Tag Archives: guns

Missouri Gov. Vetoes Journo-Jailing Gun Bill

by deqc16rl Posted on July 5, 2013

Mother Jones

Jay Nixon, the Democratic governor of Missouri, vetoed a sweeping pro-gun bill on Friday that received national attention earlier this year because it aimed to nullify all federal gun laws that state lawmakers decided were in violation of the Second Amendment. The bill also placed journalists in jeopardy of arrest for publishing virtually any information about gun owners—a measure far broader than the journalist-jailing bill signed into law last month by Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, and one that could still become law if the state legislature overrides Nixon’s veto later this year.

The Missouri bill, titled the “Second Amendment Protection Act,” would criminalize the publication of any information that identifies a gun owner or applicant by name by making this act a class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to a year in jail in the state. Unlike Louisiana’s new law, which only prohibits the publication of concealed handgun permit information, Missouri’s would ban the publication of “the name, address, or other identifying information of any individual who owns a firearm or who is an applicant for or holder of any license, certificate, permit, or endorsement which allows such individual to own, acquire, possess, or carry a firearm.”

“Under this bill, newspaper editors around the state that annually publish photos of proud young Missourians who harvest their first turkey or deer could be charged with a crime,” Nixon said in a statement explaining the veto.

The bill opens with a long-winded states’ rights discourse explaining why the legislation doesn’t violate federal law. It declares the National Firearms Act of 1934, which restricts machine gun ownership, and the Gun Control Act of 1968, which restricts interstate gun transfers, “null and void and of no effect in this state” because they “infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”

Earlier this year, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, signed into law a similar bill that threatens federal agents with felonies for enforcing gun laws in the state. In response, US Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to Brownback threatening litigation if the governor enforced the law, which Holder said was an unconstitutional defiance of federal law. Similar legislation has recently been introduced in about 30 other states.

Missouri lawmakers may receive their own letters from Holder before the end of the year: The state legislature can override Nixon’s veto when it reconvenes in September if both the Senate and House choose to do so by a two-thirds vote. That could easily happen, because both chambers overwhelmingly voted in favor of the bill.

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Missouri Gov. Vetoes Journo-Jailing Gun Bill

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Gabby Giffords Kicks Off Her 7-State Background Checks Tour By Firing a Handgun

by Abe Smith Posted on July 2, 2013

Mother Jones

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On Monday, former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords began her seven-day, seven-state “Rights and Responsibilities Tour” at a firing range in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was the first time Giffords has fired a gun since sustaining a gunshot wound to the head during a January 2011 assassination attempt in Tucson, Arizona. (The shooting rampage, which occurred at a “Congress on Your Corner” event held in front of a Safeway, left six attendees dead and another thirteen wounded). Here’s footage of Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly at the firing range (via ABC News):

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Giffords and Kelly’s “Rights and Responsibilites Tour”—which includes stops in Alaska, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, and Ohio—is part of an effort to revive and rally support for gun background checks legislation, which collapsed in the Senate in April. The opening event in Vegas fits with Giffords and Kelly’s insistence that, while pushing for stricter gun measures, the two are proud gun owners and staunch supporters of the Second Amendment. “I’m a patriot who believes in the 2nd Amendment,” Giffords writes in a USA Today op-ed this week. “My 7-state tour will promote common-sense action.”

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Gabby Giffords Kicks Off Her 7-State Background Checks Tour By Firing a Handgun

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Dark-Money Group Defended Kelly Ayotte With Money From Her Colleagues’ PACs

by Julie Plunkett Posted on July 2, 2013

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the Center for Public Integrity website.

Freshman Sen. Kelly Ayotte found herself under serious political fire. The New Hampshire Republican’s vote in April against enhancing firearm background checks prompted withering ads from a gun control group. Then another. And another.

But shortly thereafter, a conservative nonprofit—funded in part by some of Ayotte’s own Senate colleagues, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of campaign finance filings—sprang into action on Ayotte’s behalf.

On May 8, the leadership PAC of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) contributed $15,000 to the American Future Fund, records show. A day later, the PAC of Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), gave the same amount. In the following weeks, the leadership PACs of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) each contributed $30,000 to the American Future Fund, a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit that’s not required by law to publicly reveal its donors. Meanwhile, the leadership PACs of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) donated $10,000 to the American Future Fund, while the PAC of Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) gave $5,000.

These six GOP leadership PACs combined to give a total of $105,000 to the American Future Fund in May, according to the Center’s analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. It is highly unusual for a group of leadership PACs to make sizeable contributions to politically active nonprofits, let alone during a matter of weeks, at a time when the beneficiary is airing ads in support of one of their own.

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Dark-Money Group Defended Kelly Ayotte With Money From Her Colleagues’ PACs

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Blumenthal: “I’m Not Going to Doom Immigration Reform”

by DorothyUn Posted on June 13, 2013

Mother Jones

Lawmakers and the families of Newtown victims held a midday press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday—the day before the six-month anniversary of the Newtown shooting—part of a renewed, day-long effort to revive the Senate’s failed gun background check legislation. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat and key advocate for the victims during the gun debate, vowed to defeat the “schoolyard bullies” of the National Rifle Association in that effort, but he was less certain about whether to inject gun control into the ongoing immigration reform debate.

Blumenthal has proposed two gun-related amendments to the immigration bill being considered in the Senate. One would deny immigrants on visa waivers from buying guns; the other would require the US attorney general to alert the Department of Homeland Security when undocumented immigrants attempt to buy guns or when non-citizens attempt mass gun purchases. When the Senate judiciary committee considered the immigration bill, Blumenthal chose not to push for a vote the gun amendments. But he has considered filing them now that the immigration bill is on the Senate floor. Doing so would trigger a major fight, with NRAish senators likely to go ballistic.

“I’m not going to doom or cripple immigration reform efforts to raise those amendments,” Blumenthal told Mother Jones after Thursday’s conference, echoing similar comments he made earlier this week. But, he added, “The issue of gun violence belongs in the debate.” In other words, Blumenthal won’t doom immigration reform—but he might.

Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Blumenthal’s amendments “problematic” because they would sidetrack progress on immigration reform with a gun debate. Democrats, unwilling to let immigration talks implode over controversial amendments, are also eyeing the amendments with caution.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who controls the amendment process, is in discussions with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the minority leader, to determine which measures will get a vote. McConnell told Mother Jones Thursday that there is “nothing new” yet on which amendments will get floor time. Blumenthal said he is still discussing his amendments with Senate leadership and other colleagues to determine if they would be receptive.

At the press conference, Democrats claimed a renewed fight over background checks is possible. Reid said that he would reintroduce a background check bill in the Senate once he secures 60 votes in order to overcome a filibuster, claiming he has made progress with a couple Republicans. “The writing is on the wall,” Reid said. “Background checks will pass the United States Senate, it’s just a matter of time.”

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Blumenthal: “I’m Not Going to Doom Immigration Reform”

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Santa Monica Killer John Zawahri: A Familiar Profile

by Susie Quan Posted on June 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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More details have emerged about John Zawahri, who murdered five people and wounded several others in a gun rampage on Friday before police shot him dead on the campus of Santa Monica College. He is the kind of mass killer we’ve come to see all too often in recent years, from his gender and age to the type of weapons he used to his mental health history. With our in-depth investigation of 62 mass shootings over the last 30 years we identified strong patterns among the killers, and Zawahri fits several of them:

Shooter’s identity: Zawahri was an adult male, age 23. All but one of the killers in the cases we analyzed were male, most of them young adult to middle-age. (Whereas the majority of killers in our dataset were Caucasian, Zawahri was the son of Lebanese immigrants.)

Weapons used: Zawahri committed the killings using an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle and high capacity-magazines. According to the LA Times, investigators said he carried nearly 40 magazines capable of holding 30 bullets each. Some were in a duffel bag along with a handgun; he also wore ammunition strapped to his chest and thighs. Investigators estimated that Zawahri used more than 1,000 rounds during last Friday’s rampage. As our study showed, more than half of all mass shooters had assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and many were armed with multiple guns:

The data we gathered also shows that most mass shooters—nearly 80 percent of them—obtained their weapons legally. We don’t yet know how Zawahri got his guns; law enforcement officials say they’re in the process of tracing them. But it’s possible he obtained them using the Internet: As early as 2006, according to the LA Times, word had spread among Zawahri’s high school classmates and teachers that he’d spent time surfing for assault weapons online. It remains very easy to buy guns on the Internet, a key issue addressed by the legislation mandating broader background checks that died in the Senate in April.

Mental health problems: Zawahri had shown troubling signs years ago, according to the LA Times. In 2006, a teacher learned of Zawahri’s interest in assault weapons—as well as violent threats he’d voiced about specific classmates—and reported Zawahri to the police. Soon after, Zawahri was admitted to UCLA’s psychiatric ward for a brief period. In the 62 cases we studied, a majority of the killers were mentally ill, with many showing signs of it prior to their attacks.

There’s another pattern that Zawahri fits: Like the young male killers in Newtown, Aurora, and Columbine before him, he was apparently into video games. According to the LA Times, his school transcripts show that he was “sporadically” enrolled in his high school’s entertainment technology program in 2009 and 2010, taking courses in animation and video game development. But as Erik Kain cautions in an in-depth explainer on violent video games published on our site today, that fact may ultimately tell us nothing about what caused Zawahri to bring horror to Santa Monica late last week.

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Santa Monica Killer John Zawahri: A Familiar Profile

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I Built This AK-47. It’s Legal and Totally Untraceable.

by um2rnxc Posted on May 23, 2013

Mother Jones

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The wooden and steel parts I need to build my untraceable AK-47 ï¬&#129;t within a slender, 15-by-12-inch cardboard box. I ï¬&#129;rst lay eyes on them one Saturday morning in the garage of an eggshell-white industrial complex near Los Angeles. Foldout tables ring the edges of the room, surrounding two orange shop presses. The walls, dusty and stained, are lined with shelves of tools. I’m with a dozen other guys, some sipping coffee, others making introductions over the buzz of an air compressor. Most of us are strangers, but we share a common bond: We are just eight hours away from having our very own AK-47—one the government will never know about.

The AK-47, perhaps the world’s best-known gun, is so easy to make and so hard to break that the Soviet-designed original has spawned countless variants, updated and modified versions churned out by factories all over the globe. Although US customs laws ban importing the weapons, parts kits—which include most original components of a Kalashnikov variant—are legal. So is reassembling them, as long as no more than 10 foreign-made components are used and they are mounted on a new receiver, the box-shaped central frame that holds the gun’s key mechanics. There are no fussy irritations like, say, passing a background check to buy a kit. And because we’re assembling the guns for our own “personal use,” whatever that may entail, we’re not required to stamp in serial numbers. These rifles are totally untraceable, and even under California’s stringent assault weapons ban, that’s perfectly within the law.

Among those ready to get going at this “build party” (none of whom wanted their names used) are a father-son duo getting in some bonding time and a well-bellied sixtysomething with a white Fu Manchu who “loves” the click-ack! sound of a round being chambered. Assembling a Romanian variant is a builder wearing a camo jacket and a hat embroidered with an AR-15 rifle above the legend “Come and take it.” His knuckle tattoos read “PRAY HARD.”

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I Built This AK-47. It’s Legal and Totally Untraceable.

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Ad Slams Arizona Sen. Flake for Flaking on Background Checks

by testdonekAQW Posted on May 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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Last month, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake broke with his Arizona colleague John McCain to vote against the background check compromise brokered by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Soon after, Caren Teves, the mother of Aurora mass shooting victim Alex Teves, went public with a note she had received from Flake the week before he, well, flaked. In the note, the junior senator wrote that “strengthening background checks is something we agree on.”

On Friday, Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) released an ad featuring Caren Teves that will air in Phoenix and Tucson through the end of the month. In the ad, Teves shows the handwritten letter Flake sent her. “The issue isn’t just background checks,” she says. “It’s keeping your promise. And Senator Flake didn’t.”

Flake has disputed the ad’s claim in a Facebook post. “If you are anywhere close to a television set in Arizona in the coming days, you’ll likely see an ad about gun control financed by NYC Mayor Bloomberg,” he wrote. “Contrary to the ad, I did vote to strengthen background checks,” referring to his vote for the alternate gun amendment introduced by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that included weaker measures to strengthen background checks (and was also voted down).

MAIG and other gun reform groups have vowed to hit Manchin-Toomey opponents hard. Opponents of the compromise have seen their poll numbers drop, and polling by MAIG and other organizations has consistently shown overwhelming support for expanded background checks.

There have been quiet discussions on the Hill about reintroducing an amendment with further concessions to Republicans. But in a meeting with reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that although he’d been in daily talks with senators about bringing background checks back for a vote, the Democrats still didn’t have the 60 votes needed to get it passed. Asked if there were any new supporters, Reid replied, “Maybe.”

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Ad Slams Arizona Sen. Flake for Flaking on Background Checks

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State Department Forces Texas Law Student to Take Down Instructions for 3-D-Printed Guns

by Aaron Dempsey Posted on May 9, 2013

Mother Jones

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Defense Distributed, the Texas-based company specializing in 3-D-printed plastic firearms, took down its downloadable files on Thursday at the request of the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Control Compliance. The company posted a blueprint for the first fully-operational printed plastic handgun, “The Liberator,” on Monday at its site, DEFCAD; the file was downloaded more than a 100,000 times in its first three days.

In a letter to the company’s founder, Cody Wilson, the State Department alleged that the Defense Distributed’s file-sharing service violated the terms of the Arms Export Control Act, and demanded that it take down 10 of its files, including the Liberator, within three weeks.

“Our theory’s a good one, but I just didn’t ask them and I didn’t tell them what we were gonna do,” Wilson, a University of Texas law student, told Mother Jones. “So I think it’s gonna end up being alright, but for now they’re asserting information control over the technical data, because the Arms Information Control Act governs not just actual arms, but technical data, pictures, anything related to arms.”

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State Department Forces Texas Law Student to Take Down Instructions for 3-D-Printed Guns

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Mark Follman on "Inside Story": The Power of the NRA

by p9zyztu Posted on May 6, 2013

Mother Jones

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Two weeks after Congress killed off gun control legislation, the National Rifle Association declared victory in Houston at its annual national convention. In a speech, Wayne LaPierre extolled what he portrayed as a diverse crowd in attendance. But is the true source of the NRA’s power grassroots or corporate? Mother Jones senior editor Mark Follman joined author Paul Barrett and former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman on Al Jazeera‘s “Inside Story” to debate how the famously secretive and fact–challenged gun group operates. Watch:

Bonus video: Behold the Texas governor’s entrance at this year’s NRA convention, dubbed by one YouTube poster as “Rick Perry’s super bad ass NRA gun intro video.” Come for the rocking soundtrack, stay for Perry’s manly removal of an assault rifle magazine:

Read our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America.

Mark Follman is a senior editor at Mother Jones. Read more of his stories and follow him on Twitter.

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Mark Follman on "Inside Story": The Power of the NRA

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Study: 1 in 5 Youth at Risk for Suicide Have a Gun at Home

by cuppyteen Posted on May 6, 2013

Mother Jones

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A new study by leading pediatricians has found that nearly 20 percent of young people between the ages of 10 and 21 who are considered to be at risk for suicide have guns in their homes. The study is being presented Monday at the annual Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Washington, following a symposium held Saturday that also addressed youth gun suicides, media violence, and gun violence prevention.

For the study, 524 patients were surveyed using a standard suicide assessment screening: 17 percent of the 151 patients determined to be suicide risks said they lived in a home with guns; 31 percent said they knew how to access the guns, and the same number said they knew how to access ammunition; 15 percent said they could get their hands on both.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the third leading cause of death of people between the ages of 10 and 24. Among that age group, guns are the top method of suicide. Research elsewhere suggests that having access to guns increases the likelihood that suicidal people will actually kill themselves.

In 1996, the National Rifle Association successfully lobbied for an amendment to an appropriations bill that gutted the CDC’s gun violence research budget. “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control…may be used to advocate or promote gun control,” the amendment read. Since its passage, the agency has been almost entirely absent from gun research, leaving such studies up to others. This January, President Obama announced plans to direct the CDC to resume studying the causes and prevention of gun violence.

Gun rights advocates and groups like the NRA have continued to argue that gun violence studies are politically motivated, and might build a case for greater gun control. After the Tucson shooting in 2011, for instance, NRA chief lobbyist Chris Cox told the New York Times, “Our concern is not with legitimate medical science. Our concern is they were promoting the idea that gun ownership was a disease that needed to be eradicated.” Some have even argued that Obama’s move to restart the research is illegal.

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Study: 1 in 5 Youth at Risk for Suicide Have a Gun at Home

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