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Congressional Democrats have reintroduced legislation to focus federal efforts on reducing the proliferation of illegal machine gun conversion devices, also known as auto sears.

The Preventing Illegal Weapons Trafficking Act of 2023 would direct the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of the Treasury to develop a coordinated national strategy to prevent the importation and trafficking of auto sears. It would also instruct the attorney general to collect data on the recovery of the devices in crimes and include it in an annual firearms trafficking report.

The legislation is a response to a March 2022 investigation by The Trace and VICE News that found that auto sears were involved in dozens of shootings carried out by extremists, mass shooters, and drug traffickers. Our reporting showed that more than a thousand illegal auto sears had been recovered in connection with at least 260 federal prosecutions since 2017, with the number of cases filed annually climbing nearly 800 percent in five years.

The Democrats bill was introduced in the House by Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Representative Sean Casten of Illinois. Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Gary Peters of Michigan introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

Law enforcement must do more to protect our communities from gun violence by stopping the flow of illegal gun modification devices into and throughout our country, Peters said in a news release. This bill will enhance coordination across law enforcement agencies to prevent these dangerous and deadly devices from being used.

Machine guns are among the most regulated firearms in the United States, but auto sears provide a quick and inexpensive workaround. The small conversion devices can transform a semiautomatic gun into a weapon capable of emptying an entire magazine with a single pull of the trigger. They require little technical knowledge to use and can cost as little as $20.

The Trace and VICE News investigation found that many auto sears recovered in the U.S. were supplied by companies in China, where manufacturers list the devices on online marketplaces and sell directly to consumers. Auto sears can also be made at home using a 3D printer.

The bill seeks to hold companies that facilitate the trafficking of auto sears accountable, by requiring that proceeds from trafficking machine gun conversion devices are subject to forfeiture.

The legislation is the latest in a series of efforts from lawmakers urging federal law enforcement to take action on auto sears. In April 2022, after a gunman armed with a converted Glock handgun opened fire in Sacramento leaving six dead and 12 wounded, a group of more than 40 members of Congress signed a letter urging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to be more explicit about the illegality of the devices.

In February, Steve Dettelbach, the first confirmed director of the ATF in nearly a decade, said the agency was prioritizing the recovery of auto sears. This is a problem that needs to be focused on immediately, he said. These devices are flooding our communities.

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Congressional Democrats Introduce Bill Targeting Auto Sears - The Trace

Marianne Williamson

First of all, it displays a great naivete about what you think those people do all day, including how much time they spend on the phone raising money. Thats number one. Number two, I think its very interesting what the Constitution says related to this. The Constitution says that in order to be president, you have to have lived here for fourteen years. You have to be thirty-five years or older, and you have to have been born here.

If the founders had wanted to say you had to have held elected office, then they would have. But they didnt, and I think they didnt for a reason. They were leaving it to every generation to determine for itself, what do you think are the skill sets required to lead us through the challenges of a particular moment?

I dont think the problem with Trump was his lack of governmental experience. It was his lack of ethics and his lack of character. He was a very effective president in all the terrible and some very, very terrible ways. But if he had been a different person, and instead of someone like a Stephen Miller or Sebastian Gorka or whatever, he had brought a different kind of person around him, then it would have been a completely different story.

The idea that youre repeating here is the idea that only people whose careers have been entrenched for years within the system that is, the car that drove us into the ditch should possibly be considered qualified to lead us out of the ditch. I dont think that we need somebody qualified to perpetuate that system. We need somebody qualified to disrupt that system.

That is one of the things that I feel that I do bring. Washington, DC, as you well know, David, is filled with political car mechanics. There are some very good political car mechanics in Washington, DC, and I would bring them into my administration.

But the problem is not that we dont have good political car mechanics. The problem is were on the wrong road. Were six inches from the cliff in terms of the state of our democracy, the state of our economy, and the state of our environment. What are those people so self-satisfied over? What are they so self-congratulatory about? On what basis do they say It has to be one of us? Have we not given them enough experience and enough of our nations history that, at some point, we say, We need to intervene. You are the status quo. The status quo is not going to disrupt itself. You have us on a self-defeating, self-destructive trajectory to the point where we could destroy the habitability of this planet within one hundred years. We, the people, will take it from here. Thats what needs to be said now.

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Marianne Williamson: Democrats Need a Genuine Economic ... - Jacobin magazine

Senate Democrats blocked a vote Tuesday night on a wide-ranging bill that would put St. Louis citys police department and part of the citys prosecutors office under state control.

After nine hours of a Democrat-led filibuster, Republicans set the bill aside for the night. The legislative session ends May 12 at 6 p.m.

Republicans argued St. Louis leaders couldnt decrease crime on their own, while Democrats said the legislation was purely a political vendetta against the citys progressive mayor and prosecutor.

And the bill, they said, ignores a major factor in the citys crime problem loose gun laws.

This is a political attack on the city of St. Louis, said Sen. Steve Roberts, D-St. Louis. Its not a rational argument. No one is proposing a real solution to address guns.

The bill would give the governor the ability to strip the authority of any elected prosecutor to handle violent crime cases and appoint a special prosecutor or the attorney general to take over those cases for five years.

The bill would also put the citys police department back under control of a state board, with Republican Gov. Mike Parson appointing four commissioners to serve alongside the president of the St. Louis board of aldermen.

The police board would assume control of the department on Aug. 28.

You can pass all the gun control that your heart desires, said Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from St. Charles County. But if you dont have the police to enforce those laws, and you dont have a prosecutor to go after the criminals, what are you doing?

Republican legislators made it clear in January that challenging the authority of St. Louis elected prosecutor Kimberly Gardner a progressive Black Democrat was a top priority this year.

While control over St. Louis police and prosecutor were the most controversial parts of the bill, the legislation would also make it easier to charge people with the crime of rioting, expand the areas where school safety officers can carry firearms and extend prison sentences.

It would also require fingerprinting as part of the background checks for all employees at marijuana-related businesses.

The original bill had a provision to prevent children from carrying firearms in public without adult supervision. It was meant to reinstate language that the Second Amendment Preservation Act took out of Missouri law when it was passed in 2021.

But that was stripped from the bill by Republicans concerned about infringing on the Second Amendment.

This is about protecting kids, Roberts said. Its just egregious to me, the idea that guns over lives seems to be the mantra of this body.

Rep. Lane Roberts, R-Joplin, said the goal of his special prosecutor bill was to decrease crime in the state.

However, the House bill originally targeted only Gardner, who won her re-election in November 2020 with 74% of the vote.

The bill was amended to apply to any elected prosecutors across the state, out of concern that singling out one prosecutor would be unconstitutional.

The governor could appoint a special prosecutor for five years if the number of homicide cases in any prosecuting attorneys jurisdiction in the 12 months immediately preceding exceeds 35 cases per every 100,000 people.

The governor would also have to determine that a threat to public safety and health exists based on reviewing certain crime statistics.

The special prosecutor would have exclusive jurisdiction to prosecute certain offenses including murders, assaults, robberies, hijacking and other violent offenses and be given a budget to hire up to 15 assistant prosecuting attorneys and 15 staffers.

The Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and Gardners office testified against the bill in committee.

Gardners representative, Chief Warrant Officer Chris Hinkley, told legislators during a Jan. 30 committee hearing that the bill wrongly assumes the prosecutors office has a backlog of violent crime cases.

Weve kept violent crimes at the top, Hinkley said, even through the pandemic. The violent crimes will never and were not ever delayed in review and issuance.

The original bill included a line that explicitly states the special prosecutor shall not be the attorney general.

But that was stripped from the version the Senate debated Tuesday and replaced with the line stating the governor may appoint the attorney general or any elected prosecuting or circuit attorney as a special prosecutor.

During special sessions in 2020, Republicans similarly made two failed attempts to hand over an unprecedented amount of Gardners authority to then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt.

Schmitt would have been allowed to take over homicide cases if Gardners office had not filed charges within 90 days of the incidents or upon request from the chief law enforcement officer.

The Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys fought vehemently against the provision in 2020, saying that Missourians have never wanted statewide politicians to meddle in local affairs.

On Tuesday, the Senate tacked on more hot-button language to the underlying bill to put St. Louis police department back under state control a policy originally born out of pro-slavery leaders attempt to maintain control 150 years ago.

Kansas City is the only major city in the country where the citys elected leaders dont control the local police department a state-appointed police board does.

Up until 2013, St. Louis was in the same boat.

However, the city gained local control of its police department after a 2012 statewide referendum.

The provision originally sponsored by Schroer would reverse that.

It also states the mayor or any city officer would be penalized $1,000 for each and every offense to hinder the board, as well as be forever be disqualified from holding or exercising any office of the city.

Sen. Karla May, D-St. Louis, pushed back saying that the city had high crime under the state control prior to 2012.

You want to try to say that we need to take control of the police department, why? May said. You dont have a good track recordIts amazing to me how they just woke up this year and decided to care about the lives of people in St. Louis city.

Former Public Safety Director Dan Isom, who was the citys police chief in 2012 when the referendum was passed, previously testified to the Senate that the city has made strides to decrease violent crime despite state lawmakers continued push to loosen gun restrictions since 2007.

Missouri has some of the loosest gun laws in the country, Isom said.

Isom said when the Missouri legislature adopted permitless concealed carry in 2016, law enforcement officials warned about the impact but were ignored.

From 2016 to 2020, Isom said firearm homicides increased in the city by 50% from 177 to 266.

However, from 2020 to 2021, he said the citys homicide rate fell by more than 25 percent, and the violent crime rate fell 23 percent over the same time period.

The return to local control has not resulted in an increase in violent crime, Isom said. An increase in weapons has increased the violence on our streets.

Isom also said taking away the authority of local elected officials to guide policing in St. Louis would also disconnect police officers from the communities they serve.

When a local mayor is in charge of their police force, they can serve as a translator between community needs and policing imperatives, Isom said. Removing this local connection will engender feelings of mistrust between officers and community, ultimately making officers less safe.

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State takeover of St. Louis police, prosecutor's office blocked by ... - Missouri Independent

Democrats recently chose to hold their 2024 convention in Chicago.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

By all accounts, the race for the 2024 Democratic National Convention was down to Atlanta versus Chicago. Electorally, it seemed like an obvious choice: Atlanta is in an emerging swing state, while Chicago is in a state that Democrats will almost certainly win in 2024.

But then, last week, the Democratic Party announced that Chicago would host next Augusts confab. To some Democrats, it seemed to be a missed opportunity especially since Republicans will hold their convention in Milwaukee, the biggest city in a classic battleground state. But heres the thing: It probably wont matter where either party holds its 2024 presidential nominating convention. Contrary to conventional wisdom, holding your convention in a swing state has little to no electoral benefit.

Since 2000, the Democratic or Republican candidate for president won the state that hosted their convention just six out of 12 times.

The site of each Democratic and Republican national convention since 2000 and whether the party won that state in that years presidential election

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Portions of the 2020 conventions were conducted virtually from other locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sources: American Presidency Project, Dave Leips Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

Some of those losses were predictable, like when Republicans held their 2004 convention in New York City and then lost the Empire State by 18 percentage points. But others were bitter disappointments, such as when Democrats hoped the 2012 DNC in Charlotte would help them gain a foothold in North Carolina or when Republicans hoped the 2012 RNC in Tampa would put them over the top in Florida. (The other party won each state.) And even some of the wins were probably just coincidences, like in 2020, when Democrats won Wisconsin and Republicans won North Carolina even though the conventions that year in Milwaukee and Charlotte, respectively, were mostly virtual.

Of course, looking at binary wins and losses alone is a crude instrument; its possible that a convention helped a party in a state even if the party came up just short of winning. But even considering a partys margin in that state, it seems conventions have little effect. On average, since 2000, parties have enjoyed just a 1.0-point boost in the state where they held their convention, according to my analysis.

The simplified partisan lean* of each state (relative to the national popular vote) in the three presidential elections before, during and after the election cycle in which it hosted a Democratic or Republican national convention, since 2000

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*Simplified partisan lean is the difference between a states popular-vote margin and the nations popular-vote margin in the same election.

Average of previous and next election for 2020 uses the states simplified partisan lean in only the 2016 election, since the 2024 election has not yet occurred. Portions of the 2020 conventions were conducted virtually from other locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sources: American Presidency Project, Dave Leips Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

And thats probably overstating things. The most obvious convention boost in the table above is in Massachusetts in 2004, when Boston hosted the DNC. But the Democratic nominee that year was then-Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Democrats overperformance in the Bay State that year was probably due more to their nominees home-state advantage than their choice of convention site. Its a good reminder that, even when there appears to be a convention boost, it could be due to a million other factors instead.

If you remove the 2004 DNC from the list, the average convention boost is just 0.7 points and only two states saw more than a 2-point boost (California in 2000 for Democrats and Ohio in 2016 for Republicans). Excluding the 2004 DNC, a convention boost has also occurred just seven out of 11 times. Four other times, the party actually did worse than expected in the state hosting its convention.

Given this track record, its less surprising that the 2024 DNC will be in Chicago. The Windy City has a lot of logistical and political points in its favor: tons of hotels, good public transit, a friendly government and a unionized workforce. By contrast, Georgia has enacted policies that the Democratic Party probably doesnt want to be seen as tacitly supporting: It is a right-to-work state, and it has a new, restrictive voting law that even caused Major League Baseball to not hold its 2021 All-Star Game there. So while picking Atlanta wouldve made a strong statement about Democrats plans to compete in the Sun Belt, it would have been purely symbolic.

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Should Democrats Have Picked A Swing State For Their 2024 Convention? - FiveThirtyEight

WASHINGTON Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis? Democrats are torn on which of the two Republican front-runners they would rather face in the 2024 presidential election, according to conversations with a dozen Democratic strategists.

The conventional wisdom among many in the party is that President Joe Biden would have better odds in a rematch against Trump. The former president lost in 2020, he mobilizes the Democratic base and he has a brand thats become toxic to many swing voters. Plus, the thinking goes, DeSantis relative youth presents a tougher contrast for Biden, and the Florida governor's unknowability on the national stage means Democrats cant simply dust off a winning playbook against him.

I would rather see Biden face Trump because we know how to beat him," said Celinda Lake, a veteran pollster who advised Bill Clinton in 1992 and has since counted a long list of prominent Democrats as clients. "We beat him once, we can beat him again. And I think hes definitely further alienated the suburban female vote."

But another group of Democrats sees DeSantis as the easier candidate to beat. Trump has strengths that DeSantis doesnt, they say: Trump is more charismatic, better at retail politics and has a unique ability to stir up GOP voters and get them to the polls that the Florida governor hasnt proved he can do on the big stage.

I think DeSantis comes off as very unlikable. Trump, at least, is good at retail politics; DeSantis isnt. A lot of his act comes off as performative theater, said Michael Starr Hopkins, a Democratic strategist who advised Charlie Crists losing 2022 campaign for Florida governor to DeSantis.

Hopkins predicted that DeSantis wont be as effective nationally as he has been in the Republican-friendly Sunshine State.

Trump has 30% of the base no matter what. And DeSantis doesnt have a built-in base the way that Trump does, Hopkins said. He doesnt have the strength of Trumps base. And so there are a lot of the MAGA coalition that I dont think are going to go along with DeSantis just because they see him as an anti-Trump rather than being an acolyte of Trump.

The debate comes as Democrats rally around Biden, who has made it clear he intends to run for re-election. Facing no serious primary challenger to his renomination, party elites have little to do in the presidential arena but map out how to run against their opponent next fall and ponder which of the two Republican front-runners theyd be more likely to defeat in a general election.

DeSantis has left some Democrats scratching their heads over the past month as he has taken punch after punch from Trump without doing much to respond. He also appears to be dropping further behind Trump in GOP primary polls ahead of an expected announcement.

Based on what Ive seen over the last few weeks, as he inches closer to running, I believe that Gov. DeSantis is weaker, said Jim Manley, a former Senate Democratic leadership aide turned lobbyist. It would be much better for Democrats to run against him than against Trump.

Manley said DeSantis has just stuck to scripted sound bites, adding: I view him as a very weak candidate who has managed to bully his way through the state of Florida, but I dont believe hes ready for the big leagues.

Some Democrats say its too early to know who's stronger.

No one should even pretend to know the answer to that question at this point, said Dan Pfeiffer, a former White House adviser and campaign aide to President Barack Obama.

Trump is a massively flawed nominee who could be running while under multiple indictments and perhaps convictions. Ron DeSantis has not exactly demonstrated the dexterity or charisma necessary to navigate a national campaign, he said. I just think we should all have some humility when the last two presidential elections were decided in total by a number of voters barely larger than the attendance of a Big Ten college football game.

In a country this divided, Biden's re-election is no sure thing against either of his two most likely Republican opponents.

In 2016, Trump won by some 75,000 votes; in 2020, he over-performed polls forecasting a blowout and lost the Electoral College by a similar number. His coalition includes scores of disaffected voters who reliably turn out when Trump is on the ballot but stay home when hes not. That fueled the blue wave in 2018, the historic GOP underperformance in the 2022 midterms and other special elections where flawed Trump protgs and support for abortion rights after the fall of Roe v. Wade sunk Republicans.

Few doubt that Trump will mobilize his voters again, like in 2016 and 2020, if hes the nominee. But would those same MAGA voters turn out for DeSantis, especially after an ugly primary with Trump? Would Trump back DeSantis in the general election if he loses the primary, or seek to burn the party down? And would DeSantis have a better chance with independents who may be souring on Trump over the Jan. 6 attack and the criminal charges he now faces?

Some Democrats say Trump is weaker now than in 2020.

The road map to beating Trump has been deployed and deployed successfully, said Scott Mulhauser, a former Biden aide who said he believes Trump is more beatable than DeSantis. The body blows keep coming to Trump that alienate independents at every turn, and these are the swing voters hed need to overcome his margins last time.

Mulhauser said Democrats have clear avenues to run against either candidate on abortion rights. But on Social Security and Medicare, he noted, Democrats have certainly a stronger case against DeSantis, who called for privatizing those programs and raising the retirement age in the past.

Electoral politics aside, Democrats also disagree on who would be a worse president.

Hopkins said he believes that DeSantis is a more dangerous candidate to be honest, citing a certain intellectual vindictiveness with DeSantis that I dont even think Trump has.

Look at his battle with Disney right now. Whereas Trump is really undisciplined and emotional, DeSantis comes off as vindictive and mean, he said. And I think thats a dangerous combination.

Mulhauser disagreed, citing Trump's attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 election based on fabricated claims of voter fraud.

Although Mulhauser made it clear hes no fan of either Republican, he believes it would be worse for the country if Trump returns to power than if DeSantis becomes president.

Donald Trump, while president, fomented a revolution that attempted to overturn the will of the people, the rule of law and our democracy. That cannot be unseen or undone, he said. Im not sure DeSantis is any better on a host of policies or culture-war dog whistles, but you hope he could at least recognize the country needs to stand.

Sahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.

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Trump or DeSantis? Democrats are unsure who they want Biden to face - NBC News