, but you're not on the frontline about voter suppression."

Monday's demonstration came nearly two weeks after Tennessee Republican state lawmakers voted to expel Reps. Justin Jones (D-52) and Justin Pearson (D-86) for interrupting a floor session to demand legislative action on gun control. Both lawmakers were subsequently reinstated by municipal councils; days after returning to the House, Pearson introduced legislation that would tighten firearm ownership rules.

Bill Lee, Tennessee's Republican governor and a staunch Second Amendment supporter, surprised many observers by signing an April 11 executive order strengthening background checks for firearm purchases. Lee—whose wife lost her best friend in the Covenant School shooting—also advocated for a so-called "red flag" law that would empower authorities to remove guns from people deemed dangerous.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Gun control advocates were among the progressives calling for criminal charges on Sunday for a Kansas City, Missouri resident who allegedly shot a Black teenager last week when the 16-year-old mistakenly knocked on his door.

Ralph Yarl reportedly meant to pick up his two younger brothers at a home on 115th Terrace in Kansas City on Thursday evening, but accidentally went to a house on 115th Street and rang the doorbell.

A suspect who has not been identified allegedly opened the door and shot Yarl once in the head and then in the arm after he had fallen to the ground.

Attorneys for Yarl's family say the shooter was a white male.

Yarl was able to run to three different neighbors' houses before finally reaching someone to ask for help, and has been hospitalized with a "life-threatening injury," according to The Guardian.

Protests broke out in the city over the weekend after the suspect was released, under Missouri law, from a "24-hour hold" and allowed to walk free without being charged.

Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves has said the police department is currently compiling evidence and needs a victim's statement in order to press charges, but attorneys for Yarl's family have joined local community members and gun control advocates in demanding a prompt investigation and charges for the suspect.

"There can be no excuse for the release of this armed and dangerous suspect after admitting to shooting an unarmed, non-threatening, and defenseless teenager that rang his doorbell," said civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who has been retained by Yarl's family.

The Kansas City Defender, a local news outlet, reported that community members assembled in front of the house where Yarl was shot on Sunday, holding a protest that "was absolutely unprecedented in this area of Kansas City."

Shannon Watts, founder of the national gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, said volunteers with her organization joined the protest, where supporters called on prosecutors to charge the suspect with a hate crime.

Graves said in a statement that police are investigating whether the suspect may be protected legally by Missouri's "stand your ground" law, which permits residents to use deadly force if they believe they are at risk of a crime including a robbery, burglary, or murder. A defendant in a stand your ground case only needs to convince a jury that they believed their safety was at risk before they shot someone, not that they were actually in danger.

Missouri also has a law called the "castle doctrine," which allows a person to use deadly force to protect their home from an intrusion.

Benjamin Crump, another civil rights attorney who is representing Yarl's family, told the Kansas City Star that prosecutors should charge the man regardless of Missouri's pro-gun laws.

"You can't just shoot people without having justification when somebody comes knocking on your door and knocking on your door is not justification," Crump said. "This guy should be charged."

As Common Dreamsreported last year, a study by public health researchers found that stand your ground laws that went into into effect between 2000 and 2016 were linked to an "abrupt and sustained" 11% spike in gun deaths.

Missouri saw one of the most dramatic increases in gun deaths over those years, with a 31% rise.

Civil rights advocate Bernice King noted that justice is "a continuum" and won't be secured in Yarl's case just through criminal charges for the suspect.

Justice, she said, "means the man who did this should be charged AND we need to work for the legislative and heart change to prevent these tragedies."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...

Amid national demands for stricter gun laws, at least four people were killed and eight more were injured and transported to the hospital Monday morning in a mass shooting at Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky.

Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey told reporters that two officers were shot and the suspect was dead. Interim Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel later confirmed that the shooter was fatally shot by police.

Authorities ultimately identified the shooter as 23-year-old Connor Sturgeon. Citing an unnamed law enforcement source, CNNreported that Sturgeon was notified that he was going to be fired from his job at the bank, and that he wrote a note for his parents and a friend.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg and Gov. Andy Beshear, both Democrats, joined Humphrey at a morning press conference. Choking back tears, the governor said he uses this bank personally and had friends who were killed and injured.

The latest mass shooting in Kentucky comes as the nation also watches neighboring Tennessee, where Republicans in the state Legislature last week expelled a pair of young, Black Democratic lawmakers for supporting protests for gun control on the House floor after the deadly Covenant School shooting in Nashville.

The carnage in Louisville sparked yet another wave of demands for stricter gun laws.

"This is America," tweeted March for Our Lives, which was formed by students after the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

"We're horrified and sickened. Power and peace to those that lost their lives. We'll fight like hell in their memory. This makes 146 mass shootings this year," the group continued, citing figures from the Gun Violence Archive.

Everytown for Gun Safety declared: "More lives stolen by senseless, preventable gun violence. We shouldn't have to accept this. No other country does."

"Our hearts are with the victims, survivors, their loved ones, and the entire Louisville community," the group added. "Tonight there will be more empty seats at dinner tables and more families grieving loved ones who should still be here."

A federal law enforcement source confirmed to CNN that an AR-15-style rifle was used in the Louisville shooting.

"This horrific shooting is exactly why AR-15-style weapons and assault weapons have no place in our communities," said Kris Brown, president of Brady, the oldest national gun violence prevention group. "These weapons of war were designed for the battlefield and to kill as many people as quickly as possible, which is why they are the weapon of choice for mass shooters. Preventable tragedies like this are why other developed countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, have banned these weapons for civilian use."

"Whether it's a bank, a school, a supermarket, or a church, Americans no longer feel safe in their communities. And Americans are increasingly tired of living in fear of being a victim of a mass shooting," Brown stressed. "It does not have to be this way. But until the gun industry no longer has a vice grip on our elected officials, this will continue to be our daily reality."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott drew widespread condemnation from legal experts after he said Saturday that he is "working as swiftly" as the law allows to pardon a man who was convicted the previous day of murdering a racial justice protester in 2020.

Daniel Perry, a U.S. Army sergeant, was convicted by an Austin jury on Friday of murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the fatal shooting of 28-year-old Garrett Foster, an armed Air Force veteran participating in a Black Lives Matter protest in the Texas capital following George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police.

After tweeting that he "might have to kill a few people on my way to work" as an Uber driver, Perry accelerated his car into a crowd of racial justice protesters in downtown Austin on July 25, 2020. As Foster approached Perry's vehicle carrying—but not aiming—an AK-47 rifle in accordance with Texas law, Perry opened his window and shot Foster four times in the chest and abdomen with his .357 Magnum pistol. When asked by police if Foster had pointed his rifle at him, Perry admitted that he did not, but said that "I didn't want to give him a chance to aim at me."

After an eight-day trial and 17 hours of deliberation, the Austin jury rejected Perry's claim of self-defense. However, Abbott tweeted that "Texas has one of the strongest 'stand your ground' laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney," a reference to Travis County District Attorney José Garza, a Democrat.

"Unlike the president or some other states, the Texas Constitution limits the governor's pardon authority to only act on a recommendation by the Board of Pardons and Paroles," Abbott wrote. "Texas law does allow the governor to request the Board of Pardons and Paroles to determine if a person should be granted a pardon. I have made that request and instructed the Board to expedite its review."

"I look forward to approving the board's pardon recommendation as soon as it hits my desk," he added.

Rick Cofer, a partner at the Austin law firm of Cofer & Connelly, noted that "Garrett Foster was killed protesting the killing of George Floyd," and that "in 2022, the Texas Board of Pardons unanimously recommended that Floyd be pardoned for a drug charge, in which a crooked cop planted drugs."

"Facing pressure, Abbott got the board to yank the recommendation," Cofer added. "Now the man who killed Garrett Foster, while Foster protested George Floyd's murder, will be pardoned. George Floyd's pardon is still stuck with the Board of Pardons. If a fiction author wrote this, no one would believe it."

David Wahlberg, a former Travis County criminal court judge, said he has never heard of a case in which a governor sought to pardon a convicted felon before their verdict was appealed.

"I think it's outrageously presumptuous for someone to make a judgment about the verdict of 12 unanimous jurors without actually hearing the evidence in person," Wahlberg told the Austin American-Statesman.

Wendy Davis, an attorney and former Texas state lawmaker and Fort Worth city councilmember, called Abbott's move "nothing more than a craven political maneuver."

"Our democracy is imperiled when any branch of government moves to usurp another," Davis argued on Twitter. "And it's happening all over this country on a regular basis."

Abbott's announcement came less than 24 hours after Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson sharply criticized the governor on his show, claiming that "there is no right of self-defense in Texas."

The governor also faced pressure from right-wing figures including Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of murder and other charges after he shot dead two racial justice protesters and wounded a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020.

Abbott has also threatened to "exonerate" 19 Austin police officers indicted for attacking and injuring Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, asserting that "those officers should be praised for their efforts, not prosecuted."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Unprecedented levels of disinformation will only get worse this election in Aotearoa New Zealand, but systems set up to deal with it during the pandemic have all been shut down, Disinformation Project researcher Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa has warned.

He says the levels of vitriol and conspiratorial discourse this past week or two are worse than anything he has seen during the past two years of the pandemic — including during the Parliament protest — but he is not aware of any public work to counteract it.

“There is no policy, there’s no framework, there’s no real regulatory mechanism, there’s no best practice, and there’s no legal oversight,” Dr Hattotuwa told RNZ News.

• READ MORE: Other reports on disinformation

He says urgent action should be taken, and could include legislation, community-based initiatives, or a stronger focus on the recommendations of the 15 March 2019 mosque attacks inquiry.

Highest levels of disinformation, conspiratorialism seen yet
Dr Hattotuwa said details of the project’s analysis of violence and content from the past week — centred on the visit by British activist Posie Parker — were so confronting he could not share it.

“I don’t want to alarm listeners, but I think that the Disinformation Project — with evidence and in a sober reflection and analysis of what we are looking at — the honest assessment is not something that I can quite share, because the BSA (Broadcasting Standards Authority) guidelines won’t allow it.

“The fear is very much … particularly speaking as a Sri Lankan who has come from and studied for doctoral research offline consequences of online harm, that I’m seeing now in Aotearoa New Zealand what I studied and I thought I had left behind back in Sri Lanka.”

The new levels of vitriol were unlike anything seen since the project’s daily study began in 2021, and included a rise in targeting of politicians specifically by far-right and neo-Nazi groups, he said.

But — as the SIS noted in its latest report this week — the lines were becoming increasingly blurred between those more ideologically motivated groups, and the newer ones using disinformation and targeting authorities and government.

“You know, distinction without a difference,” he said. “The Disinformation Project is not in the business of looking at the far right and neo-Nazis — that’s a specialised domain that we don’t consider ourselves to be experts in — what we do is to look at disinformation.

“Now to find that you have neo-Nazis, the far-right, anti-semitic signatures — content, presentations and engagement — that colours that discourse is profoundly worrying because you would want to have a really clear distinction.

No Telegram ‘guardrail’
“There is no guardrail on Telegram against any of this, it’s one click away. And so there’s a whole range of worries and concerns we have … because we can’t easily delineate anymore between what would have earlier been very easy categorisation.”

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said she had been subjected to increasing levels of abuse in recent weeks with a particular far-right flavour.

“The online stuff is particularly worrying but no matter who it’s directed towards we’ve got to remember that can also branch out into actual violence if we don’t keep a handle on it,” she said.

“Strong community connection in real life is what holds off the far-right extremism that we’ve seen around the world … we also want the election to be run where every politician takes responsibility for a humane election dialogue that focuses on the issues, that doesn’t drum up extra hate towards any other politician or any other candidate.”

Limited protection as election nears
Dr Hattotuwa said it was particularly worrying considering the lack of tools in New Zealand to deal with disinformation and conspiratorialism.

“Every institutional mechanism and framework that was established during the pandemic to deal with disinformation has now been dissolved. There is nothing that I know in the public domain of what the government is doing with regards to disinformation,” Dr Hattotuwa said.

“The government is on the backfoot in an election year — I can understand in terms of realpolitik, but there is no investment.”

He believed the problem would only get worse as the election neared.

“The anger, the antagonism is driven by a distrust in government that is going to be instrumentalised to ever greater degrees in the future, around public consultative processing, referenda and electoral moments.

“The worry and the fear is, as has been noted by the Green Party, that the election campaigning is not going to be like anything that the country has ever experienced … that there will be offline consequences because of the online instigation and incitement.

“It’s really going to give pause to, I hope, the way that parties consider their campaign. Because the worry is — in a high trust society in New Zealand — you kind of have the expectation that you can go out and meet the constituency … I know that many others are thinking that this is now not something that you can take for granted.”

Possible countermeasures
Dr Hattotuwa said countermeasures could include legislation, security-sector reform, community-based action, or a stronger focus on implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCOI) into the terrorist attack on Christchurch mosques.

“There are a lot of recommendations in the RCOI that, you know, are being just cosmetically dealt with. And there are a lot of things that are not even on the government’s radar. So there’s a whole spectrum of issues there that I think really call for meaningful conversations and investment where it’s needed.”

National’s campaign chair Chris Bishop said the party did not have any specific campaign preparations under way in relation to disinformation, but would be willing to work with the government on measures to counteract it.

“If the goverment thinks we should be taking them then we’d be happy to sit down and have a conversation about it,” he said.

“Obviously we condemn violent rhetoric and very sadly MPs and candidates in the past few years have been subject to more of that including threats made to their physical wellbeing and we condemn that and we want to try to avoid that as much as possible.”

Labour’s campaign chair Megan Woods did not respond to requests for comment.

Ardern’s rhetoric not translating to policy
Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke during her valedictory farewell speech in Parliament on Wednesday about the loss of the ability to “engage in good robust debates and land on our respective positions relatively respectfully”.

“While there were a myriad of reasons, one was because so much of the information swirling around was false. I could physically see how entrenched it was for some people.”

Ardern is set to take up an unpaid role at the Christchurch Call, which was set up after the terror attacks and has a focus on targeting online proliferation of dis- and mis-information and the spread of hateful rhetoric.

Dr Hattotuwa said Ardern had led the world in her own rhetoric around the problem, but real action now needed to be taken.

“Let me be very clear, PM Ardern was a global leader in articulating the harm that disinformation has on democracy — at NATO, at Harvard, and then at the UN last year. There has been no translation into policy around that which she articulated publicly, so I think that needs to occur.

“I mean, when people say that they’re going to go and vent their frustration it might mean with a placard, it might mean with a gun.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Unprecedented levels of disinformation will only get worse this election, but systems set up to deal with it during the pandemic have all been shut down, Disinformation Project researcher Sanjana Hattotuwa has warned.https://t.co/LUVAbALjGD

— RNZ (@radionz) April 8, 2023

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Students across the United States walked out of their classrooms Wednesday to take part in a nationwide protest demanding gun control legislation amid relentless shootings that have already claimed more than 10,000 lives in a little over three months this year.

Wednesday's National School Walkout followed a smaller demonstration Monday in Nashville, Tennessee, where six people including three 9-year-old children were shot dead last week at the Covenant School.

"We've grown up in the midst of America's gun violence crisis. In fact, we've been called the 'school shooting generation,'" protest organizer Students Demand Action explained. "Now we're rising up and organizing in our high schools, colleges, and communities across the country to demand action to end gun violence."

Among those participating in Wednesday's walkout were a group of students from Uvalde High School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and three adults including the shooter were killed during a May 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary School.

The teens chanted slogans including "our blood, your hands" as they walked off campus and marched downtown.

"If people do not start walking out, do not try to start making change, nothing will, and we want change," one student told the San Antonio Express-News. "We're tired of being scared."

Javier Casares, whose 9-year-old daughter Jackie was murdered at Robb Elementary School, told the Express-News he thinks Wednesday's walkout was "something awesome."

"I think we should be seeing this here all over the world," he said, "and I wish more students would have the courage to do so."

In New York City, one student protester said that "it's unfair for little kids to be paranoid all the time coming to school when school's supposed to be... a safe space for you to learn."

Another New York demonstrator said that "it's not fair how people are banning some books and not guns."

In Memphis, Tennessee, students shouted "no more silence, no more gun violence" as they rallied outside White Station High School.

"We have to stand up. We have to change the legislation. We have to have safety," said White Station 12th grader Presley Spiller, an organizer of the rally. "We cannot have academics if we are not safe."

In Boulder, Colorado—where a gunman armed with an AR-15 rifle massacred 10 people in a supermarket in 2021—students rallied outside of the county courthouse and chanted, "Hey, hey, NRA, how many kids did you kill today?"

"We don't want to be killed. We don't want to be a face in the newspaper," Boulder High School sophomore Alex Berk toldTheDenver Post.

Eliana Monahan, another Boulder sophomore, told the paper that "we shouldn't be afraid to go to school and get killed."

"We had a scare a few months ago where we thought there was going to be a school shooting," Monahan added, "and that shouldn't be a fear that we have, that our friends and teachers are gonna get shot."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

A week after six people including three 9-year-old children were shot dead in a Nashville elementary school and two days before planned nationwide protests, thousands of students walked out of classrooms across the Tennesee capital on Monday to demand gun control laws.

The advocacy group March for Our Lives (MFOL)—founded after the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Florida—organized Monday's protest to urge state lawmakers pass gun control legislation including better background checks and a ban assault weapons.

"The purpose of the rally is to show that the community has had enough and we are demanding change from the Tennessee Legislature," MFOL national organizer Ezri Tyler explained to WKRN.

"It's not drag queens. It's not books. Children are dying because of guns."

"The message overall is we know that right now, Tennessee is engaging in this culture war, where they're harming our communities by banning drag, by banning books, banning gender-affirming care," Tyler added. "But if they actually cared about protecting kids, as they claimed they would address what kills every single day, which is guns."

Gun violence is the leading cause of death for U.S. children.

MFOL organizer Brynn Jones toldWKRN that "it hits closer and closer, the longer and longer that you're, you know, hearing these stories just being like that it's the same story over and over again.

"But then hearing it on Monday that it was in Tennessee, it was in Nashville, 20 minutes from where I grew up, 20 minutes from where I go to school, hit incredibly close to home and felt personal in a way that it usually doesn't," Jones added.

Thousands of students marched to Legislative Plaza near the Tennessee State Capitol chanting "stop gun violence, we will not be silenced" and other slogans. Video recorded inside the Capitol showed demonstrators confronting state Rep. William Lamberth (R-44) and asking him why lawmakers won't "ban assault rifles."

The LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD tweeted: "It's not drag queens. It's not books. Children are dying because of guns. GLAAD stands with all of the students during today's walkout at the Tennessee State Capitol. Ban assault weapons—not drag performers, books, or lifesaving care for trans people."

However, Tennessee's Republican-controlled Legislature and GOP Gov. Bill Lee have gone in the opposite direction.

As The Associated Pressreports:

Already this year, Republican lawmakers have introduced bills that would make it easier to arm teachers and allow college students to carry weapons on campus. Democratic-led efforts to strengthen gun safety measures have faltered. On Tuesday, lawmakers delayed taking up any of the contentious gun-related bills, saying they wanted to offer respect to the community.

The most significant movement involves the state’s permitless carry law. In 2021, Lee led the charge to allow most adults 21 and older to carry handguns without first obtaining a permit that requires clearing a state background check and training. Thereafter, gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson announced plans to relocate its headquarters to Tennessee due to the state's "support for the 2nd Amendment."

Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones (D-52) said that three Democratic lawmakers were kicked off their committees and threatened with expulsion for standing with their constituents and demanding gun control legislation.

Monday's protest in Nashville came before another youth-led gun control group, Students Demand Action, is set to lead nationwide student walkouts on Wednesday.

"Being a student shouldn't be a death sentence but once again, gun violence has forced its way into our schools, leaving nothing but pain, trauma, and tragedy in its wake," the group said in a preview of Wednesday's action. "We need more than thoughts and prayers. We demand action from our lawmakers now."

Students Demand Action continued:

School shootings like this are not acts of nature—no other peer nation allows students to be shot and killed in schools like this. And it's not just gun violence in our schools. In America and in Tennessee, guns are the number one killer of American youth, and Tennessee lawmakers have done nothing but gut gun safety laws, putting gun industry profits ahead of the safety of our children.

"We won't accept a country where gunfire can ring out at any moment, whether it's while grocery shopping at a supermarket, hanging out at a park in your community, attending a party, or going to a restaurant for dinner," Students Demand Action added. "We deserve more."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman vocally condemned his Republican colleagues in a hallway outside the House chamber on Wednesday, calling them "freaking cowards" and "gutless" for refusing to support basic control measures in the wake of the nation's latest mass shooting—the 130th of the year.

As Bowman railed against GOP obstructionism, saying that Republicans "won't do anything to save the lives of our children," Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) stopped to ask the New York Democrat, "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about gun violence!" Bowman responded.

Massie—who in 2021 posted a Christmas photo in which he and his family members are holding guns—proceeded to tout a dangerous, NRA-backed proposal that Republicans float after virtually every school shooting in the U.S.: Arming teachers. (A number of states already allow teachers to carry firearms under certain conditions.)

Bowman, a former teacher and middle school principal, derided Massie's suggestion, replying: "More guns lead to more death. Look at the data." A study published in The BMJ in 2019 found that states with more lax gun regulation—and higher rates of gun ownership—experience higher rates of mass shootings.

Watch the heated exchange between Bowman and Massie, one of the most fervent opponents of gun regulations in Congress:

\u201cReps. Jamaal Bowman and Thomas Massie in a shouting match outside the House chamber on gun violence\u201d

— Ellis Kim (@Ellis Kim) 1680129701

Bowman later posted the exchange to his Twitter account, writing: "Republicans won't do SHIT when it comes to gun violence, but try to tell me to calm down."

"We can't calm down," he added. "People are dying every day while we wait."

There's no indication that Republicans intend to drop their opposition to popular gun control measures in the wake of the deadly shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville earlier this week.

"The things that have already been done have gone about as far as we're going with gun control," Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told CNN.

In an appearance on that same network on Tuesday, Bowman called gun violence "an American disease."

"We must vote anyone out of office who does not support a ban on assault rifles," he said. "Gun violence is the number one killer of children in America today. We have to do something about that."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

And now we have another mass school shooting, this time in Tennessee with three 9-year-old girls dead as well as 3 adults. Immediately followed by another pathetic Republican congressman claiming that Congress can’t do a thing.

A community is grieving, schoolkids across America are terrified, and after 130 mass shootings in the first 87 days of this year — 33 of them in schools and colleges — you’d think average Americans would finally understand the horrors of the gun violence Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court have inflicted on us.

This is a phenomenon as systemic and unique to the United States today as Jim Crow was in the 1950s. The gun control movement needs to learn from the Civil Rights movement.

Back in 1955, young Black people like 14-year-old Emmett Till were routinely murdered by white people all over America, usually with no consequence whatsoever.

Emmett Till was kidnapped by two Mississippi white men, brutally tortured, murdered, and his mangled body was thrown into the Tallahatchie River. (And the white men who did it, and the white woman who set it off with a lie, never suffered any consequence.)

His mother, Mamie Bradley, made the extraordinarily brave decision to show her child’s mutilated face with an open-coffin funeral in their hometown of Chicago.

Jet magazine ran a picture you can see here of Emmett, which went viral, invigorating the Civil Rights movement as it horrified the nation. As President Biden said last month, honoring the release of the new movie Till:

“JET magazine, the Chicago Defender and other Black newspapers were unflinching and brave in sharing the story of Emmett Till and searing it into the nation’s consciousness.”

That picture made real the horrors of white violence against Black people in America for those who were unfamiliar, or just unwilling, to confront it.

We’ve all heard about Newtown and Stoneman Douglas and Las Vegas, but have you ever seen pictures of the bodies mutilated by the .223 caliber bullets that semi-automatic assault weapons like the AR15 fire?

The odds are pretty close to zero; most Americans have no idea the kind of damage such weapons of war can do to people, particularly children.

But we need to learn.

In the 1980s, egged on by partisans in the Reagan administration, America’s antiabortion movement begin the practice of holding up graphic, bloody pictures of aborted fetuses as part of their demonstrations and vigils.

Their literature and magazines, and even some of their advertisements, often carry or allude to these graphic images.

Those in the movement will tell you that the decision to use these kinds of pictures was a turning point, when “abortion became real“ for many Americans, and even advocates of a woman’s right to choose an abortion started using phrases like “legal, safe, and rare.“

Similarly, when the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of 9-year-old “Napalm Girl” Phan Thị Kim Phúc running naked down a rural Vietnamese road after napalm caught her clothes on fire was published in 1972, it helped finally turned the tide on the Vietnam War.

Showing pictures in American media of the result of a mass shooter’s slaughter would be a controversial challenge.

There are legitimate concerns about sensationalizing violence, about morbid curiosity, about warping young minds and triggering PTSD for survivors of violence.

And yet, pictures convey reality in a way that words cannot. One of these days, the parents of children murdered in a school shooting may make the same decision Mamie Till did in 1955.

America’s era of mass shootings kicked off on August 1, 1966 when Charles Whitman murdered his mother and then climbed to the top of the clock tower at the University of Texas and begin shooting.

The vast majority of our mass killings, however, began during the Reagan/Bush administrations following the 1984 San Ysidro, California McDonald’s massacre, the Edmond, Oklahoma Post Office shooting of 1986, and the Luby’s Cafeteria massacre in Killeen, Texas in 1991.

We’ve become familiar with the names of the places, and sometimes the dates, but the horror and pain of the torn and exploded bodies has escaped us.

It’s time for America to confront the reality of gun violence. And all my years working in the advertising business tell me that a graphic portrayal of the consequences of their products is the greatest fear of America’s weapons manufacturers and the NRA.

We did it with tobacco and drunk driving back in the day, showing pictures of people missing half their jaw or mangled and bloody car wreckage, and it worked.

And now there’s a student-led movement asking states to put a check-box on driver’s licenses with the line:

“In the event that I die from gun violence please publicize the photo of my death. #MyLastShot.”

This isn’t, however, something that should just be tossed off, or thrown up on a webpage.

Leadership from multiple venues in American journalism — print, television, web-based publications — should get together and decide what photos to release, how to release them, and under what circumstances it could be done to provide maximum impact and minimum trauma.

But Americans must understand what’s really going on.

A decade ago, President Obama put then-VP Joe Biden in charge of his gun task force, and Joe Biden saw the pictures from school shootings back then.

Here’s how The New York Times quoted then-Vice President Biden:

“‘Jill and I are devastated. The feeling — I just can’t imagine how the families are feeling,’ he said, at times struggling to find the right words.”

Obama himself, after seeing the photos, broke into tears on national television.

And we appear to be tiptoeing up to the edge of doing exactly this. Yesterday’s Washington Post featured an article about what happens when people are shot by assault weapons and included this commentary:

“A Texas Ranger speaks of bullets that ‘disintegrated’ a toddler’s skull.
“This explains the lead poisoning that plagues survivors of the shooting in Sutherland Springs, Tex.; David Colbath, 61, can scarcely stand or use his hands without pain, and 25-year-old Morgan Workman probably can’t have a baby. It explains the evisceration of small bodies such as that of Noah Pozner, 6, murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, and Peter Wang, 15, killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. The Post examined the way bullets broke inside of them — obliterating Noah’s jaw and Peter’s skull, filling their chests with blood and leaving behind gaping exit wounds.”

But we need to go the next step and show the actual pictures for this truth about the horror of gun violence to become widely known. Doing this will take leadership.

And, of course, there must be a Mamie Bradley: a parent, spouse or other relation willing to allow the photos of their loved one to be used in this way.

In 1996 there was a horrific slaughter in Tasmania, Australia, by a shooter using an AR15-style weapon, culminating a series of mass shootings that had plagued that nation for over a decade.

While the Australian media generally didn’t publish the photos, they were widely circulated.

As a result the Australian public was so repulsed that within a year semi-automatic weapons in civilian hands were outlawed altogether, strict gun control measures were put into place, and a gun-buyback program went into effect that voluntarily took over 700,000 weapons out of circulation.

And that was with John Howard as Prime Minister — a conservative who was as hard-right as Ronald Reagan!

In the first years after the laws took place, firearms-related deaths in Australia fell by well over 40%, with suicides dropping by 77%. There have only been two mass killings in the 27 years since then.

The year 1996 was Australia’s Emmett Till moment.

America needs ours.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Thom Hartmann.

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten on Tuesday defended the egalitarian legacy and goals of public education and outlined a participatory plan to strengthen it nationwide as right-wing lawmakers intensify their long-standing assault on the institution.

"Attacks on public education are not new," the leader of the 1.7 million-member union said in an address to the National Press Club. "The difference today is that the attacks are intended to destroy it. To make it a battlefield, a political cudgel."

"We will continue to fight this defunding of our public schools and this dividing of our communities," said Weingarten. "But we also must do better to address the learning loss and disconnection we are seeing in our young people. And we can. We can make every public school a school where parents want to send their kids, educators want to work, and all students thrive."

The AFT president implored people to stand up for the future of public education, warning that its very existence is now threatened by a Republican-led effort to dismantle and privatize the schools attended by 90% of children in the United States.

"The Betsy DeVos wing of the school privatization movement is methodically working its plan," said Weingarten, referring to the Trump administration's pro-voucher education secretary. "Starve public schools of the funds they need to succeed. Criticize them for their shortcomings. Erode trust in public schools by stoking fear and division, including attempting to pit parents against teachers. Replace them with private, religious, online, and home schools."

"It's an extremist scheme by a very vocal minority of Americans," Weingarten noted. "And it's not what parents or the public want."

"We can make every public school a school where parents want to send their kids, educators want to work, and all students thrive."

According to Weingarten: "This year alone, 29 state legislatures are considering bills to either create or expand existing voucher programs. This is on top of the 72 voucher and tax credit programs in 33 states already subsidizing private and home schooling, costing billions every year. Voucher programs are proliferating even though research shows that, on average, vouchers negatively affect achievement—the declines are worse than pandemic learning loss. In fact, vouchers have caused 'some of the largest academic drops ever measured in the research record.'"

"And then there are the culture wars," said Weingarten. "What started as fights over pandemic-era safety measures has morphed into fearmongering: False claims that elementary and secondary schools are teaching critical race theory; disgusting, unfounded claims that teachers are grooming and indoctrinating students; and pronouncements that public schools push a 'woke' agenda, even though they can't or won't define what they mean. Banning books and bullying vulnerable children. School board meetings descending into screaming matches. This is an organized and dangerous effort to undermine public schools."

Last month, PEN America revealed that GOP officials across the United States introduced 84 educational gag orders during the first six weeks of 2023. This comes after Republican lawmakers put forth 190 bills designed to thwart classroom discussions of past and present injustices—including several proposals to establish so-called "tip lines" that would enable parents to punish school districts or individual teachers—in dozens of states in 2021 and 2022. Over the past two years, 19 laws aimed at silencing instruction about gender, sexuality, and racism were enacted in more than a dozen GOP-controlled states, plus eight measures imposed without legislation.

Moreover, the American Library Association reported last week that the far-right's campaign to ban books containing LGBTQ+ themes or stories about people of color has fueled an unprecedented rise in censorship attempts around the country, with 2,571 unique titles facing challenges in 2022, up 38% from the previous year.

"Their end goal," Weingarten said Tuesday during her speech, is "destroying public education as we know it, atomizing and balkanizing education in America, bullying the most vulnerable among us, and leaving the students with the greatest needs with the most meager resources."

To improve student outcomes and reclaim "the purpose and promise of public education," Weingarten shared the following four-part plan:

1. Opening 25,000 more community schools by 2025

As AFT explained in a statement, these schools "wrap academic counseling services, nutrition services, primary health and dental care, and much more around traditional schools to transform them into hubs that connect families and students with supports to learn and live."

2. Expanding experiential learning opportunities for all students, including career and technical education

According to Weingarten: "Experiential learning embeds the things that make kids want to be in school. The excitement of learning that is deeply engaging, and the joy of being together, especially after the isolation of the last few years. The camaraderie and responsibility of working together on a team. And in the age of AI and ChatGPT, this type of learning is critical to being able to think and write, solve problems, apply knowledge, and discern fact from fiction."

3. Reviving the teaching profession

With nearly 400,000 teachers "leaving the profession each year" and the teacher pipeline collapsing "as college students and career-changers choose not to go into education," Weingarten called for "treating educators as the professionals they are, with appropriate pay; time to plan and prepare for classes, to collaborate with colleagues, and to participate in meaningful professional development; and the power to make day-to-day classroom decisions."

4. Deepening partnerships with parents and community members

According to AFT, the union "has ramped up its Powerful Partnerships Institute, distributing 27 grants to locals totaling more than $1.5 million. For example, Montana is engaging thousands of public education-supporting families and educators across the state around a shared agenda. And New Haven is working with educators, families, and students on equitable school funding across Connecticut."

As part of AFT's Campaign for Our Shared Future, Weingarten announced the launch of a "Freedom to Teach and Learn" hotline for students, parents, teachers, and the public to document instances of censorship.

"Poll after poll has shown that parents and voters don't want politicized culture wars, they want schools and administrators to focus on what kids and communities need," AFT said. "The hotline—888-873-7227—will serve as a clearinghouse for reports of political interference. If Americans see something, they should say something."

In Weingarten's words, "It's a place to call if you've been told to remove a book from the curriculum or from the library, if you've been told that there are topics that can't be discussed in your classes or that you cannot teach honestly and appropriately, or if politicians in your district or state are targeting vulnerable student groups to score political points."

Alluding to AFT's four-point plan for greater investment and engagement, Weingarten said that "this is our agenda."

"But this can't just be the work of our union or of school staff and schools alone," she stressed. "This is the work of a great nation—to ensure that our children's basic human needs are met so they are ready to learn to their full potential."

"This can't just be the work of our union or of school staff and schools alone. This is the work of a great nation—to ensure that our children's basic human needs are met so they are ready to learn to their full potential."

"Our public schools shouldn't be pawns for politicians' ambitions. Or defunded and destroyed by ideologues," Weingarten continued. "We are at a crossroads: fear and division, or hope and opportunity."

"A great nation does not fear people being educated," she added. "A great nation does not fear pluralism. A great nation chooses freedom, democracy, equality, and opportunity. All of that starts in our public schools."

The labor leader opened with a moment of silence to honor the six people killed Monday in a shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville—just one of 130 mass shootings in the United States in 2023.

Lamenting the nation's "epidemic" of gun violence, Weingarten renewed AFT's demand for "commonsense gun safety legislation, including a ban on assault weapons"—a policy that helped reduce the number and severity of fatal mass shootings when it was in effect from 1994 to 2004.

Guns recently became the leading killer of children and teens in the United States. Research published last year found that approximately 26,000 kids could still be alive today if the U.S. had the same gun mortality rate as Canada.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

U.S. Congressman Tim Burchett was accused of saying "the quiet part out loud" after the Tennessee Republican responded to the massacre in Nashville on Monday by arguing there's not much Congress can do to prevent mass shootings.

Speaking to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol Monday afternoon following the murder of three 9-year-old children and three staff at the Covenant School in Nashville, Burchett lamented the deaths and said "it's a horrible, horrible situation."

But "we're not gonna fix it," he added, referring to U.S. mass shootings. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have already been 130 such shootings this year.

"Criminals are gonna be criminals," Burchett continued. "My daddy fought in the Second World War, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me, he said buddy... if somebody wants to take you out and doesn't mind losing their life, there's not a heck of a lot you can do about it."

When asked if there is anything Congress can do to curb gun violence, Burchett replied: "I don't see any real role that we could do other than mess things up, honestly... I don't think you're gonna stop the gun violence. I think we've got to change people's hearts."

"As a Christian, as we talk about in the church, and I've said this many times, I think we really need a revival in this country," he argued.

Asked what could be done "to protect people like your little girl," Burchett said, "Well, we homeschool her."

Burchett's nihilistic stance on gun violence stands in stark contrast to his ardent support for banning public drag shows—which Tennessee did, with a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Lee earlier this month.

"A grown man dressed up like a woman... dadgummit, we don't put up with that crap in Tennessee, and we shouldn't," Burchett said during an appearance on Newsmax earlier this month. "And the rest of the country should follow suit."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

On Monday morning, The Washington Postpublished a series of 3D animations to show "how bullets from an AR-15 blow the body apart."

A few hours later, a 28-year-old shooter armed with two assault rifles and a handgun killed six people at a private Christian school in Nashville.

In the wake of that massacre—the 129th mass shooting in the United States in 2023—the Post's exposé has received sustained attention, with one person calling it "the most powerful article you will read this week" and another characterizing it as "one of the most important pieces of journalism ever produced."

Noting that the lethal wounds caused by AR-15s "are rarely seen" by the public, the newspaper demonstrated "the trajectory of two different hypothetical gunshots to the chest—one from an AR-15 and another from a typical handgun—to explain the greater severity of the damage caused by the AR-15."

Then, after obtaining permission from the parents of two school shooting victims, a team of visual reporters created 3D models to depict how bullets fired from "many mass killers' weapon of choice" obliterated their children's bodies.

Noah Ponzer was one of the 26 people who were killed by an AR-15-wielding gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. The 6-year-old was shot three times.

"Noah's wounds were not survivable," the Post reported, citing 2019 court testimony from Wayne Carver, who was the state's chief medical examiner at the time.

Peter Wang was one of 17 people murdered when an attacker armed with an AR-15 opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018. The 15-year-old was shot 13 times.

As the Post reported: "The combined energy of those bullets created exit wounds so 'gaping' that the autopsy described his head as 'deformed.' Blood and brain splatter were found on his upper body and the walls. That degree of destruction, according to medical experts, is possible only with a high-velocity weapon."

"This is the trauma witnessed by first responders—but rarely, if ever, seen by the public or the policymakers who write gun laws," the newspaper noted.

Instead, many GOP lawmakers glorify assault rifles, including U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), whose congressional district is home to the Nashville school where Monday's deadly shooting took place.

Another right-wing member of Tennessee's congressional delegation—Republican Rep. Tim Burchett—baldly stated that "we're not gonna fix it" just hours after the shooting.

There are more guns than people in the United States. Due to National Rifle Association-bankrolled Republicans' opposition to meaningful gun safety laws—bolstered by a 2022 ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court's reactionary majority—it is relatively easy for people to purchase firearms in many states.

Two years ago, Tennessee became one of several states that allow most adults to carry handguns without a permit.

There have been thousands of mass shootings since Noah and more than two dozen other individuals suffered gruesome deaths at Sandy Hook, including last year's slaughter at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, among hundreds of others. Research shows that U.S. states with weaker gun control laws and higher rates of gun ownership have higher rates of mass shootings.

Research also shows that gun regulations with high levels of public support, including bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, help reduce the number and severity of fatal mass shootings.

Guns recently became the leading cause of death among children and teens in the United States. A study published last year found that roughly 26,000 kids could still be alive today if the U.S. had the same gun mortality rate as Canada.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

A gun control activist who survived last year's massacre at an Illinois July 4th parade spoke out at a police press conference on Monday's mass shooting at a Nashville elementary school to make an impassioned plea for gun control legislation.

"Aren't you guys tired of covering this? Aren't you guys tired of being here and having to cover all these mass shootings?" asked Ashbey Beasley. "I'm from Highland Park, Illinois. My son and I survived a mass shooting over the summer. I am in Tennessee on a family vacation with my son visiting my sister-in-law."

Beasley's comments came as TV news crews were wrapping up coverage of a Metro Nashville Police press conference after authorities announced the murder of six people—three staff members and three 9-year-old children—at the Covenant School by a 28-year-old former student armed with two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun.

"I have been lobbying in D.C. since we survived a mass shooting in July," Beasley continued. "I have met with over 130 lawmakers. How is this still happening? Why are our children still dying and why are we failing them?"

"We have to do something. We all have to call our lawmakers and we all have to make our lawmakers make change now," she added. "Or this is gonna keep happening and it's gonna be your kid, and your kid, and your kid, and your kid next."

In a separate interview on CNN, Beasley said that "this is just unacceptable. It's only in America can somebody survive a mass shooting and then go on vacation to visit another person they met through fighting for gun safety and find themselves near another mass shooting."

"Only in America does this happen where we keep seeing this again and again and again," she added, calling for stricter background checks on gun buyers and a ban on assault-style semi-automatic weapons.

Common Dreamsrecently reported on Jackie Matthews, a student during both the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut and the February Michigan State shooting.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

This is a developing story... Please check back for updates...

Three children and three adults were killed Monday by a shooter at the Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville which serves students from preschool through sixth grade.

The suspected killer—identified by police as Aubrey Hale, a 28-year-old transgender woman—was "engaged by police" who arrived at the scene Monday morning, and was reported dead, according toThe Tennessean.

Speaking to reporters, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said a clear motive has yet to be confirmed, but he did reference a map and manifesto by the alleged shooter and confirmed the shooting was a "targeted attack."

In an earlier news briefing, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department spokesperson Don Aaron said the shooter was armed with at least two assault rifles and a handgun.

Geoff Bennett of PBS Newshour reported the suspect entered the school through a side entrance.

Police responded to a call at 10:13 am regarding an "active shooter."

The Nashville Fire Department reported on Twitter that officials had set up a family reunification center at a nearby church at 2100 Woodmont Boulevard.

As Fox News covered the police department's press conference, a woman stepped up to a microphone on camera and asked the assembled news team, "Aren't you guys tired of being here and having to cover all of these mass shootings?"

"How is this still happening?" said the woman, who said she was from Highland Park, Illinois and survived the mass shooting there last summer. "How are our children still dying and why are we failing them?"

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the nation's oldest interfaith peace organization, said the shooting is only the latest which must force Americans to "face the irrefutable fact that uncontrolled access to firearms endangers us all."

"FOR calls on lawmakers and communities to take immediate action to finally prioritize life over the profits of firearm companies," said the organization. "As we bear witness to psalms being inscribed on assault weapons, we call out the perversion of our faith. Mary, the resolute mother of humanity, stood at the foot of the cross witnessing brutality, inhumanity, and death being inflicted on her child. Today we are all parents looking on as the brutality and death from another mass shooting, a crucifixion, is inflicted on our children."

"Like the Israelites stood praying at the shores of the Red Sea, as the Passover story tells," the group continued, "we must act to manifest our prayers and create a new covenant committed to honoring and saving lives rather than filling the coffers of firearms manufacturers."

Shannon Watts, founder of gun control group Moms Demand Action, took aim at Republican lawmakers in the state including Rep. Andy Ogles, who posed with his family holding assault rifles in front of their Christmas tree last year. Ogles represents the district where the Covenant School is located.

Watts also condemned Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who said he was "praying for the school, congregation, and Nashville community."

Lee signed legislation in 2021 to allow most adults in Tennessee carry a handgun without a permit.

Earlier this month, Lee also made Tennessee the first U.S. state to criminalize public drag shows, on the same day that he signed legislation banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth. Both laws, Republicans said, were aimed at protecting children.

"Just a reminder that the people talking about library books, history classes, and drag queens don't really give a shit about the well-being of children in this country," said Robert Maguire, research director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

The gunman who killed 10 people and injured three in a shooting at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York last May was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole, in an emotional hearing during which the family members of some of the victims addressed him directly.

Both Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan and the relatives spoke in no uncertain terms about the white supremacist views that led Payton Gendron to deliberately target a grocery store frequented by Black community members in an attack that he plotted for months beforehand.

"There is no place for you or your ignorant, hateful, and evil ideologies in a civilized society," Eagan told Gendron. "There can be no mercy for you, no understanding, no second chances. The damage you have caused is too great, and the people you have hurt are too valuable to this community. You will never see the light of day as a free man ever again."

"You are a cowardly racist. You recorded the last moments of our loved ones' lives to garner support for your hateful cause, but you immortalized them instead."

All 10 of the people Gendron killed in the massacre, which he livestreamed, were Black. Prior to the shooting, he professed a belief in so-called "replacement theory," the false notion that white Americans are being intentionally "replaced" by people of color.

"You are a cowardly racist," said Simone Crawley, whose grandmother, Ruth Whitfield, was killed in the shooting. "You recorded the last moments of our loved ones' lives to garner support for your hateful cause, but you immortalized them instead."

Crawley added that Gendron was the only person who directly carried out the attack, but rejected the label of "lone wolf," saying he is "part of a larger organized network of domestic terrorists."

"And to that network, we say we, as a people, are unbreakable," she said.

Gendron spoke briefly at the hearing, saying he is "very sorry" for carrying out the mass shooting and does not want similar racist attacks to take place.

"I shot and killed people because they were Black. Looking back now, I can't believe I actually did," he said. "I know I can't take it back, but I wish I could, and I don't want anyone to be inspired by me and what I did."

Gendron was not flagged by New York's "red flag law," which ostensibly allows law enforcement agents to remove firearms from the possession of people deemed a threat to themselves or others. In 2021, he underwent a psychiatric evaluation after threatening to commit a murder-suicide.

One spectator on Wednesday began screaming at Gendron as he spoke, and earlier in the hearing, a person was restrained after attempting to lunge at him.

The New York Timesreported that people assembled in the courtroom were heard "sobbing loudly into their hands" and that court security officers as well as a defense attorney representing Gendron became visibly emotional.

Gendron earlier pleaded guilty to 10 counts of first-degree murder and one count of domestic terrorism motivated by hate.

Federal hate crimes and weapons violation charges, some of which could carry a death penalty sentence, are pending.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Hours after a man opened fire on Monday night at two locations at Michigan State University, killing at least three students and injuring at least five, a 21-year-old student at the school posted a TikTok video to share that this was not the first mass shooting she'd survived.

"Ten years and two months ago I survived the Sandy Hook shooting," said Jackie Matthews, describing crouching in a corner with her classmates while a gunman fatally shot 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

"I am 21 years old," Matthews said. "The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible."

Matthews described the physical manifestation of the trauma left by surviving the Sandy Hook massacre, one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

"I now have a full-blown PTSD fracture [in my lower back] that flares up any time I am in a stressful situation," she said.

Timereported that a number of other students on campus were survivors of a 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan. U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who visited the campus, told the magazine that she had seen a number of students wearing shirts that read, "Oxford Strong," which were given to them after the shooting.

"I'll forever be Sandy Hook Strong," said Matthews, "and I'll forever be Spartan Strong."

"We've let down generations of children by letting this continue."

The Michigan State shooting followed the recent release of a study by gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety about survivors of gun violence.

Fifty-nine percent of U.S. adults now report that they or someone they know have experienced gun violence in their lifetime. More than 40% of those who have had personal experiences with gun violence say they have trauma as a result.

"The impact of gun violence extends beyond those who are wounded or killed," said Everytown. "The families, communities, and anyone with a personal experience of gun violence in their lifetime are also survivors of gun violence."

Matthews expressed solidarity with the families and friends of the three people who were killed Monday night at the school.

"But we can no longer just provide love and prayers," she said. "There needs to be legislation. There needs to be action. It's not okay. We can no longer allow this to happen. We cannot longer be complacent."

The law did not include universal background checks, which have the support of more than 90% of Americans, or a ban on assault weapons.

"We've let down generations of children by letting this continue," said progressive advocacy group Indivisible Michigan in response to Matthews' video. "We must act NOW."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

The right-wing 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday struck down a federal law barring people with domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms, a ruling that gun control advocates said will cost lives.

A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based appellate court said in its decision that the overturned law is an unconstitutional impediment to the right to bear arms. The judges based their ruling on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down that state's limits on carrying concealed guns in public.

The judges—who were all appointed by Republican presidents—wrote that under Bruen, the law prohibiting people with domestic violence restraining orders from owning guns "fails to pass constitutional muster," and that the ban is an outlier "that our ancestors never would have accepted."

Responding to the ruling, Shannon Watts, founder of the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, tweeted, "Given that domestic violence is often a precursor to gun violence, this ruling is a death sentence for women and families in the U.S."

\u201cI can feel my blood pressure rising with each paragraph of this Fifth Circuit opinion\n\nIt concludes that 'our ancestors would have never accepted' banning perpetrators of domestic violence from possessing guns\n\nTwo quick questions: whose ancestors and why should I care?\u201d

— Barred and Boujee (@Barred and Boujee) 1675369956

"When someone is able to secure a restraining order, we must do everything possible to keep them and their families safe—not empower the abuser with easy access to firearms," Watts added. "This dangerous and deadly ruling cannot stand and must quickly be overturned."

Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern warned via Twitter that "there is no real doubt that the 5th Circuit's decision is going to lead to more abusers murdering their wives and girlfriends. It will also increase mass shootings."

Stern noted that the U.S. Supreme Court "held that gun restrictions are only constitutional if they have historical analogs from 1791 or 1868. But domestic violence was widely accepted in those eras. So, the 5th Circuit says, the government can't disarm alleged domestic abusers today."

\u201cThe Dobbs decision overturning Roe was an act of violence against women. The 5th Circuit ruling that domestic abusers can keep their guns - also likely headed to SCOTUS - is another one.\nHow many times does it need to be made plain that Republican HATE women?\u201d

— Laura Chapin (@Laura Chapin) 1675374618

"To be clear—the reason there weren't laws disarming domestic abusers in 1791 or 1868 is because women were not equal citizens and domestic violence was not deemed a criminal offense by the men who made and enforced the laws," Stern added.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the presence of a firearm in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%. Each year, more than 600 U.S. women are shot to death by their intimate partners. That's one killing every 14 hours.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey on Thursday introduced legislation to outlaw the marketing of firearms to children amid growing outrage from federal lawmakers, gun violence prevention advocates, and parents over a weapon for kids inspired by the AR-15.

The Massachusetts Democrat's Protecting Kids From Gun Marketing Act would direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create rules to "prohibit any manufacturer, dealer, or importer, or agent thereof, from marketing or advertising a firearm or any firearm-related product to a minor in a manner that is designed, intended, or reasonably appears to be attractive to a minor."

The bill would also empower state attorneys general and private individuals to take legal action for violations of the rules.

"Imagine the public outcry if the alcohol or tobacco industries introduced child-friendly versions of their adult products."

The proposal follows recently renewed criticism of Illinois-based WEE1 Tactical for its JR-15. After coming under fire last year for branding that featured pacifier-sucking baby skulls with gun sights for eye sockets, the gunmaker scrapped the images and now says the firearm represents "a great American tradition," a "small piece of American freedom," and "American family values."

Markey led a May 2022 a letter calling on the FTC to investigate WEE1 Tactical for unfair or deceptive marketing tactics and last week, in the wake of a series of mass shootings, he joined a press conference during which senators repeated that demand.

"I am once again calling on the FTC to step up and use its authority to crack down on gunmakers who market their deadly weapons to America's youth," he said last week. "The deceptive and deadly marketing behind the 'JR-15' is grotesque and reflects the depth of the gun industry's moral depravity."

Markey also took aim at WEE1 Tactical's gun on Thursday, declaring that "a junior version of the AR-15 has no place in a kid's toy box."

"America's gun violence epidemic is claiming tens of thousands of lives each year as gunmakers, dealers, and vendors alike continue to put sales over safety by targeting kids with advertising of a deadly weapon," he said. "It's shameful, irresponsible, and dangerous. The FTC must act immediately to prohibit the marketing of these weapons to children, a step that could save lives."

The legislation is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

The bill is also supported by the organizations Brady, Everytown, Giffords, March For Our Lives, and the Violence Policy Center—whose executive director, Josh Sugarmann, said that "few Americans are aware that there is an ongoing, coordinated effort by the gun lobby and firearms industry targeting America's children and teens. Imagine the public outcry if the alcohol or tobacco industries introduced child-friendly versions of their adult products."

Giffords federal affairs director Adzi Vokhiwa stressed that "the gun industry's deceptive and reckless marketing practices have real consequences: Our nation's gun violence epidemic is worsening while the gun industry's profits soar. Promoting weapons to young people is especially heinous considering that guns are now the number one cause of death for children."

"It's time for Congress to take a stand and defend young peoples' lives against an immoral industry practice."

Just over a month into 2023, at least 154 children across the United States have been killed by gun violence and another 364 have been injured so far, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Last year, the totals were 1,675 and 4,479, respectively.

"There's no world in which deadly firearms manufacturers should advertise guns to children," said Zeenat Yahya, policy director, March for Our Lives, which was formed by students after the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

"Unsecured access to guns has killed far too many children and young people over the years," Yahya continued. "The very idea that gun manufacturers want to take advantage of young people by targeting young people who aren't even old enough to drive with ads that sell deadly weapons is sickening."

"It's time for Congress to take a stand and defend young peoples' lives against an immoral industry practice," she added, "and we're pleased to stand with Sen. Markey and our congressional partners in the introduction of this bill."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey on Thursday introduced legislation to outlaw the marketing of firearms to children amid growing outrage from federal lawmakers, gun violence prevention advocates, and parents over a weapon for kids inspired by the AR-15.

The Massachusetts Democrat's Protecting Kids From Gun Marketing Act would direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create rules to "prohibit any manufacturer, dealer, or importer, or agent thereof, from marketing or advertising a firearm or any firearm-related product to a minor in a manner that is designed, intended, or reasonably appears to be attractive to a minor."

The bill would also empower state attorneys general and private individuals to take legal action for violations of the rules.

"Imagine the public outcry if the alcohol or tobacco industries introduced child-friendly versions of their adult products."

The proposal follows recently renewed criticism of Illinois-based WEE1 Tactical for its JR-15. After coming under fire last year for branding that featured pacifier-sucking baby skulls with gun sights for eye sockets, the gunmaker scrapped the images and now says the firearm represents "a great American tradition," a "small piece of American freedom," and "American family values."

Markey led a May 2022 a letter calling on the FTC to investigate WEE1 Tactical for unfair or deceptive marketing tactics and last week, in the wake of a series of mass shootings, he joined a press conference during which senators repeated that demand.

"I am once again calling on the FTC to step up and use its authority to crack down on gunmakers who market their deadly weapons to America's youth," he said last week. "The deceptive and deadly marketing behind the 'JR-15' is grotesque and reflects the depth of the gun industry's moral depravity."

Markey also took aim at WEE1 Tactical's gun on Thursday, declaring that "a junior version of the AR-15 has no place in a kid's toy box."

"America's gun violence epidemic is claiming tens of thousands of lives each year as gunmakers, dealers, and vendors alike continue to put sales over safety by targeting kids with advertising of a deadly weapon," he said. "It's shameful, irresponsible, and dangerous. The FTC must act immediately to prohibit the marketing of these weapons to children, a step that could save lives."

The legislation is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

The bill is also supported by the organizations Brady, Everytown, Giffords, March For Our Lives, and the Violence Policy Center—whose executive director, Josh Sugarmann, said that "few Americans are aware that there is an ongoing, coordinated effort by the gun lobby and firearms industry targeting America's children and teens. Imagine the public outcry if the alcohol or tobacco industries introduced child-friendly versions of their adult products."

Giffords federal affairs director Adzi Vokhiwa stressed that "the gun industry's deceptive and reckless marketing practices have real consequences: Our nation's gun violence epidemic is worsening while the gun industry's profits soar. Promoting weapons to young people is especially heinous considering that guns are now the number one cause of death for children."

"It's time for Congress to take a stand and defend young peoples' lives against an immoral industry practice."

Just over a month into 2023, at least 154 children across the United States have been killed by gun violence and another 364 have been injured so far, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Last year, the totals were 1,675 and 4,479, respectively.

"There's no world in which deadly firearms manufacturers should advertise guns to children," said Zeenat Yahya, policy director, March for Our Lives, which was formed by students after the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

"Unsecured access to guns has killed far too many children and young people over the years," Yahya continued. "The very idea that gun manufacturers want to take advantage of young people by targeting young people who aren't even old enough to drive with ads that sell deadly weapons is sickening."

"It's time for Congress to take a stand and defend young peoples' lives against an immoral industry practice," she added, "and we're pleased to stand with Sen. Markey and our congressional partners in the introduction of this bill."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Days in January: 31. Number of mass shootings in the US as of January 25, according to the Gun Violence Archive: 40. (I pray the number hasn't gone up by the time you read this.)

From cries of madness to tears of rage; from citizen fury to congressional prayers, we careen toward a future where a visit to a ballroom dance studio (Monterey Park), mushroom farm (Half Moon Bay), or gas station (Oakland)—all in California—could be the location where you are murdered. Add those sites to this incomplete list: movie theaters, houses of worship, big box stores, and that old standby: schools.

Speaking of schools, let's pause for a moment to contemplate the dystopian story of a six-year-old boy who shot his teacher at a school in Virginia, using a gun his mother had legally purchased. We have safety caps on Tylenol that many adults struggle to open, and we can't prevent a child from firing a gun?

Sadly, in addition to schools being where you might find victims of shootings, it's also where you can likely now turn to find a new crop of shooters, courtesy of the gun lobby.

Get ready for the WEE1 Tactical JR-15 rifle, designed specifically for children. This "rifle for kids," the JR-15 rifle—get it, "junior"-sized—is sold by the WEE1 Tactical firearm company. And, good news, kids: it only weighs two pounds.

In a press release, the company wrote: "Our goal was to develop a shooting platform that was not only sized correctly, and safe, but also looks, feels, and operates just like Mom and Dad's gun... The WEE1 and Schmid Tool Team brought their collective experience in the firearms business… to launch the JR-15. We are so excited to start capturing the imagination of the next generation."

While the JR-15 is a .22 caliber rifle—commonly used for hunting small game or for marksmanship, the JR-15 is manufactured with a distinctly military and tactical look so it resembles an AR-15, you know, the weapon most commonly used in countless mass shootings.

Enough is freakin' enough. Time's up, America.

How about adults—parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles—getting off the couch so the Parkland high school generation of anti-gun activists doesn't have to do all the heavy lifting? What is stopping us from showing up en masse at meetings of our city councils and school boards? When are some of us going to our state capitols and the halls of Congress, sitting in outside legislators' offices? And when are others picketing in front of the corporate offices of the gun manufacturers? If there was such a thing as a nonviolent insurrection to stop gun violence, we ought to wage it now.

There have been modest gains in recent years, thanks to the tireless effort of hardworking advocates and activists, but nothing has worked… yet. From Sandy Hook to Uvalde, the gun rights über alles crowd keeps on keepin' on.

Consider what Republican extremist Georgia Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene said after the horrifying mass murder of 19 children and two teachers last May: "The kids at Uvalde needed JR-15s to defend themselves..." This is madness.

We must stop the (gun crowd) steal; we have to stop them from stealing our lives.

A couple of years ago somebody said—in a completely different context—"we [need to] fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

Well, we can have a country, if we launch a sustained nationwide, nonviolent movement to end the scourge of gun violence.

Dammit! What are we waiting for?

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Rob Okun.

An anecdote told by California Gov. Gavin Newsom at a press conference on the mass shooting in Half Moon Bay—the second such appearance he made in two days, following another deadly shooting in Monterey Park—encapsulated the United States' twin crises of economic injustice and rampant gun violence, said advocates on Monday.

The Democratic governor told the press that while visiting a man who'd been injured in the shooting at two farms in the Bay Area city, the victim said he was hoping to leave the hospital quickly to avoid high medical bills.

"He said, 'Hey, Governor, thanks for being here but when am I gonna get the hell out of here?'" Newsom said. "His leg was shattered by the gunfire. He goes, 'I can't afford to spend any more time here, I don't have the money."

"How many people are shot and then face massive medical debt? How much revenue and profit do hospitals generate via shootings? Perversity through and through."

The man's mother and son later arrived and told Newsom they were "worried he's going to lose his job at a warehouse the next day unless he can go back to work."

Politico reporter Lara Korte relayed the governor's comments on social media, eliciting numerous responses in which critics—including advocates for Medicare for All and strict gun control—said the post represented "the United States of America in one tweet."

"This is the most American tweet of all time," added progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski.

The shooting in Half Moon Bay was one of dozens of shootings since 2023 began just over three weeks ago. Along with the shooting in Monterey Park last Saturday and the shooting of a family in Enoch, Utah on January 4, it was one of the deadliest attacks so far.

Dr. Adam Gaffney, an intensive care unit doctor and former president of Physicians for a National Health Program, called Newsom's story "a gut-wrenching indictment of our healthcare system."

Dania Palanker, an assistant research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy, noted that the costs associated with being one of the millions of Americans who will survive gun violence in their lifetime are an often-overlooked consequence of the Republican Party's obstruction as the vast majority of Americans call for stricter gun control.

As CNNreported in December, one insured survivor of the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs received a bill for $130,000, while another person who was among the 27.5 million Americans who lack health insurance was billed $20,000 for spending a night in the emergency room where doctors stitched a bullet wound in his leg.

The Journal of the American Medical Associationpublished a study last May showing that the average initial hospital charge for mass shooting survivors between 2012 and 2019 was nearly $65,000 per person.

"How many people are shot and then face massive medical debt?" asked physician and anthropologist Eric Reinhart. "How much revenue and profit do hospitals generate via shootings? Perversity through and through."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

A gunman killed at least seven people in the small California city of Half Moon Bay on Monday, the second mass shooting in the state in three days and one of nearly 40 that have occurred since the start of the new year—a rolling epidemic of violence that Congress has repeatedly met with inaction or inadequate compromises with gun lobby-backed Republicans.

The Associated Pressreported that police "arrested a suspect in Monday's shootings, 67-year-old Chunli Zhao, after they found him in his car in the parking lot of a sheriff's substation." Officers found a semi-automatic handgun in the suspect's vehicle.

"Four people were found dead and a fifth injured from gunshot wounds at a farm, and officers found three other people killed at another location several miles away," AP noted. "Officials believe Zhao is a worker at one of the facilities and that the victims were workers as well."

The deadly shootings at two separate locations on Monday came after a gunman massacred 11 people in Monterey Park, California on Saturday. Investigators reportedly collected more than 40 bullet casings at the dance studio where the mass shooting took place. The gunman, 72-year-old Huu Can Tran—who took his own life—had previously been arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm.

Police said the gunman used a semi-automatic pistol with an "extended large-capacity magazine."

"It's not clear how the shooter obtained the gun, which was a Cobray M11 9mm semi-automatic weapon compatible with 30-round magazines," Vox's Nicole Narea wrote Monday. "It's also not clear whether the shooter legally obtained a second weapon recovered from inside his van—a handgun that he used to fatally shoot himself. The second weapon can be bought in California; the first has been banned in the state for more than three decades.

"That the semi-automatic weapon is currently illegal in the state makes California unusual; such weapons can be legally purchased in the majority of the U.S.," Narea observed. "And that's led California politicians to call not just for stronger laws in the state, but across the U.S."

The latest string of mass shootings sparked an all-too-familiar outpouring of grief and anger, the latter directed at lawmakers who refuse to support basic and popular gun-safety measures, prioritizing the interests of profit-seeking gun manufacturers and lobbying groups that help bankroll their political campaigns.

"Every time you vote for a lawmaker who opposes gun safety, you're voting for policies that make it more likely your loved one will be slaughtered," Shannon Watts, founder of the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, said late Monday, pointing to other recent shootings in Des Moines, Iowa and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

"Every time you vote for a lawmaker who opposes gun safety, you’re voting for policies that make it more likely your loved one will be slaughtered."

According to the Gun Violence Archive, 39 mass shootings have taken place across the United States this month alone, leaving 70 dead and dozens more injured.

"What kind of country are we going to be?" Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, asked late Monday. "This is a national emergency and Congress must act this week."

But with Republicans in control of the House and the Senate closely divided, any substantial legislative action on gun violence is unlikely.

Last year, in the wake of a massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, President Joe Biden signed into law a bipartisan measure that includes expanded background checks and incentives for states to enact red flag laws. Gun control advocates slammed the bill as "crumbs" and demanded much more—from universal background checks to a ban on assault weapons.

On Monday, a group of Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation that would "ban the sale, transfer, manufacture, and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and other high-capacity ammunition feeding devices."

"It is far past time to reenact an assault weapons ban and get these weapons of war out of our communities," Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) said in a statement. "We passed the assault weapons ban in the House last year with bipartisan support, which was then blocked by Senate Republicans. We need to come together to enact this commonsense, effective, and proven policy to reduce gun violence and save lives."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

A Utah-based gunmaker came under fire again Tuesday for rebranding a semi-automatic rifle for children inspired by the AR-15 that's so commonly used in U.S. mass shootings.

A year ago, WEE1 Tactical—maker of the lightweight JR-15 assault-style rifle that "operates just like mom and dad's gun"—sparked outrage with marketing featuring pacifier-sucking baby skulls with gunsights for eye sockets. The gun made headlines again in 2022 after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted that students at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas "needed JR-15s to defend themselves" against a gunman who killed 19 children and two staff members with an AR-15-style rifle.

Since then, WEE1 Tactical has shifted its branding strategy. The baby skulls are gone; now the JR-15 represents "a great American tradition," a "small piece of American freedom," and "American family values."

Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center and author of a 2016 study on the firearms industry's gun-grooming of American children, led criticism of the JR-15 rebrand.

"WEE1 Tactical has adopted this supposedly kinder, gentler marketing approach because it knows from experience that most Americans are shocked and disgusted by the idea of manufacturing semi-automatic assault rifles designed for grade schoolers," Sugarmann said in a statement. "The company's persistence in selling assault rifles for children makes clear the need for continued vigilance by parents and communities as well as legislative action."

WEE1 Tactical is displaying the JR-15 at SHOT Show 2023, a major National Shooting Sports Foundation trade show that opened Tuesday at the Venetian Expo and Caesars Forum in Las Vegas. That's about three miles from where a man armed with 24 guns including 14 AR-15-type rifles massacred 60 people at a 2017 country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

The JR-15 is not an AR-15, the civilian version of the M16 and its more modern offshoot, the M4 carbine, used by the U.S. military since the Vietnam War era. Instead of the NATO-standard 5.56 mm bullets fired by the AR-15, the JR-15 uses .22 caliber rounds which, while still potentially deadly, are much smaller, far less powerful, and commonly associated with a youth's first hunting or sporting rifle.

However, gun control advocates note that children made up nearly 1,700 of the more than 44,000 people killed with guns in the United States last year. Earlier this month, a 6-year-old brought a gun to his elementary school in Newport News, Virginia and allegedly shot his teacher during an altercation.

"Call me crazy but just weeks after a 6-year-old shot his teacher I don't think it's a great idea to be releasing a kids version of the AR-15," tweeted David Hogg, co-founder of March for Our Lives and a survivor of the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Florida, in which the gunman used an AR-15-style rifle to murder 14 students and three staff.

In California, state Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-19) last year introduced a bill that would ban the marketing of guns to children.

Last year, the Kaiser Family Foundation published a study showing that roughly 26,000 U.S. children would still be alive if the country had the same child gun death rate as Canada.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

It was the guacamole’s fault!

That’s the guy’s defense, anyway — that plus his right to carry four handguns, an AR-15 and a 12-guage shotgun into a supermarket in Atlanta. Oh yeah, and he was wearing body armor. This was in March 2021, barely a week after an actual mass shooting at several massage parlors in Atlanta, in which eight people were killed. And it was only two days after a mass shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, where ten people were killed.

When another customer saw the guy in the store’s bathroom, with the AR-15 propped against a wall, and alerted store personnel to the presence of a possible mass murderer, the panic was certainly understandable. The store was evacuated, police came, the gun carrier was arrested. But, as the New York Times asked in a story about the incident nearly two years later: Did he break the law?

When I read this paradoxical story the other day — about how the arrestee hadn’t actually committed a crime and was not convicted of any wrongdoing — the psychological stratosphere broke open for me. Who are we . . . as a nation, as a planet, as an evolving species? Here’s the thing about paradox: You can’t simply shoot it, blow it apart, then move on. You have to swallow it whole. You have to transcend it.

What is freedom — in this case, the freedom to be armed and, you know, able to defend yourself? Does one man’s freedom force the rest of us to watch their country turn into a John Wayne movie?

The Times story informs us that the defense attorney told the court his client “had acquired the guns and the body armor . . . because he had felt threatened by someone in his neighborhood. On the day of his arrest, he had hoped to take his guns to a nearby shooting range but first had to run some errands, which included a stop at the grocery store.”

And, oh yeah, he didn’t have a car, which is why he had lugged the guns — handguns in his jacket pockets, the rifle and shotgun in a guitar case — into the store. While he was in the men’s room, he “had taken out some of the weapons, including the rifle, to clean them after discovering that some guacamole he had bought had caused a mess inside the bag.”

And there you have it. A normal American situation. Well, sure, as the Times points out: “All but three states allow for the open carry of handguns, long guns or both, and in many there is little the police can do.”

Hence, the paradox. Of course, there’s one small detail the Times story omits. The police dilemma can suddenly disappear if the person legally carrying a gun happens to be black, as the Philando Castile case demonstrated back in 2016.

Castile, a black man who was licensed to carry a handgun, was driving with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter in a suburb near Saint Paul, Minnesota, when his car was pulled over. Castile explained to the officer that he was legally carrying a handgun, but as he was trying to pull out his driver’s license, the officer shot him seven times, killing him. The officer was later arrested and charged with manslaughter, but was acquitted.

So the paradox expands: weapons, force, fear, dehumanization and . . . racism.

“This is the American paradox in full blossom.” So I wrote last year, pondering the endless question. “The more people there are carrying guns, especially in public places, the more dangerous it is simply to be out and about; and the more dangerous it is to be out in public, the more credibility Second Amendment aficionados have when they claim they are only safe if they’re carrying a weapon.”

Except they aren’t safe at all — they’re just swimming in the chaos, clinging to a belief that their guns make them safe. But such a belief is crucial. I understand the need to believe one is safe. When I moved to Chicago from rural Michigan — my God, almost half a century ago, in search of a career in journalism — I wasn’t sure how I’d fare in the dangerous big city. But I was a peacenik, not a gun guy. Here’s what I decided: I’ll look everyone in the eye. I will not be afraid.

That is to say, I gave myself agency. And this is what worked — the fact that I felt empowered. And I didn’t care what neighborhood I was in. The white-person mantra was: Stay out of such-and-such neighborhood . . . Cabrini-Green or whatever. You know, neighborhoods of color, a.k.a., ghettos. Don’t go there! I paid no attention to that, and the whole city became mine.

I’m not saying life has been perfect — free of trouble. I was once mugged by three teens in hoodies, a few blocks from my house. Life is what it is. The world is full of thorns and potholes. No one is fully safe, forever and ever.

And the paradox doesn’t go away. How much force is necessary to get what we want? Historian Timothy Snyder, in a recent interview with Rachel Maddow reflecting on the Jan. 8 attack on the Brazilian capital by supporters of defeated president Jair Bolsonaro (and its similarity to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. capital by Trump supporters), said:

“When you trash the place, you’re showing, symbolically, that institutions don’t matter. What matters is force. What matters is will. You disrespect an institution . . . a strongman should be running the country. You humiliate the institution, then you get the strongman.”

And the strongman may kill his enemies, but he can’t kill the paradox.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Robert C. Koehler.

Let me start with a confession: I no longer read all the way through newspaper stories about the war in Ukraine. After years of writing about war and torture, I’ve reached my limit. These days, I just can’t pore through the details of the ongoing nightmare there. It’s shameful, but I don’t want to know the names of the dead or examine images caught by brave photographers of half-exploded buildings, exposing details — a shoe, a chair, a doll, some half-destroyed possessions — of lives lost, while I remain safe and warm in San Francisco. Increasingly, I find that I just can’t bear it.

And so I scan the headlines and the opening paragraphs, picking up just enough to grasp the shape of Vladimir Putin’s horrific military strategy: the bombing of civilian targets like markets and apartment buildings, the attacks on the civilian power grid, and the outright murder of the residents of cities and towns occupied by Russian troops. And these aren’t aberrations in an otherwise lawfully conducted war. No, they represent an intentional strategy of terror, designed to demoralize civilians rather than to defeat an enemy military. This means, of course, that they’re also war crimes: violations of the laws and customs of war as summarized in 2005 by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The first rule of war, as laid out by the ICRC, requires combatant countries to distinguish between (permitted) military and (prohibited) civilian targets. The second states that “acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population” — an all-too-on-target summary of Russia’s war-making these last 10 months — “are prohibited.” Violating that prohibition is a crime.

The Great Exceptions

How should war criminals be held accountable for their actions? At the end of World War II, the victorious Allies answered this question with trials of major German, and Japanese officials. The most famous of these were held in the German city of Nuremberg, where the first 22 defendants included former high government officials, military commanders, and propagandists of the Nazi regime, as well as the banker who built its war machine. All but three were convicted and 12 were hanged..

The architects of those Nuremberg trials — representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France — intended them as a model of accountability for future wars. The best of those men (and most of them were men) recognized their debt to the future and knew they were establishing a precedent that might someday be held against their own nations. The chief prosecutor for the United States, Robert H. Jackson, put it this way: “We must not forget that the record on which we judge the defendants today is the record on which we will be judged tomorrow.”

Indeed, the Nuremberg jurists fully expected that the new United Nations would establish a permanent court where war criminals who couldn’t be tried in their home countries might be brought to justice. In the end, it took more than half a century to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC). Only in 1998 did 60 nations adopt the ICC’s founding document, the Rome Statute. Today, 123 countries have signed.

Russia is a major exception, which means that its nationals can’t be tried at the ICC for war crimes in Ukraine. And that includes the crime the Nuremberg tribunal identified as the source of all the rest of the war crimes the Nazis committed: launching an aggressive, unprovoked war.

Guess what other superpower has never signed the ICC? Here are a few hints:

• Its 2021 military budget dwarfed that of the next nine countries combined and was 1.5 times the size of what the world’s other 144 countries with such budgets spent on defense that year.
• Its president has just signed a $1.7 trillion spending bill for 2023, more than half of which is devoted to “defense” (and that, in turn, is only part of that country’s full national security budget).
• It operates roughly 750 publicly acknowledged military bases in at least 80 countries.
• In 2003, it began an aggressive, unprovoked (and disastrous) war by invading a country 6,900 miles away.

War Crimes? No, Thank You

Yes, the United States is that other Great Exception to the rules of war. While, in 2000, during the waning days of his presidency, Bill Clinton did sign the Rome Statute, the Senate never ratified it. Then, in 2002, as the Bush administration was ramping up its “global war on terror,” including its disastrous occupation of Afghanistan and an illegal CIA global torture program, the United States simply withdrew its signature entirely. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld then explained why this way:

“…[T]he ICC provisions claim the authority to detain and try American citizens — U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, as well as current and future officials — even though the United States has not given its consent to be bound by the treaty. When the ICC treaty enters into force this summer, U.S. citizens will be exposed to the risk of prosecution by a court that is unaccountable to the American people, and that has no obligation to respect the Constitutional rights of our citizens.”

That August, in case the U.S. stance remained unclear to anyone, Congress passed, and President George W. Bush signed, the American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002. As Human Rights Watch reported at the time, “The new law authorizes the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the [International Criminal] Court, which is located in The Hague.” Hence, its nickname: the “Hague Invasion Act.” A lesser-known provision also permitted the United States to withdraw military support from any nation that participates in the ICC.

The assumption built into Rumsfeld’s explanation was that there was something special — even exceptional — about U.S. citizens. Unlike the rest of the world, we have “Constitutional rights,” which apparently include the right to commit war crimes with impunity. Even if a citizen is convicted of such a crime in a U.S. court, he or she has a good chance of receiving a presidential pardon. And were such a person to turn out to be one of the “current and future officials” Rumsfeld mentioned, his or her chance of being hauled into court would be about the same as mine of someday being appointed secretary of defense.

The United States is not a member of the ICC, but, as it happens, Afghanistan is. In 2018, the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, formally requested that a case be opened for war crimes committed in that country. TheNew York Timesreported that Bensouda’s “inquiry would mostly focus on large-scale crimes against civilians attributed to the Taliban and Afghan government forces.” However, it would also examine “alleged C.I.A. and American military abuse in detention centers in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, and at sites in Poland, Lithuania, and Romania, putting the court directly at odds with the United States.”

Bensouda planned an evidence-gathering trip to the United States, but in April 2019, the Trump administration revoked her visa, preventing her from interviewing any witnesses here. It then followed up with financial sanctions on Bensouda and another ICC prosecutor, Phakiso Mochochoko.

Republicans like Bush and Trump are not, however, the only presidents to resist cooperating with the ICC. Objection to its jurisdiction has become remarkably bipartisan. It’s true that, in April 2021, President Joe Biden rescinded the strictures on Bensouda and Mochochoko, but not without emphasizing this exceptional nation’s opposition to the ICC as an appropriate venue for trying Americans. The preamble to his executive order notes that

“the United States continues to object to the International Criminal Court’s assertions of jurisdiction over personnel of such non-States Parties as the United States and its allies absent their consent or referral by the United Nations Security Council and will vigorously protect current and former United States personnel from any attempts to exercise such jurisdiction.”

Neither Donald Rumsfeld nor Donald Trump could have said it more clearly.

So where do those potential Afghan cases stand today? A new prosecutor, Karim Khan, took over as 2021 ended. He announced that the investigation would indeed go forward, but that acts of the U.S. and allies like the United Kingdom would not be examined. He would instead focus on actions of the Taliban and the Afghan offshoot of the Islamic State. When it comes to potential war crimes, the United States remains the Great Exception.

In other words, although this country isn’t a member of the court, it wields more influence than many countries that are. All of which means that, in 2023, the United States is not in the best position when it comes to accusing Russia of horrifying war crimes in Ukraine.

What the Dickens?

I blame my seven decades of life for the way my mind can now meander. For me, “great exceptions” brings to mind Charles Dickens’s classic story Great Expectations. His novels exposed the cruel reality of life among the poor in an industrializing Great Britain, with special attention to the pain felt by children. Even folks whose only brush with Dickens was reading Oliver Twist or watching The Muppets Christmas Carol know what’s meant by the expression “Dickensian poverty.” It’s poverty with that extra twist of cruelty — the kind the American version of capitalism has so effectively perpetuated.

When it comes to poverty among children, the United States is indeed exceptional, even among the 38 largely high-income nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As of 2018, the average rate of child poverty in OECD countries was 12.8%. (In Finland and Denmark, it was only 4%!) For the United States, with the world’s highest gross domestic product, however, it was 21%.

Then, something remarkable happened. In year two of the Covid pandemic, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan, which (among other measures) expanded the child tax credit from $2,000 up to as much as $3,600 per child. The payments came in monthly installments and, unlike the Earned Income Credit, a family didn’t need to have any income to qualify. The result? An almost immediate 40% drop in child poverty. Imagine that!

Given such success, you might think that keeping an expanded child tax credit in place would be an obvious move. Saving little children from poverty! But if so, you’ve failed to take into account the Republican Party’s remarkable commitment to maintaining its version of American exceptionalism. One of the items that the party’s congressional representatives managed to get expunged from the $1.7 trillion 2023 appropriation bill was that very expanded child tax credit. It seems that cruelty to children was the Republican party’s price for funding government operations.

Charles Dickens would have recognized that exceptional — and gratuitous — piece of meanness.

The same bill, by the way, also thanks to Republican negotiators, ended universal federal public-school-lunch funding, put in place during the pandemic’s worst years. And lest you think the Republican concern with (extending) poverty ended with starving children, the bill also will allow states to resume kicking people off Medicaid (federally subsidized health care for low-income people) starting in April 2023. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that one in five Americans will lose access to medical care as a result.

Great expectations for 2023, indeed.

We’re the Exception!

There are, in fact, quite a number of other ways in which this country is also exceptional. Here are just a few of them:

• Children killed by guns each year. In the U.S. it’s 5.6 per 100,000. That’s seven times as high as the next highest country, Canada, at 0.8 per 100,000.
• Number of required paid days off per year. This country is exceptional here as well, with zero mandatory days off and 10 federal holidays annually. Even Mexico mandates six paid vacation days and seven holidays, for a total of 13. At the other end of the scale, Chile, France, Germany, South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom all require a combined total of more than 30 paid days off per year.
• Life expectancy. According to 2019 data, the latest available from the World Health Organization for 183 countries, U.S. average life expectancy at birth for both sexes is 78.5 years. Not too shabby, right? Until you realize that there are 40 countries with higher life expectancy than ours, including Japan at number one with 84.26 years, not to mention Chile, Greece, Peru, and Turkey, among many others.
• Economic inequality. The World Bank calculates a Gini coefficient of 41.5 for the United States in 2019. The Gini is a 0-to-100-point measure of inequality, with 0 being perfect equality. The World Bank lists the U.S. economy as more unequal than those of 142 other countries, including places as poor as Haiti and Niger. Incomes are certainly lower in those countries, but unlike the United States, the misery is spread around far more evenly.
• Women’s rights. The United States signed the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1980, but the Senate has never ratified it (thank you again, Republicans!), so it doesn’t carry the force of law here. Last year, the right-wing Supreme Court gave the Senate a helping hand with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade. Since then, several state legislatureshave rushed to join the handful of nations that outlaw all abortions. The good news is that voters in states from Kansas to Kentucky have ratified women’s bodily autonomy by rejecting anti-abortion ballot propositions.
• Greenhouse gas emissions. Well, hooray! We’re no longer number one in this category. China surpassed us in 2006. Still, give us full credit; we’re a strong second and remain historically the greatest greenhouse gas emitter of all time.

Make 2023 a (Less) Exceptional Year

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were just a little less exceptional? If, for instance, in this new year, we were to transfer some of those hundreds of billions of dollars Congress and the Biden administration have just committed to enriching corporate weapons makers, while propping up an ultimately unsustainable military apparatus, to the actual needs of Americans? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if just a little of that money were put into a new child tax credit?

Sadly, it doesn’t look very likely this year, given a Congress in which, however minimally and madly, the Republicans control the House of Representatives. Still, whatever the disappointments, I don’t hate this country of mine. I love it — or at least I love what it could be. I’ve just spent four months on the front lines of American politics in Nevada, watching some of us at our very best risk guns, dogs, and constant racial invective to get out the vote for a Democratic senator.

I’m reminded of poet Lloyd Stone’s words that I sang as a teenager to the tune of Sibelius’s Finlandia hymn:

“My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine
But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,
And skies are somewhere blue as mine.
Oh, hear my prayer, O gods of all the nations
A song of peace for their lands and for mine”

So, no great expectations in 2023, but we can still hope for a few exceptions, can’t we?

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Rebecca Gordon.

Despite acknowledging "tremendous" public pressure to impose a ban on bump stocks, a firearm attachment used in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, a federal appeals court on Friday rejected a 2019 Trump administration rule barring people from owning the instruments.

In a 13-3 ruling, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that the ban violated the Administrative Procedure Act and that the U.S. Congress must act to ban bump stocks rather than the executive branch.

The majority, made up mostly of judges appointed by Republican presidents, said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) at the U.S. Department of Justice wrongly interpreted a law banning machine guns when they extended that ban to bump stocks in 2019, two years after a gunman killed 60 people and injured hundreds of others in a shooting at a concert in Las Vegas.

"A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of 'machine gun' set forth in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act," Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the majority opinion.

The gunman used bump stocks to modify 12 firearms he used when he shot at the crowd from a hotel room. Bump stocks can be used to replace a rifle's stock, which is held against the shooter's shoulder, and allows the weapon to fire multiple rounds of ammunition more rapidly.

The three judges who dissented in Friday's ruling were appointed by Democratic presidents. One, Judge Stephen Higginson, wrote in an opinion that the majority employed technical legal reasoning "to legalize an instrument of mass murder," after three other federal appeals courts rejected challenges to the bump stock ban and the Supreme Court declined to hear appeals to two of those rulings last year.

"Under the majority's rule, the defendant wins by default whenever the government fails to prove that a statute unambiguously criminalizes the defendant's conduct," wrote Higginson.

Following Friday's decision, the Supreme Court could ultimately rule on the legality of bump stocks in the future.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Nearly three years after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked worldwide protests demanding far-reaching reforms to stop law enforcement agents from perpetrating violence against the communities they're meant to protect, new data shows 2022 was the deadliest year on record for people who had police encounters in the United States.

At least 1,176 people were killed by police officers last year, according to the project Mapping Police Violence—the most since experts began tracking police violence and the use of deadly force.

The number represents the killing of more than three people per day on average by police officers, or nearly 100 per month last year.

In 2020, he year Floyd was killed, at least 1,152 people were killed by police officers, and in 2021 1,145 people were killed.

As researchers showed in a study published in The Lancet in 2021, about half of killings by law enforcement agents go unreported, so the true number of people killed by the police last year may be double the figure reported by Mapping Police Violence.

\u201cAccording to the Lancet the number of Americans killed by police is actually double the official number every year. So that means 2022 saw closer to 2,400 murders by police. That\u2019s 6.4 killings a day.\u201d

— Lee Camp [Redacted] (@Lee Camp [Redacted]) 1672755115

People killed by the police in 2022 included Jayland Walker, who was killed by Akron, Ohio police officers after they chased him following an alleged traffic violation; Donovan Lewis, who was fatally shot by a Columbus, Ohio officer in August after police came to his house with a warrant; and Patrick Lyoya, who was killed by Grand Rapids, Michigan police after he ran away from an officer who grabbed him during a traffic stop due to an issue with his license plate.

In 32% of the cases documented by Mapping Police Violence, the victim was fleeing the police before they were killed. Legal experts say police are almost always unjustified in shooting people when they are running away from law enforcement, particularly after being suspected of committing nonviolent crimes.

"These are routine police encounters that escalate to a killing," Samuel Sinyangwe, a data scientist and policy analyst who founded Mapping Police Violence, told The Guardian. "What's clear is that it's continuing to get worse, and that it's deeply systemic."

Only 31% of police killings took place after an alleged violent crime, while 46% did not involve people who had been accused of violence. Nine percent took place during mental health or welfare checks, 8% involved traffic violations, 18% involved allegations of nonviolent offenses, and 11% involved no alleged offense.

While Black people make up 13% of the U.S. population, they accounted for 24% of the people killed by the police last year.

Bianca Austin, the aunt of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in March 2020 by police officers in Louisville when they executed a warrant in the middle of the night, demanded to know what more advocates can do to stop police violence, especially as lawmakers reject calls for far-reaching reforms and greater investments in communities—rather than police departments—as a way of making people safer.

"It just never stops," Austin told The Guardian. "There was a movement and uproar across the globe, and we're still having more killings? What are we doing wrong? It's so disheartening."

Since the killings of Floyd and Taylor sparked mass protests, legislators have passed police reforms in at least 20 states, including new restrictions on the use of force against fleeing suspects in Colorado, Illinois, and Massachusetts, and bans on chokeholds and neck restraints in California, Nevada, and New York.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Three days before U.S. President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are set to meet in Mexico City, more than 100 grassroots groups from all three countries called on the leaders on Thursday to take action together to help solve the climate crisis, end gun violence, and address injustices facing migrants across North America.

Immigration is among the issues the leaders are expected to discuss at the North American Leaders' Summit—also known as the "Tres Amigos" summit—and the groups noted that "North America is one of the deadliest regions in the world for migrants, with 2022 setting arecord number of migrant deaths at the Mexico-U.S. border."

" International agreements to protect migrants from violence have been ignored and undermined, leaving thousands of families stranded at borders as a result," reads the letter, which was sent as Biden announced new U.S. immigration policies including an expansion of the Trump administration's expulsions of migrants to Mexico under Title 42, under which Biden will expel up to 30,000 people per month unless they arrive in the U.S. via a humanitarian parole program.

"International agreements to protect migrants from violence have been ignored and undermined, leaving thousands of families stranded at borders."

The groups called on Biden, Trudeau, and López Obrador—commonly known as AMLO—to "increase economic opportunities and cut violence in communities of origin" as well as respect the human rights of all migrants and asylum-seekers and end "policies that promote arbitrary and hostile action toward migrants."

The letter, which was spearheaded by Global Exchange and signed by groups including March for Our Lives, Amazon Watch, and Witness at the Border, also came as Global Exchange co-executive director Marco Castillo wrote about the interlocking issues of gun violence, the climate emergency, and immigration in a Newsweek opinion piece on Thursday.

"I hope that addressing the underlying causes of immigration—including gun violence and climate change—will be discussed" at the Tres Amigos summit, Castillo wrote, adding:

The illegal flow of guns across borders mostly lands in the hands of Mexican paramilitary, corrupt police, and cartels. Roughly 70% of the firearms involved in homicides in Mexico can be traced back to the U.S....
The problem is so prolific, the Mexican government filed a $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors in 2021 for damages caused by illegal gun trafficking. U.S. federal courts dismissed the lawsuit last year, thanks to America's all but untouchable gun lobby. The immunity that American gun manufacturers have is offensive and needs to end.

[...]

Another issue driving forced migration across North America is climate change. From Guatemala to the Artic Circle, the increasing frequency and severity of forest fires, droughts, storms, and floods are displacing entire communities, threatening livelihoods and traditional ways of life. People of color, low-income communities, women, and Indigenous peoples are impacted most severely.

While Canada ranks far below the U.S. and Mexico in terms of gun violence and gun-related deaths, the letter sent to the three leaders noted, the country is not immune to injustices linked to the prevalence of firearms.

"In Canada, from 2007 to 2017, First Nations (Indigenous communities) accounted for one-third of people shot to death by national police officers," reads the letter. "Black Canadians are20 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than white people."

The Latin America Working Group called on the leaders "to work together for peace without guns."

The grassroots groups also pointed to recent comments made by Trudeau's government regarding the climate crisis in its 2022-23 development plan on environmental and climate change, which stated, "We are seeing the impacts of climate change including the increased frequency and severity of forest fires, extreme heat events, storms, and flooding... causing significant consequences to Canadian and First Nations communities, economies, and way of life."

"We are among the first to feel the consequences of climate change in Canada," said Melissa Iakowi:he'ne' Oakes, a Mohawk woman and executive director of the North American Indigenous Center of New York, which signed the letter. "It affects our ancestral lands, which affects our food security, economies, culture, and identities, and worsens the health inequities we're already experiencing."

The letter includes a list of several demands ahead of the talks between Biden, Trudeau, and AMLO, including:

• Take concrete measures to end U.S. gun exports and trafficking to Mexico, including banning assault weapons across the region, increasing restrictions for sales, and canceling transfers to corrupted police and military units;
• End immunity for gun manufacturers in the U.S. and hold them and their dealers accountable for crimes committed with their weapons;
• Develop a regional plan to dramatically reduce fossil fuel emissions across the continent;
• Support climate-related disaster prevention and readiness for impacted communities, and propel a new green economy to generate jobs while protecting the environment; and
• Show deference to the practices of Indigenous peoples, who have proven to be the best protectors of the environment, and allow Indigenous communities to maintain control of ancestral territories.

The signatories noted that many of them will also be gathering in Mexico City for a Peace Summit in February, also led by Global Exchange, where they plan to discuss the outcome of the Tres Amigos summit, "develop a multinational action agenda, and organize around the upcoming elections in each of our countries."

"We will do everything in our power to support you in creating the world we deserve," they wrote.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Researchers in the U.S. have linked the climate crisis and the extreme weather patterns it causes to the country's epidemic of gun violence in a first-of-its-kind analysis, showing that thousands of shootings in the U.S. in recent years were attributable to higher-than-average temperatures.

As Environment Journal reported Tuesday, experts at Boston University School of Public Health and University of Washington School of Social Work analyzed 116,000 shootings in 100 of the country's most populous cities between 2015 and 2020 and found that 7,973 took place during periods of unseasonable heat, concluding that about 7% of shootings could be attributed to extreme heat.

The research, which was originally published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open in December, found that the Northeast and Midwest saw the greatest increases in gun violence on days that were unseasonably hot, but the trend was observed across the country.

"We know that segregation and disinvestment lead communities of color, especially Black communities, to have greater exposure to adverse environmental conditions that contribute to gun violence risk."

When the temperature rose within the 96th percentile of average daily temperatures, the cities of Seattle and Las Vegas saw the highest elevated risk of gun violence, according to the analysis. In Seattle, the temperature rose to 84°F, while people in Las Vegas faced 104°F temperatures.

"It could be that heat causes stress, which makes people more likely to use aggression," said Dr. Jonathan Jay, a co-author of the study and faculty member of Boston University's Center for Climate and Health. "Or it could be that people are more likely to get out on warmer days and have more interactions, which creates more opportunities for conflict and violence. Most likely, it's a combination of both."

While it is the first analysis of the correlation between the climate crisis and gun violence in the U.S., the study offers the latest evidence of a dynamic that has been previously reported: violent incidents, including domestic and gender-based violence, increase during and after extreme weather events driven by the climate emergency.

As The Washington Postreported Tuesday, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2022 identified a link between extreme weather and domestic violence, while The Lancetpublished an analysis of more than 40 studies showing "an increase in one or several [gender-based violence] forms during or after extreme events, often related to economic instability, food insecurity, mental stress, disrupted infrastructure, increased exposure to men, tradition, and exacerbated gender inequality."

The Lancet report included research completed in 2021 at St. Catherine University in Minnesota, which found that economic stresses caused by flooding, drought, and extreme heat in Kenya were linked to a 60% rise in domestic violence in certain parts of the country.

Evidence for the connection between violence and the effects of the climate emergency is "overwhelming," Terry McGovern of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health told the Post on Tuesday.

"Heat waves, floods, climate-induced disasters increase sexual harassment, mental and physical abuse, femicide, [and reduced] economic and educational opportunity and increase the risk of trafficking due to forced migration," McGovern told the newspaper.

Researchers at Boston University and Washington University said their new study makes the case both for lawmakers to pass gun control and climate action measures and for local investment in heat mitigation strategies, such as increasing tree cover in "urban heat islands."

When introducing the Saving Hazardous and Declining Environments (SHADE) Act in 2021, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) noted that many formerly redlined urban neighborhoods are on average 4.68°F hotter than non-redlined areas, "due to reduced tree cover and increased asphalt or concrete surfaces."

"We know that segregation and disinvestment lead communities of color, especially Black communities, to have greater exposure to adverse environmental conditions that contribute to gun violence risk, such as abandoned buildings, liquor stores, lack of green space, and more intense urban heat islands," Jay said in a statement in December.

Heat mitigation strategies could be a crucial part of an effort that is "part racial justice, part climate change mitigation, and part gun violence prevention," he added.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

With just a few days left until the new year, 2022 has already set a grim record: so far at least 6,036 children across the United States have been killed or injured by gunfire, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

As of Tuesday, 306 children under age 12 were killed by guns and another 668 were injured nationwide. For those ages 12-17, 1,328 were killed and 3,734 were injured.

Those figures include the 19 kids—but not the two adults—killed in the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and come just a few weeks after the nation marked the 10th anniversary of the massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Launched in 2013, the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) is an online project that aims "to document incidents of gun violence and gun crime nationally to provide independent, verified data to those who need to use it in their research, advocacy, or writing."

GVA's annual figures for child deaths and injuries go back to 2014. As the group highlighted in a tweet Monday, this year is the first in recorded history that the overall number has topped 6,000—which Project Unloaded called "heartbreaking and preventable."

Jacob Sumner, who is pursuing a master's degree in public administration at Arizona State University as a Sackton fellow, tweeted of GVA's figures that "we should not and cannot allow that to be normal. We need lifesaving commonsense gun safety measures."

Noting ABC News' reporting on the record, Brady PAC—a political action committee that supports candidates who champion policies to reduce gun violence—declared that "our children have the right to live."

Another ABC reader described the development as "an absolute fucking disgrace."

U.S. President Joe Biden—who signed some gun safety reforms into law after the Uvalde shooting—said on the Sandy Hook anniversary that "we have a moral obligation to pass and enforce laws that can prevent these things from happening again." However, with the GOP set to take control of the U.S. House next week, progress on the issue over the next two years is unlikely.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

A former Papua New Guinea military commander who drew up a plan 17 years ago to try to end gun violence says the first thing he would do is ban the public from owning guns.

Major-General Jerry Singirok compiled a gun control report in 2005.

It included 244 recommendations for governments to follow to end the years of gun violence in PNG — but the use of guns has become more prevalent in the years since.

• READ MORE: Mutiny that saved PNG – Singirok’s new book

Major-General Singirok said there should be a ban on the public having weapons with only security services permitted to carry them.

“There is no need for Papua New Guinean citizens to own a gun. It’s as simple as that, and we should draw legislation and policies around that statement so that we support the view that no unauthorised person should have access to a gun, whether it’s homemade or factory-made,” he said.

The national election that is now into its final stages has been described as the most violent in PNG’s history.

Major-General Singirok was commander of the PNG Defence Force during the Bougainville civil war and gained fame for stopping the Sandline mercenaries in their tracks in 1997, saving the country from further bloodshed.

Marape confident of forming government
The party of Papua New Guinea Prime Minister, James Marape, is reported to have attacted 67 MPs to its camp at Loloata on the outskirts of Port Moresby.

The camp is isolating MPs while they negotiate a possible coalition agreement.

NBC reports the support for Marape’s Pangu Pati could grow further, bolstering its chances of it continuing in power.

Marape has announced that those in the camp include independents and MPs from the National Alliance and United Resources Party, which were part of the outgoing coalition.

The caretaker prime minister said Pangu Pati itself was expected to increase its numbers from its current 30 MPs.

In a statement, he claimed Pangu Pati had been given an overwhelming mandate to form government.

There are 118 MPs in Parliament with 60 seats needed for a majority.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Gun violence spiked across the country in 2020, the most violent year in decades. 19,000 were killed in shootings, the highest death toll in 20 years (and that does not include gun suicides). Mass shootings—defined as four or more shot in an incident—also rose drastically to over 600.

Chicago’s 769 homicides in 2020 were, according to ABC News, “more homicides than in all but one year in more than two decades.” The 4,033 shooting victims were also drastically higher. The spike in Chicago was echoed in other big cities like Detroit, Washington, D.C., New York and Atlanta and in smaller cities like Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Rockford, Illinois. In all these cities, the victims are disproportionately people of color. The new year started off where the old ended, with 30 people shot and five killed in Chicago over the holiday weekend. We are killing one another in larger numbers in the midst of the national pandemic.

With gun violence spiking and political disputes turning into armed confrontations, it is past time for real leadership to step forward.

The experts agree on the underlying causes. The COVID-19 economic devastation increased misery, anger, and fear. More and more found themselves under harsh pressure, unable to keep the roof over their heads, get adequate schooling for the young, secure decent health care and adequate food. The pandemic also caused a severe cutback in violence prevention programs, in conflict de-escalation services. The George Floyd murder and recurrent police violence exacerbated the tensions.

And most important of all, of course, is America’s perverse addiction to guns. The year 2020 witnessed record sales of guns across the country. There are 5 million new gun owners in America. Sensible gun regulations have been blocked at the federal and state level. In too many instances, state legislatures have blocked the efforts of cities to regulate guns. Guns are not made in Chicago. There are no gun ranges. Guns are brought in across state lines.

The result is, frankly, absurd. The ban on assault weapons, weapons designed to kill people in large numbers in warfare, has been repealed. States across the country allow open carry and camouflaged carry. Protesters surrounded the Michigan legislature armed with rifles and guns.

Others threatened and began to plot an armed kidnapping of the governor, protesting her sensible COVID restrictions. At Donald Trump’s calling, the streets of Washington, D.C., will be filled with protesters, many of them armed.

This is yet another example of how a rabid minority—dispensing lots of cash and armies of lobbyists—can spurn the will of the majority. The majority of Americans want sensible gun control laws. Now, however, there is a yawning partisan divide with Democrats and Independents supporting stronger gun control and Republican support waning.

With gun violence spiking and political disputes turning into armed confrontations, it is past time for real leadership to step forward. Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, has shown the way. As a presidential candidate, he put forth a sensible comprehensive reform agenda. As a private citizen, he has helped to support groups calling for reform. He understands, more than most, that gun violence takes far more victims than those who die. It is a major public health crisis, leaving thousands permanently disabled and in need of care.

The incoming administration inherits staggering catastrophes that it must address. Surely one of these is the growing gun violence that terrorizes our streets. This administration should push America to make a real choice about gun violence. Do we want to allow more and more violence, to witness political disputes turning into violent exchanges of gunfire? Or will we make a commitment to making our streets safer with police not having to worry about being outgunned by the violent. Banning assault weapons should be a no-brainer. Cracking down on the shipping of guns across state lines is another. Real investment in violence prevention services must be increased. Our schools should be teaching the practice and praising the courage of nonviolence.

From its endless wars to the spiking gun violence on its streets, America leads the world in violence. This is not a race we want to run or to win. It is time for the majority to be heard.