Gun industry found 'positive feelings' among gun owners to reform

 In 2019, with the horrors of the Parkland mass shooting still fresh in most Americans’ minds, the gun industry funded a study to “determine the most effective ways of communicating with the American public about the benefits of firearm ownership,” reported The Trace/Rolling Stone.                                  

Its findings, which were not shared with the public, indicated that Americans who support gun ownership could be persuaded by the value of reforms that are vigorously opposed by the gun industry, gun rights groups, and Republican lawmakers. Those reforms include universal background checks, red flag laws, and even a gun registry, which vocal gun rights advocates have falsely claimed made the Holocaust possible.

The study, titled “Communicating With The American Public About Firearm Ownership,” was commissioned by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a nonprofit that serves as the gun industry’s trade group, founded to ensure the survival of its dues-paying members, which include firearms manufacturers, retailers, and ranges. An online survey administered to more than 4,000 Americans tested the power of 24 pro-gun and 24 anti-gun messages. The respondents were divided into multiple categories, including those who had a “positive feeling” about gun ownership.

While the study does not cite Parkland or any mass shooting as a reason for its undertaking, it was conducted at a moment when substantial reforms seemed possible. The indiscriminate killing of students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had galvanized the nation in a manner not seen since Newtown, and the pressure for regulation and accountability was high. Many young Americans, in particular, who had come of age as mass shootings became commonplace, held a negative view of firearms, according to industry research, and that posed a problem for future business. There was a need, it seemed, to find the most resonant ways to convey the value of gun ownership.  

“While the sports shooting industry devotes substantial funding and effort to communications initiatives to boost participation in and support for sport shooting and firearms,” the study notes, “little reliable data exists indicating which messages and communications themes work best.” 

The Trace and Rolling Stone obtained a copy of the study for an ongoing series that seeks to unearth what the gun industry conceals about its customers and practices from public view. The NSSF declined to provide a comment for this story.

On Wednesday, August 27, a 23-year-old shooter, who legally purchased three firearms recovered by law enforcement, opened fire at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, murdering two children and injuring 14 more before taking their own life. The setting and the ages of the victims evoked the 2022 massacre in Uvalde, Texas. That year, President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law, a gun bill that contained politically safe reforms, such as the allocation of funds for mental health resources and school safety. 

After decades of congressional gridlock on the issue, the package was hailed as an epic breakthrough, a valiant example of bipartisan compromise that still mostly relied on Democrats for passage. The NSSF study, then, raises a key question: Why have Republican lawmakers largely stood against more significant reforms, let alone any reform at all? As the study indicates, many people with a favorable view of gun ownership appear open to going further than the lawmakers and special interests who represent them.

For people who the study says have a “positive feeling” about gun ownership, the study ranks the top five arguments for and against it. The top arguments in favor almost all revolve around rights, beginning with “Self-defense is a basic right,” followed by “Americans have the right to own a gun,” “It’s people’s right as Americans to own a gun,” and “Gun ownership is protected by the Constitution.” The remaining argument, which came in at No. 3, states, “Owning and training with a firearm teaches important skills, including responsibility, accuracy, safe gun handling, self-defense, and strategies to avoid dangerous situations.”

When told to rank the “most effective arguments against firearm ownership,” these same respondents chose policies that the gun industry and Republican lawmakers actively oppose. The argument the group found to be most effective is: “Universal background checks for gun sales and transactions are supported by approximately 85 percent of Americans.” 

Other statements deemed highly effective by these respondents included “Guns should be licensed just like cars,” “State red flag laws to remove guns from those who show warning signs of violence keep guns out of the hands of those who would harm themselves or others,” “Gun violence is an epidemic in the U.S.,” and “Common sense gun laws to close loopholes in current gun laws will save lives and prevent gun violence.”

To read more CLICK HERE

A sure sign the death penalty doesn't work

A man convicted of murder in Bay County who was sitting on death row has committed suicide in prison, reported WJHG-TV.

In 2008, Matthew Caylor raped and killed a 13-year-old girl named Melinda Hinson. She was staying with her family at a local motel, where she met Caylor. The motel maid found her body under the bed two days later.

The Georgia man was convicted of First-Degree Murder, Sexual Battery Involving Great Physical Force, and Aggravated Child Abuse in October 2009, and sentenced to death by an 8-4 jury vote. The case was one of dozens across the state where new sentencing hearings were ordered after a 2016 Florida Supreme Court ruling that death sentences required unanimous votes.

He was given a new sentencing hearing, and the judge determined he would remain on death row.

State Attorney Larry Basford confirmed Matthew Caylor committed suicide on Tuesday night. He says he committed suicide the same day as convicted killer Kayle Bates’ execution.

“Matthew Caylor was a sexual predator that had violated his parole in Georgia and came down here for a last hurrah in Bay County. After a trial and numerous appeals, he knew he was facing the same inevitable fate as Kayle Bates. By committing suicide, he saved the taxpayers of Florida a lot of money,” said Basford.

Matthew Caylor tried appealing his case once more earlier this year but got rejected by the state supreme court.

To read more CLICK HERE

More American children and teens die from firearms than any other cause

More American children and teens die from firearms than any other cause, but there are more deaths — and wider racial disparities — in states with more permissive gun policies, according to a new study, reported by Nada Hassanein of Stateline.

The study, published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics last week, analyzes trends in state firearm policies and kids’ deaths since 2010, after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago. The ruling struck down the city’s handgun ban, clearing the way for many states to make it easier for people to buy and carry guns.

The study authors split states into three groups: “most permissive,” “permissive” and “strict,” based on the stringency of their firearm policies. Those policies include safe storage laws, background checks and so-called Stand Your Ground laws. The researchers analyzed homicide and suicide rates and the children’s race.

Using statistical methods, the researchers calculated 6,029 excess deaths in the most permissive states between 2011 and 2023, compared with the number of deaths that would have been expected under the states’ pre-McDonald rules. There were 1,424 excess deaths in the states in the middle category.

In total, about 17,000 deaths were expected in the post-decision period, but 23,000 occurred, said lead author Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, in an interview.

Among the eight states with the strictest laws, four — California, Maryland, New York and Rhode Island — saw statistically significant decreases in their pediatric firearm death rates. Illinois, which was directly affected by the court’s decision in the McDonald case, and Connecticut saw increases in their rates. In Massachusetts and New Jersey, the changes were not statistically significant.

The rate increased in all but four (Alaska, Arizona, Nebraska and South Dakota) of the 41 states in the two permissive categories. (Hawaii was not included in the study due its low rates of firearm deaths.)

Non-Hispanic Black children and teens saw the largest increase in firearm deaths in the 41 states with looser gun laws. Those youths’ mortality rates increased, but by a much smaller amount, in the states with strict laws.

Experts say the study underscores the power of policy to help prevent firearm deaths among children and teens. The analysis comes less than a month after the release of a federal report on children’s health that purported to highlight the drivers of poor health in America’s children but failed to include anything on firearm injuries — the leading cause of death for children and teens in 2020 and 2021, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Trauma surgeon Dr. Marie Crandall, chair of surgery at MetroHealth medical center and a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, researches gun violence. She previously practiced at a Jacksonville, Florida, urban trauma unit, where she frequently saw children and teens caught in gun violence.

“When I see children come in with 10 holes in them that I can’t save — that is a loss. That is a completely preventable death, and it is deeply emotionally scarring to have to have those conversations with families when we know, as a society, there are things we could do to de-escalate,” said Crandall, who wasn’t involved in the new study.

When I see children come in with 10 holes in them that I can't save — that is a loss. That is a completely preventable death.

– Dr. Marie Crandall, chair of surgery, MetroHealth medical center, Cleveland

In her state of Ohio, firearm death rates among children and teens increased from 1.6 per 100,000 kids in the decade before the McDonald decision to 2.8 after it, according to the study. Ohio was categorized in the group with the most permissive laws.

The study adds to previous research that shows state laws around child access to firearms, such as safe storage and background checks, tend to be associated with fewer child firearm deaths.

“We know that child access prevention decreases unintentional injuries and suicides of children. So having your firearms locked, unloaded, stored separately from ammunition, decreases the likelihood of childhood injuries,” Crandall said. “More stringent regulation of those things also decreases childhood injuries.”

But she said it’s hard to be optimistic about more stringent regulation when the current administration dismisses gun violence as a public health emergency. The Trump administration earlier this year took down an advisory from the former U.S. surgeon general, issued last year, that emphasized gun violence as a public health crisis.

Faust, the lead author of the new study, stressed that firearm injuries and deaths were notably missing from the Make America Healthy Again Commission report on children’s health. He said the failure to include them illustrates the politicization of a major public health emergency for America’s kids.

“It’s hard to take them seriously if they’re omitting the leading cause of death,” Faust said. “They’re whiffing, they’re shanking. They’re deciding on a political basis not to do it. I would say by omitting it, they’re politicizing it.”

Faust and pediatric trauma surgeon Dr. Chethan Sathya, who directs the Center for Gun Violence Prevention at the Northwell Health system in New York, each pointed to the development of car seat laws and public health education, as examples of preventive strategies that helped reduce childhood fatalities. They support a similar approach to curbing youth gun deaths.

“We really have to apply a public health framework to this issue, not a political one, and we’ve done that with other issues in the past,” said Sathya, who wasn’t involved in the study and oversees his hospital’s firearm injury prevention programs. “There’s no question that this is a public health issue.”

In Louisiana, which the study categorized as one of the 30 most permissive states, the child firearm mortality rate increased from 4.1 per 100,000 kids in the pre-McDonald period to 5.7 after it — the nation’s highest rate. The study period only goes to 2023, but the state last year enacted a permitless carry law, allowing people to carry guns in public without undergoing background checks. And just last month, Louisiana legislators defeated a bill that would have created the crime of improper firearm storage.

Louisiana Democratic state Rep. Matthew Willard, who sponsored the safe storage legislation, said during the floor debate that its purpose was to protect children. Louisiana had the highest rate of unintentional shootings by children between 2015 to 2022, according to the research arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for stricter gun access. Willard cited that statistic on the floor.

But Republican opponents said Willard’s proposal would infringe on residents’ gun rights and make it more difficult for them to use guns in self-defense.

“Nobody needs to come in our houses and tell us what to do with our guns. I think this is ridiculous,” Republican Rep. R. Dewith Carrier said during the debate.

Another Republican opponent, state Rep. Troy Romero, said he was concerned that having a firearm locked away would make it harder for an adult to quickly access it.

“If it’s behind a locked drawer, how in the world are you going, at 2 or 3 in the morning, going to be able to protect your family if somebody intrudes or comes into your home?” Romero said.

Gun violence researcher Julia Fleckman, an assistant professor, and her team at Tulane University in New Orleans have started to collect data on the impact of the state’s permitless carry law.

“It places a disproportionate impact on really vulnerable people, really, our most vulnerable people,” Fleckman said, noting kids bear the brunt of legislators’ decisions. “They don’t have a lot of control over this or the decisions we’re making.”

In South Carolina, another one of the most permissive states, the mortality rate increased from 2.3 to 3.9 per 100,000 kids in the time before and after the McDonald decision. South Carolina Democratic state Rep. JA Moore, who lost his adult sister 10 years ago today in the 2015 racist shooting that killed nine at a Charleston church, said state policy alone isn’t enough. He implored his colleagues to also examine their perception of guns.

“We have a culture here in South Carolina that doesn’t lend itself to a more safe South Carolina,” said Moore, who added he’s been advocating for background checks and stricter carry laws. “There is a need for a culture change in our state, in our country, when it comes to guns and our relationships with guns as Americans, realizing that these are deadly weapons.”

And investing in safer neighborhoods is crucial, he said.

“People are hurt by guns in places that they’re more comfortable, like their homes in their own neighborhoods,” he said.

Community-based interventions are important to stemming violence, experts said. Crandall, the Cleveland surgeon, said there’s emerging evidence that hospital-based and community-based violence prevention programs decrease the likelihood of violent and firearm-related injury.

Such programs aim to break cycles of violence by connecting injured patients with community engagement services. After New York City implemented its hospital-based violence interruption program, two-thirds of 3,500 violent trauma patients treated at five hospitals received community prevention services.

After her 33-year-old son was killed in her neighborhood in 2019, Michelle Bell started M-PAC Cleveland — “More Prayer, Activity & Conversation” — a nonprofit collaborative of people who’ve lost loved ones to violent crime. She’s encountered many grieving parents who lost their children to gunfire. The group advocates and educates for safe storage laws and holds peer grief support groups.

She also partners with the school district in a program that shares stories of gun violence’s long-lasting impact on surviving children, families and communities and non-violent interpersonal conflict resolution.

“Oftentimes, the family that has lost the child, the child’s life has been taken by gun violence, there are other children in the home,” she said.

“It’s so devastating. It’s just so tragic that the No. 1 cause of death for children 18 and under is gun violence,” Bell continued.

The decision to “pull a trigger,” she said, changes a “lifetime of not only yours, but so many other people.”

To read more CLICK HERE

CREATORS: Gun Violence is a Health Epidemic in This Country

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
May 5, 2025

Last summer, the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, declared gun violence a public health crisis.

The advisory issued by the nation's top doctor was the first step to drive down gun deaths. Data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that gun violence claimed 46,728 lives in 2023, down slightly from 2022, but still the third-highest annual gun-related deaths ever recorded in the United States.

Though they tend to get less public attention than gun-related murders, suicides have long accounted for the majority of U.S. gun deaths. In 2023, according to the Pew Research Center, 58% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides.

With that in mind, only weeks into his new term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to protect the Second Amendment: "The Second Amendment is an indispensable safeguard of security and liberty. It has preserved the right of the American people to protect ourselves, our families, and our freedoms since the founding of our great Nation. Because it is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed."

In March, consistent with the President's order, the administration removed the advisory on gun violence as a public health issue from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' website.

According to The Guardian, the CDC website "Firearm Violence in America," where the advisory had been posted, was filled with data and information about the ripple effects of shootings, the prevalence of firearm suicides and the number of American children and adolescents who have been shot and killed.

The removal of the website and the Surgeon General's warning is unconscionable. Gun violence is a health epidemic for young people in this country.

A report released in September of 2024, by the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, based on data from the CDC, found for the third straight year, firearms killed more children and teens, ages 1 to 17, than any other causes of death, including car crashes and cancer.

The CDC is part of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. HHS is slashing personnel from the CDC. In a recently issued fact sheet, HHS said the CDC's workforce was being reduced by 2,400 people, and the goal is to streamline divisions within the agency and get rid of redundancies.

Last month, the CDC's Injury Center and its Division of Violence Prevention — a unit that studies and works to prevent gun deaths and injuries — lost personnel.

According to National Public Radio, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, "(T)he reality is clear: what we've been doing isn't working. Despite spending $1.9 trillion in annual costs, Americans are getting sicker every year."

More than half a century ago, when Kennedy's father was the U.S. Attorney General, Luther L. Terry, M.D., Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, released the first report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health. Terry convened a committee of specialists who reviewed some 7,000 scientific articles and worked with more than 150 consultants to formulate the report, finding that cigarette smoking caused lung cancer.

The report spawned numerous other efforts at various levels of government to curb smoking, including the now-familiar surgeon general's warning on the side of cigarette packages, increased taxation, restrictions on advertising and limiting public areas where people can smoke, along with programs and products to help people kick the habit.

Fortunately, when former President Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, he didn't undo the work of Terry, nor has any president since. Why was that fortunate for America?

As a result of Terry's groundbreaking health advisory, it is estimated that, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, between 1964 and 2014, 8 million lives were saved due to pervasive tobacco-control measures.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

To visit Creators CLICK HERE

Trump administration removes surgeon general's warning of gun violence as health emergency--47,000 died from firearms in 2023

 The Trump administration has removed the former surgeon general Vivek Murthy’s advisory on gun violence as a public health issue from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ website. This move was made to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order to protect second amendment rights, a White House official told the Guardian.

The “firearm violence in America” page, where the advisory had been posted, was filled with data and information about the ripple effects of shootings, the prevalence of firearm suicides and the number of American children and adolescents who have been shot and killed. Now, when someone reaches the site they will be met with a “page not found” message.

When it was originally released last summer, Murthy’s advisory was met with praise from violence prevention and research groups, and was lambasted by second amendment law centers and advocacy groups that argued the Biden administration was using public health as a cloak to push forward more gun control.

“This is an extension of the Biden Administration’s war on law-abiding gun owners. America has a crime problem caused by criminals,” the National Rifle Association (NRA) said in a statement posted to X on 25 July 2024.

But Daniel Semenza, a firearm violence researcher with Rutgers University, argues that talking about gun violence through a public health lens is meant to “bring the heat down” about a deeply politicized issue and broaden what prevention can look like.

In 2023, nearly 47,000 people died by firearms, most of them suicides.

“When people read gun violence is a public health problem, they read guns are a public health problem,” Semenza said. “This idea actually removes the politics from the issue and is an engine to get us on the same page. [The removal] feels like an unnecessary and mean-spirited way to politicize something that people have actively been trying to bring people together on.”

The removal of Murthy’s advisory and the rest of the information on the page is one of the thousands of pieces of health information and research removed from federal websites. They include information about vaccines, health risks among youth and gender-based violence, the New York Times reported.

To read more CLICK HERE

U.S. gun violence continued to decline significantly in 2024

Gun violence in the United States continued to decline significantly in 2024, providing yet another signal that the pandemic-era surge has come to an end, reported The Trace. Firearm deaths and injuries dropped for a third straight year. Homicides in major cities, mass shootings, and child and teen gun deaths also fell.

Yet the toll of gun violence remains. Even as shootings decline, tens of thousands of lives continue to be lost or permanently changed by guns.

Data helps provide a clearer picture of gun violence trends, informing prevention efforts and highlighting both the progress made and the challenges that remain. 

Here are two of 13 statistics offered by The Trace that help shed light on America’s gun violence epidemic.

16,576

The number of firearm deaths, excluding suicides, in 2024

Gun deaths decreased for a third consecutive year, dropping 12 percent from 2023’s total of nearly 19,000. While still slightly above pre-pandemic levels, gun deaths this year were 21 percent lower than the pandemic-era peak of more than 21,000 in 2021. These figures, compiled by the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, include murders, accidental shootings, and homicides deemed legally justified. GVA does not track suicides, which account for more than half of all gun deaths. [Gun Violence Archive]

-14 percent

The decrease in firearm injuries in 2024

Firearm injuries fell to 31,409 in 2024 — down nearly 14 percent from 2023, when there were 36,338. Tracking gun injuries is challenging. The Gun Violence Archive attempts it by monitoring media reports, which may not capture all incidents. Still, the data suggests a significant overall decline in firearm injuries. [Gun Violence Archive]

To read more CLICK HERE

UK lawmakers approve assisted suicide for dying or terminally ill patients

After an emotive and at times impassioned debate, Britain’s lawmakers voted to allow assisted dying for terminally ill patients in England and Wales under strict conditions, opening the way to one of the most profound social changes in the country in decades, reported The New York Times.

By 330 votes to 275, members of Parliament gave their support to a bill that would permit doctors to help some terminally ill patients to end their lives.

Friday’s vote was not the final say on the matter for Parliament, as it will now be scrutinized in parliamentary committees and amendments to the bill may be put forward. But it is a landmark political moment, setting the stage for a significant shift that some have likened to Britain’s legalization of abortion in 1967 and the abolition of the death penalty in 1969.

The new legislation would apply to a narrow group: Applicants would have to be over 18, diagnosed with a terminal illness and have been given no more than six months to live. Two doctors and a judge would be required to give their approval, and the fatal drugs would have to be self-administered.

Assisted dying is already legal in a handful of European countries, as well as in Canada, New Zealand, 10 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

The bill debated on Friday was proposed by a Labour Party member of parliament, Kim Leadbeater, but lawmakers were given the freedom to vote with their consciences, instead of being expected to vote along a party-line, meaning the outcome was impossible to predict.

ImageKim Leadbeater in London last month. The Labour lawmaker told Parliament that her legislation addressed “one of the most significant issues of our time.”Credit...Jaimi Joy/Reuters

During almost five hours of debate on Friday in a crowded parliamentary chamber, raw divisions were revealed over an issue that transcended political affiliations.

Meg Hillier, a Labour lawmaker, said the legislation would “cross a Rubicon,” by involving the state in the death of some of those it governs. “This is a fundamental change in the relationship between the state and the citizen, and the patient and their doctor,” she said.

But Kit Malthouse, a Conservative lawmaker, argued in support of the bill, saying, “The deathbed for far too many is a place of misery, torture and degradation, a reign of blood and vomit and tears.” He added, “I see no compassion and beauty in that — only profound human suffering.”

To read more CLICK HERE

PA House Judiciary Committee moves forward with gun measures

Democrats in majority control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives advanced several gun measures, including one that would ban sales of automatic and semi-automatic guns, after years of standstill in the politically divided state government, reported The Associated Press.

The bills were passed by the Judiciary Committee on party lines and await the full House’s consideration.

Even if the bills clear the House floor, however, they will likely face a cold reception in the state Senate; other gun control measures passed by the House last year did not even get called up in committee. Instead, senators have prioritized working with Democrats to boost funding for anti-violence and mental health programs.

Still, it’s the second time since Democrats regained majority status in the chamber that they’ve used their heft to push gun control measures. They kicked off the current two-year session last March with a hearing on gun violence. Under Republican majorities in both chambers until last year, the Legislature has not seriously considered broadening gun-control measures since 2018.

The slate of bills that passed Judiciary on Wednesday would balance gun ownership with protecting average citizens, Democrats argued.

“These are issues that we were clear at the beginning of the session we wanted to tackle,” said the committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Tim Briggs of Montgomery County. “The first thing we did was have a hearing on gun violence prevention measures.”

Republicans raised concerns about infringing upon constitutional rights.

“If the government can infringe on our Second Amendment rights, no rights can be enjoyed by citizens of this nation,” said Rep. Joe Hamm, a Republican from Lycoming County.

One bill the committee approved would ban future sales of “assault weapons,” defined as automatic and semi-automatic firearms. Sponsors cited the use of high-capacity semi-automatic rifles in a number of mass shootings, including in Pittsburgh, where a gunman carried out the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history in 2018 armed with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons.

Previously, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has said he’d support legislation that limits the availability of such firearms. At least 10 states have enacted laws banning them, sometimes spurring litigation.

Among the other legislation that passed the committee, one bill would prohibit accelerated trigger activators, which increase the rate of gunfire. Another bill would prohibit the purchase, sale and production of untraceable gun parts. A fourth would subject 3D-printed firearms to the same regulations as standard firearms.

Another bill would shorten the time a judge has to notify the Pennsylvania State Police about a person with mental health from about a week to four days.

Adam Garber, executive director of CeaseFirePA, a gun violence prevention group, said the advancing of the bills showed a “commitment to survivors.” He called the automatic weapons ban proposal the first such effort in “modern times.”

To read more CLICK HERE

Police suicide a growing concern nationwide

Andy O'Hara writing for The Marshall Project: 

There is a code of secrecy around mental illness in police agencies across the nation, a code that is difficult to break through.

No federal agency keeps an official count of how many law enforcement officers commit suicide each year. That’s in part why I founded Badge of Life, a nonprofit that seeks to prevent police suicides. We’ve collected data in recent years and found that there are an average of 130 law enforcement suicides every year, or eleven per month.

More officers die of suicide than die of shootings and traffic accidents combined. It’s a problem that cries out for answers and remedies, but too many departments are reluctant to admit it exists, much less implement programs to address it.

While a few of the known deaths are publicly attributed to depression or PTSD, the overwhelming majority are listed as having “unknown causes.” Stigma — the fear that it will reflect negatively on a department or result in liability claims by the family — appears to be a motivating factor behind such vague information.

Based on 24 years experience on the job, I believe that work-related stress and depression are far more prevalent in police work than reports suggest. Law enforcement is one of the most toxic, caustic career fields in the world. But, while injuries like PTSD are increasingly acknowledged within the military, its prevalence in civilian police work goes virtually unnoticed.

Instead of continuing to ignore the problem, the law enforcement community needs to address mental health and suicide head-on, devising what they call a “cradle to the grave” approach for officers. Cadets in police academies must be informed of the emotional toll of police work and taught coping techniques.

Additionally, rather than advising officers to get help when they “need it,” it should be strongly encouraged that officers attend regular therapy sessions with a licensed counselor, whether it is through an employee counseling service or on the “outside” to assure confidentiality.

Finally, officers should be encouraged to go at least once a year to a therapist who is adept at dealing with stress and trauma in the same way they get an annual physical or dental check-up. That would give an officer the opportunity to see what has been working well emotionally for the past year, but also affords him or her a chance to see what has not.

To read more CLICK HERE

Ready access to guns contributes to soaring number of suicides

Experts say ready access to guns contributes to the issue. Suicides attributed to firearm injuries have been rising since 2006. In 2022, nearly 27,000 people died by gun-related suicide, surpassing earlier records and accounting for more than half of all suicide deaths, reported The New York Times.

Mike Anestis, the executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, attributes the increase partly to an “unprecedented surge” in firearm sales in 2020. That year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation processed a record of about 39.7 million firearm background checks.

In a paper published in JAMA Psychiatry, Dr. Anestis and his colleagues found that those who purchased a firearm for the first time during the surge were at a higher risk of having experienced suicidal thoughts.

“If firearms are more likely to be in homes where suicidal thoughts recur, then as the years go by you’re more likely to have that sort of confluence of wanting to die and having ready access to — by far — the most lethal method for suicide,” Dr. Anestis said.

To read more CLICK HERE

Washington Monthly: The Myth of the Responsible Gun Owner

Washington Monthly, Alan Berlow, Part I:

We are increasingly numb to mass shootings, the destruction wrought by an alienated man (rarely a woman) who uses a weapon designed for war to kill the innocent at a movie theater or Walmart, synagogue or church, high school or elementary school. These shootings have become so commonplace that the details blur: 16 dead and injured at a Texas outlet mall; 36 at an Alabama birthday party; 14 at a Louisville bank; eight at Nashville Christian school; 21 at a dance hall in California. Just as unsettling, in some ways, are the shootings in recent weeks based on what can only be called a hair-trigger response to a perceived threat. In Kansas City, Missouri, Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old, was going to pick up his younger twin siblings from a playdate when he went to the wrong address and was greeted by 85-year-old Andrew Lester, who shot him in the head. Yarl is Black, and Lester is white. Around the same time, across the country in New York State, Kaylin Gillis was heading to a friend’s house when her boyfriend mistakenly turned into the wrong driveway. Its owner, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan, fired at the car, killing 20-year-old Gillis. (He’s been charged with murder.) In Texas, two high school cheerleaders were shot in a supermarket parking lot after one of them mistakenly entered a car she thought was her own. Police say that 25-year-old Pedro Tello Rodriguez, Jr. fired multiple shots. Payton Washington, 18, dressed in her cheerleader outfit, was shot in the back and nearly died. These were not criminals with a history of mental illness but legal gun owners who chose to pull the trigger.  

Are most gun owners reckless and rage-filled? Probably not. But the data show that the gun lobby’s promulgated myth of the responsible gun owner is just that—a myth. An extraordinary number of gun owners are not responsible stewards of firearms and the assumption that they are informs public policy. Last year, in an opinion authored by Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court struck down New York’s 109-year-old gun law, which required gun owners seeking a concealed carry license to demonstrate “proper cause,” a special need for such permission. In its ruling, the 6-3 majority repeatedly referred to the rights of “law-abiding” and “responsible” citizens. Most importantly, more than 230 years after the ratification of the Second Amendment, the Court discovered a right for these “law-abiding, responsible citizens” to carry handguns in public for their self-defense.  

Millions of hunters, sportsmen, collectors, and other ordinary gun owners view the Second Amendment as a right that comes with responsibilities. But there are plenty who are less fastidious.  

In two weeks this spring, the country experienced at least 25 mass shootings. In addition, two seven-year-old Virginia twins and a woman were shot after a dispute over a bicycle. Two Maryland men were shot in a road rage incident after they inadvertently cut off a motorcyclist. In a San Antonio, Texas, road rage incident, a man fired into a car, injuring a six-year-old child. Also in San Antonio, a 21-year-old mother and her 20-year-old husband argued over possessing a handgun when it went off, killing an eight-month-old infant. In Fort Worth, Texas, a 14-year-old girl was shot and killed by her older sister after they found a gun in a closet. In Arlington, Texas, a two-year-old boy fatally shot himself with a gun left lying around his home. In Virginia, a three-year-old boy shot and killed himself with a gun he found in a teenage sibling’s room. In Ohio, a four-year-old boy accidentally shot himself in the abdomen after finding his brother’s .9mm pistol in the back seat of his SUV. A 14-year-old boy playing with a gun on a North Carolina school bus accidentally shot a 16-year-old student in the buttocks. A Tennessee woman shot her one-year-old grandson sitting in her lap when she reached into her purse and accidentally pulled the trigger of her gun. And that’s just a partial list.  

In New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen, Justice Thomas suggested that 43 states are sorting out the bad guys by requiring background checks, safety training courses, and measures “designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.’” 

The Court’s majority made no effort to ascertain whether state laws accomplish that mission, although they were clearly aware that half of the states have “constitutional carry” laws that do nothing to “ensure” that those carrying concealed handguns are law-abiding or responsible. In these 25 states, no background check, mental health check, fingerprinting, permit, or license is required to carry a gun, and in 27 states, no training is necessary to carry one. 

Gun purchases in all states require a federal background check, but only if the seller is a federally licensed dealer. In 35 states, criminals can avoid background checks by purchasing firearms from sites like Armslist.com—a sort of Craigslist for guns—through online auctions, buying from friends, relatives, and other private sellers, or shopping at gun shows. Only 14 states require a permit to purchase a gun.  

These laws—or the lack of them—matter. The young men responsible for the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, which left 13 dead, acquired their firearms at a gun show with the help of an older classmate. The gunman who shot 23 people dead at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 purchased his AK-47 and 1000 rounds of ammunition online.  

In states that require a license to carry a concealed handgun, too often, dangerous sorts are still perfectly free to get a permit to pack heat. 

Consider stalking. A reliable predictor of intimate-partner homicides in as many as 75 percent of cases, 30 states nonetheless allow convicted stalkers to keep their guns, and 22 let them carry concealed weapons, according to a database compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety. In 31 states, those convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor may not legally own a firearm, but only 17 require those domestic abusers to turn in their guns.  

Found not guilty by reason of insanity? No problem. Twenty-one states have no law barring gun ownership by someone found not guilty by reason of insanity, and 23 allow gun purchases by someone found incompetent to stand trial. 

And then there’s alcohol, a frequent factor in firearm homicides. A University of California Davis survey of more than 78,000 gun owners over 13 years found that those who legally purchased firearms following a conviction for alcohol-related crimes—primarily DUIs—were nearly three times more likely to commit a violent crime or a crime with a firearm—including murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—as those with no prior criminal convictions.  Nevertheless, only 18 states bar those with multiple DUI convictions from carrying concealed weapons. 

In his concurring opinion in Bruen, Justice Samuel Alito writes: “Our holding decides nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm.” Instead, it tacitly assumes that states have vetted those allowed to carry.  

The notion that gun owners are overwhelmingly responsible and law-abiding is not confined to the Court, and it has been baked into our culture by the National Rifle Association. So, according to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, “We know that responsible gun ownership exemplifies what is good and right about America.” The lobby’s magazine, America’s First Freedom, assures us that “Owning and carrying a firearm is a great responsibility, which is just how America’s lawful gun owners take it.”  

Data on American gun owners paint a different picture. It reveals that millions have little or no training. Sizable numbers are ignorant of the law, careless with their weapons, have severe problems with anger and alcohol, and are regularly involved in violent or criminal activity. And where we find some of the most egregious behavior by gun owners—and dealers—there is almost always a NRA policy to encourage it. 

To appreciate why this matters, it helps to understand that the standard measures of gun violence—homicides and suicides—vastly understate the scope of the problem. Imagine if you learned that 1,166 people had been raped, robbed, assaulted, or threatened by someone with a gun today. Well, that’s what happened every day, on average, between 2012 and 2020. That’s more than four million direct victims of gun violence in one decade. And that’s not counting homicides and suicides, which totaled 134,500 and 224,600, respectively, and the more than 192,000 injured in firearm accidents. 

If you add indirect victims of gun violence, the numbers are astronomical. To cite just one example, the 380 school shootings (as of May 1) since the 1999 Columbine massacre have resulted in the deaths of 199 students and school personnel (about eight each year) and another 428 injured (about 17 each year), according to a Washington Post database. But 352,000 children attended those schools when the violence took place and, thus, were victimized by it. In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released on April 11, 19 percent of adults said they had a family member who was shot and killed or committed suicide with a gun. An NPR Marist poll released May 24 found 41 percent of those surveyed said they or someone they know had experienced gun violence either as a victim of a shooting or by being threatened with a gun.  

In a nation where as many as 81 million adults own an estimated 434 million firearms (about half of the world’s supply), the assumption that “most” are responsible and law-abiding may be accurate. But that still leaves plenty of room for bad stuff to happen, which it does, every day.  

Alito, for his part, is dismissive of gun violence statistics. “[W]hat does this have to do with the question whether an adult who is licensed to possess a handgun may be prohibited from carrying it outside the home?” he asked last June.

The answer is that courts have traditionally balanced the government’s interest in public safety against Second Amendment rights. Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion in the 2008 Heller case established an individual’s right to keep a handgun in the home for self-defense while allowing many gun regulations to remain on the books, including bans on concealed weapons. 

Bruen is a more radical decision, weirdly concerned with gun regulations during a brief 77-year period of the 18th and 19th centuries. So Bruen’s majority evinced no interest in how the New York law worked in practice. Rather than weigh a gun law’s impact on public safety, Bruen instructs courts to ascertain only if the law is “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”  

That could prove difficult for judges trying to determine if states can ban habitual drunk drivers from owning firearms or if guns can be prohibited on subways and buses, in movie theatres, and baseball stadiums. None of these situations existed in 18th -and 19th-century America. Indeed, the entire population of New York City at the time the Second Amendment was ratified could fit in Yankee Stadium, with 20,000 seats to spare.  

In Bruen’s wake, gun restrictions that have withstood constitutional challenges for decades are being struck down by judges who say they can find no historical analogs. Among them are state laws that ban guns in places of worship, libraries, museums, bars, subways, domestic violence support centers, and summer camps. 

It’s impossible to know how many people carry concealed handguns on any given day. Still, a 2017 PEW survey suggests that more than 15 million may carry all the time and an additional 18 million some of the time—about 10 percent of the population. Concealed carry promoters insist that these “armed citizens” make us safer, and they attest that licensed gun owners are among the most responsible and law-abiding citizens.  

There is, however, a growing body of evidence to suggest that the growth of concealed carry has made us less safe, not more. Here are a few examples:  

A National Bureau of Economic Research study released last June found that right-to-carry laws increased violent gun crimes by 29 percent and gun homicides by 13 percent in the largest U.S. cities, while gun thefts increased by 35 percent. 

During the first eight years after Wisconsin passed its concealed weapon law in 2011, the state experienced a 33-percent rise in gun homicides compared to the previous eight years, a 56-percent increase in aggravated assaults with firearms, and a 63-percent increase in assaults on police officers. 

Records I’ve examined for Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida show that more than 71,000 carry licenses were suspended or revoked during the last five years, largely due to felony and misdemeanor arrests or convictions and domestic violence injunctions. Extrapolating nationally—and assuming a similar lawlessness rate – would amount to more than 900,000 licensed and not-so-responsible gun carriers.  

Earlier this year, the Transportation Security Administration reported that in 2022 it had found 6,542 guns in carry-on bags at 262 U.S. airports, about 18 guns per day. That number surpassed the previous record of 5,972 guns in 2021, which was no surprise to the TSA. Except for 2020, when people stopped flying because of Covid, the numbers have increased yearly since 2009. During the past decade, the TSA confiscated 33,000 of these illegally transported firearms.  

What, if anything, do these numbers tell us about how committed millions of gun-carrying Americans are to responsible gun ownership? Most of those stopped by the TSA offered an Elmer Fudd, “I forgot I was carrying” defense which, even if true, is hardly comforting. “What we see in our checkpoints really reflects what we’re seeing in society,” TSA administrator David Pekoske told the Associated Press. “There are more people carrying firearms nowadays.” The NRA hasn’t weighed in on these particular gun owners but has offered this guidance: “The armed citizen must be conscious of his responsibilities 24/7.”  

To read more CLICK HERE

 

New Jersey's smart gun law that never was very smart

The new smart gun from the firearms technology company Biofire is seemingly everything New Jersey State Senators Loretta Weinberg and Richard Codey envisioned when they authored the state’s Childproof Handgun Law in 2002, reported The Trace. Equipped with facial recognition and fingerprint verification to ensure that only authorized users may handle it, the 9mm handgun became available for pre-order in April. Its “smart” features are designed to reduce accidental shootings by children, suicides, and the use of stolen guns in crimes.

But New Jersey’s law, which was toned down in 2019 but still requires all gun stores in the state to sell smart guns as soon as a viable option hits the market, may still not take effect. That’s partly because Biofire doesn’t want it to.

The company’s CEO, Kai Kloepfer, told The Trace he has no plans to submit his gun to New Jersey’s Personalized Handgun Authorization Commission for review, which might trigger the law’s requirement for gun sellers to stock it. No gun has yet been submitted for review, and the commission has not yet agreed upon technical criteria, but once a model is approved, it will need to be stocked by the state’s more than 300 gun stores.

“There is not a world where Biofire will be applying for inclusion,” Kloepfer said. “We do not support mandates of any kind. We’re looking to build positive long-term relationships with gun stores and forcing these additional administrative burdens doesn’t incentivize them to support our technology; it does the opposite.”

Since its inception, New Jersey’s law has been criticized by gunmakers and smart-gun advocates alike for stifling innovation and deterring would-be entrants to the smart-gun market. The bill originally forced firearms retailers to switch to entirely smart inventories within 30 months of a smart model being offered for sale anywhere in the United States — a measure that threatened to raze the firearms industry in New Jersey. The state Legislature dramatically softened this requirement in 2019, allowing retailers to carry their regular stock so long as they also offer at least one smart gun.

The revised statute now says that a “manufacturer or other entity” may apply for inclusion on the state’s roster of approved smart guns, but does not address whether the commission would be able to add firearms in the absence of an application. When asked about this possibility, a spokesperson for the New Jersey attorney general only repeated the language from the statute: “We cannot otherwise comment on the work PHAC is doing, or will do, to carry out its mandated mission.” Multiple requests for comment from members of the commission went unanswered.

Weinberg, who left the state Senate in 2021, said she was unsure whether the law would allow the commission to add guns to the roster without manufacturer consent, but said that she did not think the bill’s stocking requirement should concern smart-gun makers. “I would assume that [these manufacturers] would be more interested in developing a good product than worrying about whether the store is required to sell it,” she said.

Codey, who still represents Essex and Morris Counties in the state Senate, did not respond to requests for comment.

Weinberg and Codey conceived of their 2002 bill as a way to spur the “research, development, and manufacture” of smart-gun technology, Weinberg told NPR in 2014 — an attempt to address a crisis of accidental shootings, suicides, and homicides that involve lost or stolen guns. According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, almost 700 children are injured or killed in accidental shootings in the United States each year since 2015; roughly 25,000 die each year by firearm suicide. And as The Trace has reported, thousands of stolen guns every year turn up at the scenes of carjackings, sexual assaults, murders, and other crimes. Researchers and violence prevention advocates see smart guns as an effective and uncontroversial way to reduce such shootings.

But rather than facilitating the development of smart-gun technology, Weinberg and Codey’s law wound up thwarting it. The original requirement attracted furious blowback from gun rights organizations and Second Amendment activists, who rallied to block the release of products that would trigger the state’s countdown clock.

Their opposition mired discussion of the technology in hot-blooded political muck. For nearly two decades, no smart guns made it to market in the U.S., and no major firearms manufacturer dared explore the technology. When a German company introduced a model controlled by a radio frequency identification chip in a companion watch, the two U.S. gun stores that announced plans to carry the weapon faced boycotts and death threats. (The gun, the iP1 from the gunmaker Armatix, was also an unmitigated failure: its RFID-controlled safety could be disabled with magnets).

Weinberg recognized the legislation’s shortcomings, and campaigned for years to have it altered. She authored the bill’s partial repeal in 2019, and in the process gave responsibility for working out the details to a new commission — the PHAC.

But nearly four years later, the PHAC has yet to formalize criteria for guns to qualify for inclusion on the state’s roster. Members — including a pediatric emergency care doctor, the inventor of a biometric gun lock, and a lieutenant with the New Jersey State Police — began meeting only in 2022, minutes published to the attorney general’s website show. Meanwhile, questions abound about how the law’s stocking requirement might actually be enforced.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Already this year 13,959 people have died from gun violence in the U.S.

Shootings have continuously made headlines in just the first few months of the year.

As of May 1, at least 13,959 people have died from gun violence in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive – which is an average of roughly 115 deaths each day, reported ABC News.

Of those who died, 491 were teens and 85 were children.

Deaths by suicide have made up the vast majority of gun violence deaths this year. There's been an average of about 66 deaths by suicide per day in 2023.

The majority of these deaths have occurred in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and Louisiana.

The grim tally of gun violence deaths includes 460 people killed in officer-involved shootings.

There have also been 494 "unintentional" shootings, the Gun Violence Archive shows.

There have been 184 mass shootings in 2023 so far, which is defined by the Gun Violence Archive as an incident in which four or more victims are shot or killed. These mass shootings have led to 248 deaths and 744 injuries.

There have been at least 13 K-12 school shootings so far this year, including a recent incident in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 27 when three children and three staff members were shot and killed at the Covenant School, a Christian school for students in preschool through sixth grade.

In Michigan, three students were killed and five others were injured when a gunman opened fire at two locations on Michigan State University's main campus in East Lansing on Feb. 13, police said.

California saw three mass shootings in a matter of days in January, with one shooting leaving at least 11 people killed and 10 others injured after a gunman opened fire at a dance studio near a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California.

The U.S. has surpassed 39,000 deaths from gun violence per year since 2014, according to data from Gun Violence Archive. Still, gun deaths are down from 2016, 2017 and 2018, when the total number of deaths each year surpassed 50,000. There were 44,310 such deaths in 2022.

Last June President Joe Biden signed into law a gun safety package passed by Congress. It was the first gun reform bill from Congress in decades.

But advocates for gun reform continue to push for tougher measures. Florida lawmakers Rep. Jared Moskowitz and Rep. Maxwell Frost spoke with "GMA3" this month to mark the fifth anniversary of the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and called on Congress to do more to curb gun violence.

"Five years later, we feel like we've made some progress and then we were reminded that nothing has changed," Moskowitz said.

To read more CLICK HERE

PA House Democrats push for 'red flag' gun law

Authorities could temporarily seize firearms and background checks would be expanded for gun buyers, under two bills passed in the Pennsylvania House, where Democrats are using their razor-thin majority to push gun-control measures after a yearslong standstill in the politically divided government, reported The Associated Press.

The party describes the proposals as relatively moderate measures to cut down on gun trafficking, suicide deaths, accidental shootings and day-to-day violence. Republicans oppose the bills, saying they punish law-abiding gun owners.

 “While this is just the first step, by passing these commonsense and responsible gun safety measures we’ve shown our neighbors and communities that we are listening and we are acting, and that we stand with them in combating senseless gun violence," said House Speaker Joanna McClinton, a Philadelphia Democrat.

The “red flag” bill, which would allow a judge to order the seizure of firearms if asked by family members or police, passed on a 102-99 vote, with two Republicans voting alongside Democrats, and one Democrat flipping to vote with Republicans. Nineteen states have similar laws, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a leading gun control advocacy group.

Rep. Mike Schlossberg, a Democrat from Lehigh County, recalled his own struggles with mental health as he spoke in favor of the bill.

“I find myself wondering frequently what would have happened that morning, Feb. 3, 2002, if I had had a gun,” he said. “Some of you have been in that deep, dark place. But for those of you who haven’t, you have to understand that getting someone through a moment of suicidal crisis — and it is often just a moment — is the most critical thing you can do to save someone’s life.”

But Republicans said the bill unfairly targets legal gun owners.

“The plan and the strategy has always been and will be to disarm law-abiding citizens," said Rep. Stephanie Borowicz, a Republican from Clinton County. ”And any Republican that thinks they can vote for this today: Know that you are aiding and abetting the socialism and communism that the Democrats are pushing in this nation."

Another bill, which passed by a 109-92 vote, seeks to expand background checks on firearms buyers in Pennsylvania and end an exception for private sales of shotguns, sporting rifles and semi-automatic rifles, known as the “gun show” loophole.

“This is not major legislation. This is not a heavy lift,” said Rep. Matthew Bradford, a Montgomery Democrat. “This is a modest bill, with a modest impact, that will have real impact on some of the most lethal weapons in our Commonwealth.”

A third bill, which failed by a 100-101 vote, would have required gun owners to report a lost or stolen firearm to police within three days. Repeat offenders would have faced a misdemeanor charge.

A fourth measure in the package, which would require long-barreled firearms to be sold with trigger locks, did not come up for a vote.

The bills that make it through the House must still go through the Republican-controlled Senate, which has historically been protective of gun rights, while working with Democrats to boost funding for anti-violence and mental health programs.

The measures come as the U.S. is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023. In Philadelphia, gun violence played a big role in the campaign for mayor, and the city is asking the state’s highest court to allow it to impose its own gun-control policies.

The Pennsylvania Legislature, long controlled by Republicans, has not seriously considered broadening gun-control measures since 2018. With the newfound Democratic majority in the House, the chamber kicked off this session’s debate over gun violence with a hearing in March.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Texas' counterintuitive approach to guns--more killings, more guns

Deaths from firearms in Texas — the vast majority of them suicides or homicides — have continued rising in Texas, reaching levels not seen in almost three decades, according to the Texas Tribune.

At the same time, Texas relaxed its gun laws in a decades long push to expand Second Amendment rights in the state, most recently in 2021 when Gov. Greg Abbott signed what Republicans called a “constitutional carry” bill into law, allowing Texans to carry handguns without a license or training.

Texas lawmakers have approved more than 100 bills that loosened regulations on firearms over the last two decades, from blocking campus “zero tolerance” policies that expelled gun-carrying students to preventing hotels from restricting handguns, according to data compiled by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that deaths from firearms in Texas generally began to increase about two decades ago after a dramatic decline in the 1990s. There were 15 deaths by firearms per 100,000 people in Texas in 2021, a 50% jump from 1999 when there were on average 10 deaths by firearms per 100,000 people. Over the same period, firearm-related homicides rose 66% and suicides involving firearms rose 40%.

The last time Texas’ firearm death rate — including suicides, homicides and accidents — exceeded 15 per 100,000 people was in 1994.

The debate over gun violence — and how to prevent it — has erupted again this week after another Texas mass shooting: A gunman with an AR-15-style rifle killed eight weekend shoppers at an outlet mall in the Dallas suburb of Allen and wounded seven others before police shot him to death. The shooting happened just weeks before the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting at a Uvalde elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

Legal experts and researchers said it can be difficult to untangle how much gun violence can be attributed to easing gun regulations. The internet has made it easier to obtain weapons, particularly illegal ones. The COVID-19 pandemic brought massive social upheaval that prompted a rise in violence in general, including gun violence. And a rise in distrust of institutions, from the media to the government, also plays a role, experts said.

Texas Republicans have argued that eliminating regulations on firearms is compelled by a conservative reading of the U.S. Constitution — and necessary to protect the rights of Texas citizens. When Abbott signed legislation to allow permitless carry in Texas and other laws that eliminated gun regulation, he characterized the laws as “defending the Second Amendment.”

“Politicians from the federal level to the local level have threatened to take guns from law-abiding citizens, but we will not let that happen in Texas,” Abbott said.

But there’s evidence that a handful of significant state laws have affected gun ownership and gun use, and ultimately increased fatalities, legal experts and gun violence prevention advocates said.

“There are very strong reasons to believe the weakening of gun laws is associated with the rise in gun violence,” said Lindsay Nichols, policy director for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, pointing to studies that show a rise in gun fatalities years after stricter regulations are lifted. “I think it’s a very good explanation for this rise in gun deaths [in Texas].”

Gun violence also increases with exposure, like other health problems, she said.

“Many forms of gun violence, like suicide, behave like a contagion,” Nichols said. For example, when people become a victim of gun violence, they are more likely to later become a perpetrator of gun violence themselves, she said. “In that way, it really spreads through communities like a disease.”

Prior to the late 1990s, Texas law had traditionally prohibited carrying handguns in many public places. Texas’ first concealed weapons law was passed in 1995, allowing people to carry concealed handguns after obtaining a license.

That law, research suggests, increased violent crime rates. In a 2017 working paper, researchers with Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University found that concealed carry laws — sometimes called right to carry laws — were associated with a 13% to 15% higher violent crime rate 10 years after adoption. Such analyses are constructed by complex models that estimate how firearm death rates would have progressed in the state absent the change.

To read more CLICK HERE