The Full Belmonte, 5/29/2022
“WASHINGTON — Days after 19 children and two teachers were gunned down in Texas, politicians in Washington are tinkering around the edges of America’s gun laws.
A bipartisan group of senators is scheduled to hold virtual meetings early next week and has some proposals on the table: the expansion of background checks, legal changes to prevent the mentally ill and teenagers from getting guns, and new rules for gun trafficking.
Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and the leader of the effort, said he had not seen so much willingness to talk since 20 children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.
But the emerging details of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday suggest that few of the proposals under discussion would have made much of a difference. The gunman did not have a criminal record that might have been caught by expanded background checks. There is no evidence that the gun had been part of a trafficking ring. And so far, there have not been reports of mental illness that might have triggered a so-called red flag law.
More far-reaching efforts — such as banning military-style weapons, raising the age for gun purchases and requiring licensing and registration for firearm ownership — have already been all but ruled out, the result of Republican opposition, Democratic resignation and court rulings.
This month, before the Texas shooting and another massacre at a grocery story in Buffalo, N.Y., a federal appeals court struck down a California law that banned the sale of some semiautomatic weapons to people under 21. Both shootings were committed by 18-year-olds.
The reaction in Washington to the horrific scenes is a familiar combination of pain and paralysis. There is a sense in Congress, at the White House and around the country that it should, somehow, be different this time.
In Uvalde, anguished parents grew angrier on Friday as a top state law enforcement official acknowledged that the police were wrong to have waited more than an hour to confront the gunman as he holed up inside a classroom, firing sporadically while students who were still alive lay still among the bodies of classmates. Hundreds of protesters raged outside the National Rifle Association’s convention in Houston — less than 300 miles from the massacre — where the group was celebrating its longstanding partnership with Republicans to block gun control measures.
‘How Many More Kids?’ read one sign. ‘You Are Responsible,’ read another, painted to look as if it were splattered in blood.
And yet, even in the wake of the slaughter of so many children, Washington’s leading political players are reprising their usual roles.” Read more at New York Times
Mitch McConnell was just finishing up his first term as the junior senator from Kentucky when a mass shooting rocked his hometown of Louisville.
On Sept. 14, 1989, a disgruntled employee entered the Standard Gravure printing plant in downtown Louisville and, armed with an AK-47 and other guns, killed eight and wounded 12 others before taking his own life — in what remains the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history.
At the time, mass shootings had not yet become the staple of American life that they are now, and McConnell said he was ‘deeply disturbed,’ declaring, ‘We must take action to stop such vicious crimes.’
But he also added: ‘We need to be careful about legislating in the middle of a crisis.’ And in the days and weeks after, he did not join others in calling for a ban on assault weapons like the AK-47 used by the shooter.
The Standard Gravure massacre provided an early glimpse of how McConnell — now the Republican Senate minority leader — would handle mass shootings and their aftermath over the next three decades, consistently working to delay, obstruct or prevent most major gun-control legislation from passing Congress.
McConnell would go on to follow a similar playbook time and time again during his seven terms in Congress, offering vague promises of action, often without any specifics, only to be followed by no action or incremental measures that avoided new gun regulations. As a Republican leader, he also helped dissuade his conference — as after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. — from supporting gun legislation and, as majority leader, refused to bring up significant gun-control measures for a vote.
Now, the latest devastating and high-profile mass shootings — a massacre Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., that left 19 students and two teachers dead, just 10 days after a racist slaughter at Buffalo supermarket that killed 10 — have thrust Congress back into a fiery debate over what, if anything, lawmakers can do to curb gun violence.” Read more at Washington Post
“Prominent Republicans defended gun rights at the National Rifle Association convention on Friday with some misleading claims about the efficacy of gun restrictions, gun ownership trends and school shootings.
Here’s a fact check.
WHAT WAS SAID
‘Gun bans do not work. Look at Chicago. If they worked, Chicago wouldn’t be the murder hellhole that it has been for far too long.’ — Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas
This is misleading. Opponents of firearm restrictions frequently cite Chicago as a case study of why tough gun laws do little to prevent homicides. This argument, however, relies on faulty assumptions about the city’s gun laws and gun violence.
There were more gun murders in Chicago than in any other U.S. city in 2020, fueling the perception that it is the gun violence capital of the country. But Chicago is also the third-largest city in the country. Adjusted by population, the gun homicide rate was 25.2 per 100,000, the 26th highest in the country in 2020, according to data compiled by the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The three cities with the highest gun homicide rates — Jackson, Miss.; Gary, Ind.; and St. Louis — had rates double that of Chicago’s or more. All are in states with more permissive gun laws than Illinois.
Chicago’s reputation for having the strictest gun control measures in the country is outdated. Mr. Cruz cited the city’s handgun ban — without noting that the Supreme Court nullified the ban in 2010. An appeals court also struck down a ban on carrying concealed weapons in Illinois in 2012, and the state began allowing possession of concealed guns in 2013 as part of the court decision.
Today, Illinois has tougher restrictions than most states, but it does not lead the pack, ranking No. 6 in Everytown’s assessment of the strength of state gun control laws, and No. 8 in a report card released by the Giffords Law Center, another gun control group. Conversely, the state ranked No. 41 in an assessment on gun rights from the libertarian Cato Institute.
Guns in the U.S.
In the Wake of Tragedy: After a gun attack in Buffalo, could the issue of gun safety turn into a rallying cry for Democrats in the midterms? Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut hopes so.
A Pandemic Spike: U.S. gun deaths reached the highest number ever recorded in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, as gun-related homicides rose by 35 percent.
Upward Trend: New federal data shows that the United States is in the middle of a gun-buying boom, as the annual number of firearms manufactured continues to climb.
Road Rage: In Texas, a pandemic surge in gun purchases and a population that is increasingly on edge have caused an explosion of shootings on the road.
Gun control proponents have also argued that the patchwork nature of gun laws in the country makes it difficult for a state like Illinois with tough restrictions on the books to enforce them in practice. A 2017 study commissioned by the city of Chicago found, for example, that 60 percent of guns used in crimes and recovered in Chicago came from out of state, with neighboring Indiana as the primary source.
WHAT WAS SAID
‘As for so-called assault rifles, which the left and the media love to demonize, these guns were banned for 10 years from 1994 to 2004. And the Department of Justice examined the effect of the ban and concluded it had zero statistically significant effect on violent crime.’ — Mr. Cruz
This is exaggerated. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 banned the possession, transfer or domestic manufacturing of some semiautomatic assault weapons for 10 years. The Justice Department commissioned a 2004 study on the effect of the 1994 assault weapons ban.
The study found that, if renewed, ‘the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement’ as assault weapons were rarely used in the crimes.
But Christopher Koper, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Va., and the lead author of that study., has repeatedly said that the ban had mixed effects overall.
‘My work is often cited in misleading ways that don’t give the full picture,’ Mr. Koper previously told The New York Times. ‘These laws can modestly reduce shootings overall’ and reduce the number and severity of mass shootings.
WHAT WAS SAID
‘We know that there are no more guns per capita in this nation today than there were 50 or 100 years ago. That’s worth underscoring. In 1972, the rate of per capita gun ownership in the United States was 43 percent. In 2021, the rate is 42 percent. The rate of gun ownership hasn’t changed. And yet acts of evil like we saw this week are on the rise.’ — Mr. Cruz
This is misleading. In arguing that cultural issues, rather than the prevalence of guns, are to blame for mass shootings, Mr. Cruz conflated and distorted metrics of gun ownership.
The per capita number of guns in the United States roughly doubled from 1968 to 2012, according to the Congressional Research Service, from one gun for every two people to one gun per person. And it has continued to rise since, to about 1.2 guns for every person by 2018, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey.
Mr. Cruz was most likely referring to a Gallup survey of gun ownership. It is not a per capita measure but rather asked participants if they had a gun in their home, with 43 percent responding yes in 1972 and 42 percent in 2021. Historical surveys from the University of Chicago research center NORC show, however, that the percentage of American households that own guns has decreased from about half in the 1970s to about a third in recent years.
WHAT WAS SAID
‘Inner city schools rarely have these kinds of mass shootings. I didn’t know that until just recently. Think of that. They rarely have this problem despite being located in very tough neighborhoods, in many cases where there’s tremendous levels of high crime and violence. They’re much more dangerous outside the school than inside. The reason is that for decades inner city schools have had much stronger security measures in place in the school itself, including metal detectors and, yes, armed guards.’— former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading. Mr. Trump has a point that high-fatality shootings perpetrated by a single person have mostly occurred in suburban and rural schools, but the notion that schools in cities have been spared from gun violence is inaccurate. Moreover, Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the presence of armed guards deters mass shootings is not borne out by the evidence.
A 2020 report from the Government Accountability Office examined 318 shootings from the 2009-10 school year to the 2018-19 school year. Almost half, 47 percent, of shootings occurred in urban areas, and the report noted that ‘urban, poorer and high minority schools had more shootings overall.’
There is little evidence that the presence of police or armed security prevents or deters shootings in schools. A 2019 review by the New York State School Boards Association found that research on the topic has been ‘inconclusive.’ Researchers examined 133 school shootings from 1980 to 2019 in a paper last year and found ‘no association between having an armed officer and deterrence of violence in these cases.’
WHAT WAS SAID
‘It’s even reported that the Biden administration is considering putting U.N. bureaucrats in charge of your Second Amendment rights.’ — Mr. Trump
False. This was a reference to reports that the Biden administration was considering re-entering an international arms treaty. But Mr. Trump is grossly exaggerating what that treaty would do.
The 2014 Arms Trade Treaty regulates international sales of conventional weapons (like tanks, combat vehicles, warships, missiles and firearms). It does not put officials at the United Nations in charge of gun laws in the United States.
The United States was a signatory to the treaty but did not ratify it as more than 100 other nations have. Mr. Trump announced he was withdrawing the United States’ signature during a speech to the N.R.A. in 2019.
The treaty aims to establish international norms for regulating arms sales between countries and addressing illegal arms sales. It prohibits selling weapons to nations that are under arms embargoes or will use them to commit genocide, terrorism, war crimes or attacks against civilians.
In the preamble, the treaty explicitly reaffirms ‘the sovereign right of any state to regulate and control conventional arms exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or constitutional system.’ The Congressional Research Service noted that the treaty ‘does not affect sales or trade in weapons among private citizens within a country’ and, even if ratified, ‘would likely require no significant changes to policy, regulations or law’ since ‘the United States already has strong export control laws in place.’” Read more at Washington Post
Dario Lopez-Mills/AP
“The mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, just 10 days apart, have striking resemblances — both gunmen were 18, male and used legally bought AR-15-style rifles. Together, the two massacres have shone a spotlight, once again, on the staggering frequency of gun violence in America compared to other wealthy countries.
But the school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde underscores another grim facet: Children are more likely to die from gun violence in the United States than in any other rich nation. Consider these two facts alone:A study of 29 countries found that the U.S. accounted for almost 97% of all firearm deaths among kids 4 years old or younger — and 92% among those ages 5 to 14.
In 2020, gun violence overtook car accidents as the No. 1 cause of death for American kids and adolescents. And while overall firearm-related deaths increased 13.5% between 2019 and 2020, they surged a staggering 30% among children.
One of the main contributing factors in that astounding toll lies in another figure: the sheer amount of guns in the country. While the U.S. makes up just 4% of the global population, Americans own nearly 46% of the world’s estimated 857 million civilian-held firearms.” Read more at NPR
“Elizabeth Holmes asked a judge to toss out her conviction, claiming no rational juror could have found her guilty of conspiracy and wire fraud beyond a reasonable doubt.
The request, filed late Friday in federal court in San Jose, California, is a routine and long-shot attempt to overturn a jury verdict.” Read more at Bloomberg
A California woman who repeatedly punched a Southwest Airlines flight attendant last year, bloodying her face and chipping three of her teeth, was sentenced on Friday to 15 months in federal prison, prosecutors said.
The woman, Vyvianna M. Quinonez, 29, of Sacramento, will also have to pay nearly $26,000 in restitution and a $7,500 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California. A video of the attack, which occurred in May 2021, was widely viewed on social media.
Judge Todd W. Robinson of United States District Court also ordered Ms. Quinonez to be on supervised release for three years after completing her sentence, during which she will be barred from flying on any commercial aircraft.
The assault came amid a surge of unruly and violent behavior by passengers who shoved, struck and yelled at flight attendants. Within days of the attack, two major airlines, American and Southwest, postponed plans to begin serving alcohol again on flights, in an effort to stop the behavior. Both airlines have since resumed alcohol sales.” Read more at New York Times
“HOUSTON — On one side of an avenue in downtown Houston, people filed into the National Rifle Association’s annual convention this weekend to talk guns, admire guns, buy guns and invoke as holy script the Second Amendment right to bear arms; that is, guns.
On the other side of the avenue, people protested against guns, the defenders of guns, the proliferation of guns and the unholiness of American’s easy access to guns that facilitated two mass murders this month; that is, the killing of 10 people, all of them Black, in a Buffalo supermarket, and the killing of 21 people, 19 of them children, at a Texas elementary school.
The avenue is called the Avenida De Las Americas.
As people on one side of the avenue sweated and shouted in the baking Texas sun, others filed into the comforting cool of the George R. Brown Convention Center. But the air-conditioned hall was not hermetically sealed. The massacre of schoolchildren earlier in the week had been in Uvalde, just 300 miles west of here. In time and distance, it was too close.
Inside, politicians spoke of ‘hardening’ schools to a mix of N.R.A. faithful and newcomers curious about the cause. Outside, veteran and novice protesters waved handmade signs and photographs of children shot to death this week, in faint hope of changing minds.” Read more at New York Times
San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler looks on from the dugout at Oracle Park on Aug. 16, 2021 in San Francisco.Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images file
“San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler said Friday he will refuse to take the field for the pregame national anthem ‘going forward,’ following the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
‘I don't plan on coming out for the anthem going forward until I feel better about the direction of our country,’ Kapler told reporters Friday before the Giants played the Cincinnati Reds.” Read more at NBC News
“Michael Sam found his way back to football almost by happenstance.
Eight years after becoming the first openly gay man to be drafted by an NFL team – and six since he last played in a professional game – Sam said he had planned to do some backpacking in Europe this year before later moving to England.
"I was looking for a new start," he told USA TODAY Sports, "a fresh new chapter."
Then the Barcelona Dragons, of the European League of Football, offered him a coaching gig. And he leaped at the chance.
Now, Sam is living in Spain and entering his first season as the Dragons' assistant defensive line coach – teaching technique, assisting defensive line coach Chase Baker and helping out in the weight room on the side. It's his first coaching job and first step back into football since 2015, when he played for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League.” Read more at USA Today
“CANNES, France (AP) — Swedish director Ruben Ostlund’s class warfare comedy ‘Triangle of Sadness’ won the Palme d’Or at the 75th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, giving Ostlund one of cinema’s most prestigious prizes for the second time.
Ostlund, whose art-world send-up ‘The Square’ took the Palme in 2017, pulled off the rare feat of winning Cannes’ top award for back-to-back films. ‘Triangle of Sadness,’ featuring Woody Harrelson as a Marxist yacht captain and a climactic scene with rampant vomiting, pushes the satire even further.
‘We wanted after the screening (for people) to go out together and have something to talk about,’ said Ostlund. ‘All of us agree that the unique thing with cinema is that we’re watching together. So we have to save something to talk about but we should also have fun and be entertained.’
The awards were selected by a nine-member jury headed by French actor Vincent Lindon and presented Saturday in a closing ceremony inside Cannes’ Grand Lumière Theater.
The jury’s second prize, the Grand Prix, was shared between the Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s tender boyhood drama ‘Close,’ about two 13-year-old boys whose bond is tragically separated after their intimacy is mocked by schoolmates; and French filmmaking legend Claire Denis’ ‘Stars at Noon,’ a Denis Johnson adaptation starring Margaret Qualley as a journalist in Nicaragua.” Read more at AP News
“NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Rangers got off to a strong start and didn’t need a comeback to win another elimination game.
One more like this — but on the road — and they’ll be heading to the Eastern Conference finals.
Igor Shesterkin stopped 37 shots and became the fifth goalie in NHL history to have two assists in a playoff game, and the Rangers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-2 on Saturday night to force a deciding Game 7 in their second-round series.” Read more at AP News