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RICHMOND A congressman from Texas said Sunday that the solution to the periodic slaughter of children in school is to place armed guards at every school in the nation.

He brushed off the journalist interviewing him when she said the school in Uvalde, Texas, had armed guards. He blamed Columbine (1999), its notoriety and the power of suggestion, for school shootings that have occurred since then. He said he could not see any other connection among the shootings, which appeared to him to be otherwise random.

The interviewer said guns were the connector. He repeated his proposal for armed guards as a solution. CNN anchor Dana Bash said more guns as a solution? He said, Not guns, armed guards. She thanked him for coming.

Earlier last week, the comments of national security analyst Juliette Kayyem were quite different. Adviser to President Obama and to Gov. Mike Dukakis on domestic security, she currently lectures at Harvards Kennedy School of Government on homeland security and related topics, has won awards for editorials in the Boston Globe and writes for The Atlantic.

Also appearing on CNN, Kayyem said, A society can either make gun ownership permissive or less permissive. We have essentially made it like chewing gum. The data is clear. Gun control measures work. The nihilism [that gun control doesnt work] you hear defies decades of data. ... It is a lie.

The nation had a ban on assault weapons from 1994 to 2004. It expired when Congress failed to renew it. Part of the data being defied is that deaths in mass shootings fell during the 10-year ban.

The Texas congressmans view illustrates the tunnel vision of those who want to bypass the issue of too many guns. Instead, those against new gun safety regulations prefer to blame mental illness, give guns to teachers, add guards to schools, permit people to carry concealed weapons and, in many states, allow people to buy assault weapons designed for military use.

Nine years old, those children now buried in Nashville, Tenn, where the Legislature is considering a bill that will loosen the states already nonrestrictive gun laws. Even younger at Sandy Hook in Connecticut. A little older at Marjorie Stoneman High School in Florida. In Sutherland Springs, Texas, churchgoers who survived 450 bullets (traveling at 3,200 feet per second from a Ruger AR 556) are suffering lifelong pain and crippling because of lead toxicity.

Despite the accusations of the most vocal of the gun lobbyists, most Americans arent looking for a gunless world. The nation has always had a gun culture. Its not a matter of tossing the Second Amendment.

Its a matter of common sense no one, absolutely no one, in civilian life, needs a weapon designed for military use. Gun manufacturers, however, have marketed it well, and a seven-month investigation by the Washington Post found that the proliferation of the AR-15 in the past 20 years is linked to a change in strategy by the gun industry. It began marketing the AR-15 to civilians, despite the fact that it was a product that traditionally was anathema to their culture and traditions, according to the Post.

Marketing works. Its why we ask our doctors if a TV advertised drug will cure us, its why kids want the latest toy, its why insurance companies parade geckos and emus. We respond. Now an estimated 1 in 20 America adults own at least one AR-15, a weapon that blows children to bits. The study showed AR-15 owners were more likely than adults overall to be male, between 45 and 65, Republican and live in a state won by the former president in 2020.

The industry has responded by shifting some of its manufacturing to more welcoming states. Ruger, for instance, with headquarters in Southport, Conn., has built a new plant in Mayodan, N.C., and the Post interviewed one happy employee who quit her $7.25 job (the cruel federal minimum used in some states) for the $14 an hour, plus overtime, she could make with Ruger. Still not a living wage and lower than the minimum in Massachusetts and Connecticut, another reason for the company to expand elsewhere.

The gun culture will live here. The Second Amendment will live. But just as we license drivers, have age limits on driving, drinking, voting, enlisting, we need better rules for gun ownership.

As a veteran of homeland security analysis, Juliette Kayyem says we absolutely need the ban on assault weapons. We need to make it harder, less permissive.

And when it comes to armed guards at schools, what about all those people who died in church, at the movies, at a concert venue, at a mall, at a grocery store? Vocational schools will need to add a course in armed guardianship.

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Ruth Bass: Opponents of more gun rules are dodging the bullet - Berkshire Eagle

Over the last few years, a new Geraldo Rivera has emerged: one not afraid to break the Fox News party line and spout beliefs that make him sound like part of the resistance. He wasnt afraid to call out Trumps voter fraud BS. And he hasnt been afraid to express concern over gun control following mass shootings. After the tragedy in Nashville, which has inspired the usual inaction from the GOP, he was no different.

As per Mediaite, Rivera was a guest on Tuesdays installment of The Story, where he had it out with Brian Kilmeade, who was horrified that people are once more talking about restricting access to assault-style weapons after a bunch of people were senselessly murdered by them.

Here we are again, Kilmeade cried. And within minutes, were hearing about, The guns are the problem, assault weapons. Go to your corner and lets play politics before we even knew the facts.

He went on: For you to have seven guns and be that obviously unhinged and unbalanced and have these murderous capabilities and youre gonna allow these people out and about, I really dont think we should be debating gun laws.

Rivera butted in to say he disagreed. What about Tennessee, with the constitutional carry [law]. This person could legally assemble that arsenal of seven weapons, including two AR-15s and a sawed-off shotgun, he said. If the Second Amendment shines on this person accumulating that arsenal, then shame on the Second Amendment!

Kilmeade then expressed concern over all the responsible gun owners who might have to forfeit assault-style weapons that can mow down many people in seconds. Rivera simply reminded him, Theres been 130 mass shootings this year, Brian.

Kilmeade then tried to blame the parents of the Nashville shooter, claiming it shouldnt be the fault of legal gun owners, even though the latest shooter was a legal gun owner. But Rivera had another idea of who to blame.

How about the gun store salesperson, Rivera saud. If youre going to the shop and youre buying an AR-15 and then the next day another AR-15, then the sawn-off shotgun, then the pistols. At some point, there is a responsibility. These are not cartons of milk youre selling. These are weapons of destruction.

Rivera added, We need to wake up as a nation.

So kudos, once again, to Geraldo Rivera for being brave enough to praise gun control on Fox News. Of course every now and then he still spouts nonsense, as if to make sure he keeps getting invited back.

You can watch the exchange over at Mediaite.

Read more here:
Geraldo Rivera Slammed The Second Amendment On Fox News - UPROXX

The vast majority of Americans continue to be sickened not only by mass shootings but also by the failure of politicians to do anything about them (Maryland lawmakers must act swiftly and smartly on gun safety, March 29). Many of us are especially angry when military assault-type weapons are used, weapons that can slaughter large numbers of people quickly. Many combat veterans say civilians should not be allowed to own such weapons, much less take them out on the street. Large-capacity magazines and the supersonic velocity of the bullets make those weapons unusually deadly. They dont just make small holes in the body. They utterly destroy flesh, bones and organs, leaving exit wounds the size of grapefruits. Parents couldnt even recognize their own children when they were killed by such weapons in previous school shootings.

The Supreme Courts 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision disconnected the right to keep and bear arms from service in a militia. The gun lobby and the far right have run with that idea ever since. In the opinions of many legal scholars, including conservative jurists, the Supreme Courts ruling introduced a dangerously erroneous interpretation of the Second Amendment. Some states have used that interpretation to mean any Tom, Dick or Harriet who wants to own an assault-style weapon should be able to have one, even carry it openly in the street.

Even conservative Antonin Scalia who wrote the majority opinion went out of his way to reassert that there are limits to gun ownership. In addition to reaffirming the right to keep a gun for home defense, hunting and sports, Scalia also added this to the courts decision: Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

Years earlier, Chief Justice Warren Burger argued there clearly was a connection with maintaining state militias and that certain people had distorted the meaning of the Second Amendment. In a 1991 PBS interview, Burger stated the latter view was one of the greatest pieces of fraud I repeat the word, fraud on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

Using a more sensible interpretation of the Second Amendment, anyone who wants to be a modern-day Minuteman, who truly wants to help with the security of a free State, is free to enlist in the National Guard where they will be trained to use military assault weapons in emergencies. Meanwhile, most Americans continue to believe such weapons should be kept out of civilian hands.

Paul Totaro, Bel Air

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Unfettered access to guns is killing us, and yet we allow it to ... - Baltimore Sun

For years, the NRA has been litigating a Florida law that bans young adults aged 18-20 from purchasing a firearm. In 2021, a federal judge begrudgingly upheld the law, despite finding that it imposed several restrictions on the peoples right to keep and bear arms while affording very few public safety benefits. The judge, however, felt like he was bound by Eleventh Circuit precedent that forbid him from striking the law.

That decision was appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2021. After sitting on the case for over a yearand after the Supreme Court ruled in NYSRPA v. Bruena three-judge panel of the court upheld the law. That panel ruled that the Second Amendment should be interpreted as it was understood in 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified thereby incorporating the Second Amendment to the states, as opposed to 1791, when the Second Amendment was originally ratified. But the Supreme Court could not have been clearer in Heller and Bruen that 1791 is the more appropriate timeframe for interpreting the Second Amendment: As we recognized inHelleritself, because post-Civil War discussions of the right to keep and bear arms took place 75 years after the ratification of the Second Amendment, they do not provide as much insight into its original meaning as earlier sources.

It also appears that the NRA is not the only one who recognized the error in the panels decision. Within six hours of the decision coming down, the court issued a separate order indicating that a judge on the Eleventh Circuit has requested that the full en banc court hear the case. And now the NRA is also asking that the full court reconsider the panels decision.

The case is captioned National Rifle Association v. Bondi.

Please stay tuned towww.nraila.orgfor future updates on NRA-ILAs ongoing efforts to defend your constitutional rights.

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NRA Asks Entire Eleventh Circuit to Hear Case Challenging ... - NRA ILA

Though the Second Amendment is most closely associated with guns, several legal decisions over the last few years have recognized the amendment doesnt only pertain to firearms.

Now, a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego argues the Second Amendment should also protect the right of Californians to own and carry automatically opening knives more commonly known as switchblades.

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California is one of the last states to still outlaw them, with the ban dating back some 65 years, when they were viewed thanks in large part to popular culture as particularly dangerous and the weapon of choice for menacing street gangs.

The recently filed lawsuit filed by lead plaintiff Knife Rights, an Arizona-based organization claims the states enforcement of switchblade laws denies (California residents) ... their fundamental, individual right to keep and bear these common, constitutionally protected arms for lawful purposes, including self-defense.

The suit is part of two separate but related trends. One is a years-long effort to expand Second Amendment rights to weapons that are not firearms, such as nunchucks, stun guns and batons. The other is a more recent effort since the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in June in a New York concealed-carry gun case to liberalize weapons laws.

Doug Ritter, the founder, chairman and CEO of Knife Rights, said it was certainly no coincidence that his group and the other plaintiffs brought this legal challenge after the ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which he said set the table for such actions.

Now we have a very clear decision from the Supreme Court regarding possessing and carrying of arms for self-defense, Ritter said. There are clear limits on what is allowed, and what is not allowed, to be prohibited.

Most bans on switchblades, both at the federal and state levels, were put in place in the 1950s. That includes Californias ban, which was adopted in 1957. The state defines switchblades as knives with blades 2 inches or longer that open automatically by the flick of a button, flip of the wrist, pressure on the handle or by gravity.

Why did lawmakers enact the bans? And why did they consider switchblades so dangerous?

Movies in the 50s always made the bad guy have a switchblade, so switchblades became synonymous with bad guys, said Paul Clark, a New Jersey attorney and professor of philosophy and legal theory at Hudson County Community College in Jersey City. Attitudes about switchblades were more formed by Hollywood depictions than real life.

Clark has authored several articles on what he describes as obscure areas of the law, including bans on bayonets and switchblades. In the switchblade article, published in the Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal, he endeavored to determine whether there was a correlation between crime rates and bans.

There is no evidence whatsoever that banning switchblades reduces crime, Clark said, adding that there was very little empirical research in the 1950s and 60s that went into banning them.

When Clark studied three states that legalized switchblades after previously banning them, his preliminary results showed an overall decrease in the percentage of crimes committed with knives.

He wrote that there are two possible explanations, including that there may be no relationship between legalization of switchblades and their use in crimes. The second theory he posed is that if knives are more prevalent, would-be criminals turn instead to guns so as to be more heavily armed than someone who might be legally carrying a knife.

What evidence did exist as to the unique dangers of switchblades at the time bans were imposed appears to have been anecdotal. But Clark argues outlawing the knives was an idea primarily rooted in entertainment citing movies like 12 Angry Men and Rebel Without a Cause, and the Broadway play-turned-film West Side Story that portrayed them as the weapons of choice for discontented youth and street gangs.

Ritter agreed that popular culture is largely to blame for the switchblades bad reputation, saying many people have adverse opinions about switchblades as the result of movies.

There were other factors. Blade magazine, which bills itself as The Worlds #1 Knife Publication, points out that in November 1950, the then-popular Womans Home Companion magazine published an article titled The Toy that Kills. The last word was printed in red and underlined, and the story made bold claims about switchblades being deadly as a revolver.

In a 2015 blog post, the Brooklyn Public Library recounted how a judge, several state lawmakers and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper waged a three-year campaign against switchblades starting in 1950 that ultimately ended with New York becoming the first state to ban the manufacture, sale and possession of the knives.

Clark and Ritter both said there were also racist undertones to banning switchblades, because it was a weapon often associated with Puerto Rican migrants in New York, like those depicted in one of the gangs from West Side Story.

In modern times, switchblade laws are often selectively enforced based on race, according to Clark, who said police officers he interviewed admitted as much.

A lot of cops said to me, If youre not doing anything you shouldnt be doing, were not going to pick on you for having a switchblade, Clark said. But is that the same for a middle-aged White guy versus an 18-year-old Black guy?

Ritter, the Knife Rights president, said racial discrimination in the enforcement of switchblade and other knife laws is a reason his organization often gets bipartisan support.

Too often we find restrictions and prohibitions that are enforced against minorities and people of color disproportionately, he said, adding that was often the case when such laws were implemented, too. There is definitely a history of knife restrictions that has nothing to do with knives and everything to do with the attitude of people in government toward certain groups of people.

Thats part of the reason why its unclear how much resistance the switchblade lawsuit could meet, especially among the public. There appears to be no local, state or national anti-knife groups such as the ones that advocate for gun control, such as Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Everytown for Gun Safety.

Ritter said that in the nearly 15 years Knife Rights has been fighting to overturn knife bans, hes never run into organized opposition. His group claims to have helped repeal or block 41 knife bans in 26 states since 2010.

The switchblade lawsuit names as defendants Attorney General Rob Bonta, San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez and District Attorney Summer Stephan. A sheriffs lieutenant spokesperson and a spokesperson for the district attorney both declined to address the lawsuit, citing policies against commenting on pending litigation. A spokesperson for Bonta also declined to comment, saying his office was reviewing the complaint and will respond in court.

Bonta has already responded in a limited capacity, in opposition to the plaintiffs assertion that the switchblade lawsuit is closely related to litigation challenging the states ban on assault weapons.

The plaintiffs appear to be trying to take advantage of an obscure local court rule that allows attorneys to get related cases in front of the same judge, even when theyve been randomly assigned to different judges. The practice is meant to promote efficiency and consistency, but has led to allegations of judge shopping.

The switchblade lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Judge James Simmons, Jr., one of the districts newest judges. But the plaintiffs are trying to get it re-assigned to U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who has consistently ruled to overturn California gun laws, earning him the nickname St. Benitez among Second Amendment enthusiasts.

The knife-rights advocates argue both lawsuits challenge California statutes that outlaw weapons based on specific characteristics or features, that the suits involve many of the same plaintiffs and defendants, and that they address substantially the same facts and questions of law.

Assigning the switchblade lawsuit to Benitez, who is already presiding over the assault weapon case and three other Second Amendment cases, would (save) ... judicial effort and avoid or minimize the risk of multiple, inconsistent rulings and judgments within the same District, the plaintiffs argue.

Bontas deputies quickly filed a motion opposing the related cases claim. They argued there were few similarities in the cases beyond the fact that both deal with the Second Amendment.

Plaintiffs here challenge an entirely different set of laws regulating completely different weapons, the deputy attorneys general wrote in their motion.

As of Friday, the case remained assigned to Simmons.

Its unclear exactly what arguments Bonta might make to defend the challenged switchblade statutes, but recent filings in the other Second Amendment cases being heard by Benitez perhaps offer a hint.

In those cases, Benitez ordered attorneys for the state to compile lists of historical weapons restrictions that might meet the new text, history and tradition standard established by Bruen, the recent Supreme Court case. The governments list of laws does not address switchblades such knives did not exist until later but does include several bans on bladed weapons, including dirks, daggers, Bowie knives and a long, slim dagger known as an Arkansas Toothpick.

The government could try to point to those as historical analogies in arguing why switchblades should remain banned.

Benitez is expected to rule or in some cases, re-rule on the four pending Second Amendment challenges within the next few weeks or months.

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For subscribers: Bans on switchblades have been overturned ... - The San Diego Union-Tribune