(THU 6/2/22)
Gun debate begins … The House Judiciary Committee began debate Thursday on a bill that combines six gun control provisions into one, Roll Call reports, including:
•Increase the minimum age to buy some rifles.
•Limit magazine sizes.
•Codify regulations banning bump stops and ghost guns.
•Provide standards for safe gun storage.
“Do we have the courage, right here in this body, to imagine the phone call parents across Uvalde received last week?” said Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA), whose 17-year-old son was killed by a gunman in 2012. “The phone call that confirms our fear, our singular fear, that my child is dead and I was unable to protect them? Because I know that phone call.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) counter-proposed more school security investments and repealing gun-free school zones, and Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) argued the bill could “run afoul” of the Constitution, citing a federal appeals court ruling against a California law that sought to raise the minimum purchasing age for guns at 21, and the Supreme Court’s 2008 District of Columbia v. Hellerdecision that mentioned home gun storage.
Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) plans to finish the bill’s markup by the time the full House returns from its Memorial Day week recess next week.
--TL
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The Latest
Nine days after the last mass shooting, which was 10 days after the one before that, four people plus the suspected shooter are dead at a medical center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The suspect, who apparently shot himself, reportedly carried a handgun and a rifle, The Washington Post reports. As for that fatal shooting 18 days earlier of 10 Black people at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, suspect Payton Gedron, 18, was indicted by a federal grand jury on 25 counts including domestic terrorism and murder as a hate crime (WaPo).
The House Judiciary Committee, in a special session Thursday, is scheduled to vote on the Protect Our Kids Act Thursday, as a bipartisan group of Senators continues to work to try and get the 10 Republicans necessary to pass compromise legislation. The compromise legislation centers on background checks and “red flag” laws, per The Guardian. Ten Republican Senators – don’t hold your breath.
Meanwhile, our latest commentary on gun violence, by Ken Zino, is in the left column.
Join the conversation with an email to editors@thehustings.news, and list yourself as “left” or “right” in the subject line.
--TL
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...meanwhile... (WED 6/1/22)
More advanced rockets to Ukraine … The U.S. will send Ukraine long-range rockets that can more precisely strike Russian targets on the battlefield, President Biden writes in a guest essay for The New York Times. [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/biden-ukraine-strategy.html]
These new weapons come in addition to the $39.8 billion package approved by Congress last month. Germany also will send an advanced air defense system, the BBC reports. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been asking for such weaponry for weeks.
In his essay, “What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine” Biden wrote; “We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression.”
The U.S. will send rocket systems carried on a truck chassis that can precisely hit targets 40 miles in the distance, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.
The U.S. does not “seek a war between NATO and Russia,” Biden wrote for the NYT. “As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow.”
Upshot: Despite Ukraine’s success in pushing Russian forces back from Kyiv, Russian forces have taken over most of Severodonetsk, The Washington Post reports, a key city in the Luhansk region. It’s another case of whether such powerful, precise weaponry will come in time to reverse Russia’s success in Ukraine’s eastern region.
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Disturbing RNC Election Day plan … Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla has uncovered disturbing Republican National Committee plans to take control of the November midterm elections. She has obtained video recordings of GOP operatives assembling a “disturbing multipronged network of party loyalists” with plans to disrupt the elections to gain an advantage in the elections consisting of…
•Poll workers adherent to 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories who are being trained to contest votes, especially in Democratic-heavy areas.
•GOP lawyers the above poll workers can quickly contact to document alleged voter fraud.
•”Party-friendly” district attorneys who can intervene to block vote counts in certain precincts.
•Installation of GOP loyalists on the Board of Canvassers, which is responsible for certifying the election.
Read Przbyla’s special report here: [https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/01/gop-contest-elections-tapes-00035758]
Note: According to Politico, a version of the anti-democratic plan “has been discussed for months by prominent Trump loyalists,” including Steve Bannon and Trump himself. Even if they are not chalking up wins in all the key primaries – see Georgia -- these authoritarian forces continue to run the Republican Party.
--Todd Lassa
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(TUE 5/31/22)
Orbån and Russian Oil … European Union leaders have agreed to ban 90% of Russian oil by the end of 2022, though the ban largely covers Russian oil brought in by sea, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Oil delivered via pipeline remains exempt.
It’s a sort of victory for Hungary’s authoritarian president, Viktor Orbån, the lone ally among 27 EU nations of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Orbån, as we’ve noted before, is a critic of Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy, who is fighting Putin’s army to preserve his country’s democracy. A week before the NRA convention in Houston, Orbån hosted a CPAC meeting in Budapest.
•••
Handgun ban comes to Canada … Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal liberals in Ottawa have introduced Bill C-21, to freeze the import, sale and transfer of handguns, though current owners would be able to keep their guns, The Globe and Mail reports. Asked why not propose an absolute ban, Trudeau told a news conference that C-21 would provide “significant tools” to protect Canadians from gun violence.
“This is a concrete and real national measure that will go a long way to keeping Canadians safe,” he said.
Canada’s ongoing reaction to the killing of 22 people at the First United Church in Nova Scotia in 2020, its worst-ever mass shooting, is being compared with New Zealand’s strict gun laws enacted after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings.
Upshot: Canada has no equivalent of the Second Amendment, and its lingering issue will be how to stem the smuggling of guns from across the world’s longest international border. Less than two weeks after the Nova Scotia shootings, Trudeau’s government banned more than 1,500 models of assault weapons.
•••
Meanwhile, back in the U.S. … Though the House and Senate are officially on recess this week, the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled Thursday to mark up a package of eight gun-control bills under the umbrella Protecting Our Kids Act, Punchbowl News scoops Tuesday.
According to the scoop, the package would:
•Raise the minimum age for buying semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21.
•Ban the import, sale, manufacture, transfer or possession of high-capacity ammunition magazines (though grandfathering existing possession).
•Require existing bump stocks be registered under the National Firearms Act and bar new manufacture for civilian use.
•Amend the definition of “ghost gun” to require background checks in all sales.
•Beef up federal criminal penalties for gun trafficking and ‘straw’ purchases.
•Establish new requirements for storing guns at home, including a tax credit for purchase of storage devices.
House Democrats need to argue out whether to bring the provisions to the floor individually or as a package, which they plan to do next week.
Upshot: It’s all an exercise in futility because virtually no one inside the Beltway expects significant gun control has any chance of gaining the 10 necessary Republican votes in the Senate, despite some bi-partisan discussions in that chamber. Instead, Democrats hope to use Republicans’ opposition, along with the abortion issue, as a political weapon in the November midterms.
--Todd Lassa
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(Memorial Day 2022)
Democracy Under Threat?
Analysis by Todd Lassa
The National Rifle Association convention in Houston this Memorial Day weekend appears to have been something of a success. Yes, there were huge crowds protesting the members-only confab across the street from the convention center, but the NRA expected those anyway even before the tragic shooting by assault rifle of 19 children and two teachers, just 300 miles away in Uvalde.
And several key headliners and entertainment acts cancelled their appearances at the convention, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) as well as ‘70s two-hit wonder Don McLean and Gatlin Brother Larry. This gave the former president, Donald J. Trump, the opportunity to tell his adoring audience; “Unlike some, I didn’t disappoint you by not showing up,” according to NBC News.
But it was something else Trump said that was even more disturbing, if slightly more subtle, than his reading off the names of the 21 Ulvade victims at the beginning of his speech – an introduction that recalls his holding up a bible at St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C., during protests over the murder of George Floyd.
It was not Trump’s solution that the federal government “should take back every penny of unused COVID relief” funds from the states to “quickly establish impenetrable security at ever school all over our land” that made us take notice. (After all, what second grader doesn’t want to go to a school that’s locked down every day like a prison?)
It was Trump’s argument, “If the United States has $40 billion to send to Ukraine, we should be able to do whatever it takes to keep our children safe at home.”
This was subtle, for the ex-president at least, because he didn’t flatly suggest we stop giving Ukraine military and humanitarian aid in its fight for democracy against Vladimir Putin’s totalitarian plans for the country.
But you can see how this will become a major talking point for Tucker Carlson, if not throughout the Fox News broadcasting day. Already, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, who called Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke “a sick son of a bitch” for interrupting Gov. Abbott’s press conference on the shootings last week, has echoed Trump’s mental health vs. aid to Ukraine aid argument.
This comes about a week after the Conservative Political Action conference held a meeting in Budapest, where Hungarian President Viktor Orbån has close ties to the Kremlin and has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy an “opponent.”
The upshot is there is already plenty of white nationalist support in this country for Putin.
Is this just an over-panicky reaction? Just Trump being Trump, putting the interests of Americans ahead of everybody else? Or is it another warning sign that American democracy is under siege, that it’s preparation for coup’ attempt part II, coming to a voting booth near you in 2024?
As Tucker Carlson might say, “hey, just asking the question.”