The Epidemic Of Mass Shootings Continued In 2024

There were 501 mass shootings in the United States in 2024 (a shooting in which at least four people were shot - not counting the shooter). That's slightly less than in 2023, but it's not a reason to celebrate. There were still about one and a half mass shooting for every day on average.

This doesn't happen in any other developed nation. None of them even come close to the carnage allowed to happen in the United States. The sad part is that it doesn't have to be that way. A few reasonable gun laws could prevent most of those shootings - and it could be done without violating the Constitution's Second Amendment. 

Unfortunately, even though most Americans want those laws, it won't happen. It won't happen this year or the next because the government is controlled by Republicans. And Republicans have decided that it's more important to protect the right of criminals and other dangerous people to buy a gun than it is to save the innocent lives of Americans.

Expect 2025 to be a bloody one - with a ridiculous and unnecessary number of mass shootings (and gun deaths.

NOTE - the numbers in the chart above are from the Gun Violence Archive.

U.S. Still Averaging Over One Mass Shooting Every Day

 

There is another mass shooting making the national news. This time it's in a private christian school. A 15-year-old girl killed a teacher and a fellow student and injured several others before killing herself

I'm sure the congressional Republicans will send another truck load of thoughts and prayers, but that won't help those shot and it won't prevent other school shootings or mass shootings in the future. But they will do nothing to help prevent the deaths of innocent children and adults.

If we just look at the mass shootings (where at least four people have been shot), it might look like these shootings don't happen very often. But that is not true. Mass shootings did decline slightly this year, but they still average about 1.34 for every day of the year (according to the Gun Violence Archive). In any other developed country that would be unacceptable - but not in the United States.

U.S. politicians (mainly Republicans) have decided that its more important for criminals and other dangerous people to have access to the gun of their choice than to save innocent lives.

Meanwhile, a majority of the public would like to see stricter gun laws, and an overwhelming majority want to see the loopholes in the background check law closed - so criminals, terrorist sympathizers, abusers, and the dangerous portion of the mentally ill cannot buy or receive a gun.

Republicans claim they are protecting the right of Americans to own a gun. But no one is trying to deny any law-abiding citizen from purchasing or possessing a gun. We just want to make it harder for dangerous people to get one.

Republicans will also try to claim this teenage girl had mental problems. That doesn't really matter. The one thing she had in common with all other mass shooters is access to a gun. How and where was she able to get a gun?

It doesn't have to be this way. We shouldn't be leading the developed world in both mass shootings and gun deaths. But until voters get serious about preventing the shootings and deaths (instead of just offering "thoughts and prayers", it will keep happening at epidemic levels.

Politicians who want to protect the right of dangerous people to get a gun should be voted out of office.

Gun Ownership In The United States

 

The charts above are from the Gallup Poll. They surveyed 6,425 adults nationwide between 2019 and 2024, and the poll has a 1 point margin of error.

Americans Vote To Do Nothing About Gun Violence In The U.S.

So far in 2024, there have been 14,575 gun deaths and 455 mass shootings (about 1.44 every day) in the United States. The carnage is continuing, and the voters in this election don't seem to care.

They elected Republicans to control both houses of Congress and put Trump back in the White House. Those are the very people that have blocked all attempts to establish rational gun laws (including closing the loopholes in the background check law.

This means the epidemic of gun violence will continue unabated for at least another four years. And thousands of Americans will lose their lives unnecessarily.

The Mass Shooting In A Georgia School Is Just One Of Many

Another mass shooting is making the national news. This time it is in a Georgia High School, where a 14 year old killed four people (2 students and 2 teachers) and wounded several others. 

But that mass shooting (a shooting where at least four people are shot) is just one of many this year. Most of them don't make the national news. In the first 248 days of this year, there have been 385 mass shootings in the United States. That's an average of 1.55 mass shootings every day!

And once again, we are hearing Republicans offer up thoughts and prayers. But thoughts and prayers don't save innocent lives - and they don't stop or slow the mass shootings. The only thing that will do that is the passage of sensible gun laws.

Republicans oppose all gun laws and restrictions. They claim passing any gun laws will impinge of the right of citizens to buy and own a gun. That's a lie!

The right to buy and own a gun is not absolute. The Supreme Court has ruled that reasonable gun laws are constitutional - including who can buy a gun, where they can carry that gun, and what kind of gun can be bought or possessed. 

The court has ruled that criminals and other dangerous individuals may be restricted from buying or possessing a firearm of any kind. They upheld the background check law passed many years ago. But sadly, that background check law was full of holes, and allowed many dangerous people to purchase a gun without a background check. Republicans refuse to plug the holes in that law - even though between 80% and 90% of the public wants it done.

The 14 year old Georgia shooter had an assault-style weapon. That's not unusual any more. Many, if not most, mass shootings have been done with an assault weapon. Unfortunately, our politicians let the ban on those weapons expire (even though the Supreme Court had ruled it was constitutional). 

The ban on assault weapons needs to be reinstated. And any assault weapons allowed must be registered and required to have liability insurance in a significant amount. There is no legitimate reason to allow these kind of weapons to proliferate in our society.

I am not advocating anything that would violate the Second Amendment. But we need to pass reasonable and constitutional restrictions on guns that would keep them out of the hands of dangerous people while allowing decent and law-abiding citizens to own a gun.

That's not going to happen as long as Republicans have the power to block those laws. They must be voted out of power - and the coming November election is a great opportunity to do that. Vote for gun sanity. Vote for Democrats.

In Effect, The Supreme Court Has Legalized Machine Guns

 In the late 1920's and 30's, the criminal element in the U.S. found a very effective weapon to use against law enforcement (and citizens) - the machine gun. Congress realized that this could not be allowed to continue. In 1934, a law was passed to place an excise tax and registration requirement on machine guns. Since most Americans could not qualify for registration, the law, in effect, outlawed machine guns - and the country was safer.

But gun nuts are an ingenious lot, and over the years they came up with devices that would turn a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun - allowing it to fire hundreds of rounds a minute with a single press of the trigger. In 1986, Congress again acted. They outlawed the modifications that turned a semi-automatic into a machine gun.

The came the invention of the "bump stock" - which again allowed a gun to shoot hundreds of rounds a minute with a single press of the trigger. And that resulted in the largest mass shooting tragedy in U.S. history.

On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people^[a] and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867.

Responding to that, The ATF, during the Trump administration, said the bump stock qualified as one of the outlawed devices under the law, and they outlawed them. It was a reasonable decision, and necessary to protect the lives of innocent civilians.

But a gun owner and licensed dealer in Texas didn't like the ban on bump stocks. He filed suit in federal court.

ON Friday, the Supreme Court issued a decision. They ruled that, on a technical point, the bump stock did not actually make a semi-automatic weapon a machine gun - and they overturned the ban. They were wrong!. Using a bump stock, in effect, does allow a weapon to fire as a machine gun!

Justice Sotomayor disagrees with the majority. She wrote:

"When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."

In other words, any device that makes a gun act like a machine gun has effectively turned that weapon into a machine gun.

The Supreme Court has just legalized the possession and use of machine guns in this country!

We already have loopholes in our background check law that allows anyone (even criminals) to purchase any kind of weapon they want. Now they will be able to weapon into a machine gun. That will cause the deaths of many thousands of innocent Americans (and law enforcement officers). And the 600 or so mass shootings each year will become even larger mass casualty events.

Don't expect the congressional Republicans to help rectify this terrible court decision.

Public Split On If Average Person Can Be Trusted With Gun

The charts above are from a YouGov Poll -- done between April 26th and 29th of a nationwide sample of 1,159 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Huge Support For Background Checks On ALL Guns Sales

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between April 14th and 16th of a nationwide sample of 1,574 adults (including 1,358 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3.2 points, and for registered voters is 3.1 points.

Lax Gun Laws Make Security At Outdoor Events Impossible

The recent shooting at the Kansas City celebration of winning the Super Bowl highlights a sad reality in American life. It has become impossible to provide effective security for citizens attending large outdoor events.

It shouldn't be, and it can't be blamed on police efforts. They do everything they can to make those events safe. But our government's failure to curb who can buy a gun (and what kind of gun they can buy) has made it impossible. 

Years ago, the government passed a background check law on gun purchases, but that tepid law had many holes in it - so many holes that anyone can effectively buy any kind of gun they want without actually having their background checked.

That's not what the American people want. 80% to 90% of the public want a strict background check law (and that is true even of gun owners). An effective law would prevent any dangerous person from purchasing a gun or receiving one as a gift, but the U.S. Congress (mainly Republicans) have blocked all attempts to pass such a law. 

They consider the right to own a gun more important than protecting the lives of American citizens - even though a strict background check law would not prevent law-abiding citizens from purchasing or receiving a gun.

They have also refused to outlaw the possession of assault rifles (the most dangerous guns police have to face). A previous outlawing of these guns proved it could be effective in reducing mass shootings and save lives. But they refused to renew that law, and mass shooting have exploded in both number and size.

There are other reasonable and constitutional restrictions that could help with safety and security, but Republicans have refused to consider ANY gun restrictions.

Attend a large outdoor event if you wish, but understand that (thanks to Congress) you could be putting your life in danger because it is impossible for the police to provide adequate security.

The Epidemic Of Gun Violence Continued In 2023 U.S.

The United States did not set records in the number of mass shootings or gun deaths in 2023. But it's nothing to be celebrated, because they came very close to both records -- 655 mass shootings (record 689) and 42,892 gun deaths (record 45,158). It's safe to say the pathetic gun bill passed by Congress early in the year did nothing to stem the tide of gun violence.

Congress (especially the Republicans) have shown they will do nothing to stop (or slow) the epidemic of gun violence. It will be up to the country's voters to stop it. Until voters make it a point to vote against those who refuse to pass reasonable (and constitutional) gun legislation, nothing will happen. 

Why Does The GOP Want Criminals To Legally Buy Guns?

The chart above is from the Gun Violence Archive.

Earlier this year Congress actually passed a measure concerning guns. It was a pathetic and toothless bill, and no one expected it to have any real effect on gun deaths and mass shootings. And that turned out to be true. It had no effect.

With a few days left in this year, the United States has had 650 mass shootings and experienced 42,253 gun deaths -- far more than any other developed country. It doesn't have to be this way.

Republicans try to convince voters that any gun law would violate the Second Amendment. That is simply a lie. The United States Supreme Court has never said the Second Amendment is unlimited. Just the opposite -- the court has ruled that reasonable restrictions are allowed (such as restricting where guns are allowed and restricting felons from possessing a gun).

One gun law that could actually be effective is a strict background check law. The U.S. already has a background check law, but it is weak and full of holes. Those holes allow anyone to purchase a gun without anyone checking their background -- and as many as 40% of gun sales may be done without a background check.

Over 80% of Americans, and a huge majority of gun owners, want to see a strict and effective background check law. The only thing stopping such a law are the Republicans in Congress.

Such a law would be constitutional, and it would go a long way toward keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people (like criminals). Why then do the Republicans oppose such a law? Do they really want to protect the right of a criminal to legally buy a gun?

A strict background check law would not impinge on the right of law-abiding citizens to buy and own a gun. They could easily pass a background check. The worst that could happen for law-abiding citizens is that they might have to wait a few days for the check to be completed, but they would be allowed a gun.

The only people affected by a strict background check are dangerous people -- criminals, terrorists, and the dangerously mentally ill. Those people should not have guns.

Some might say those people could still buy a gun on the black market. But it's much harder to buy a gun on the black market, and more dangerous because both the buyer and seller could go to prison for it. And it could be made even harder. It is not an excuse to allow dangerous people to easily and legally buy a gun.

A strict background check law could be effective in reducing both the number of gun deaths and the number of mass shootings. It could save thousands of innocent lives each year. But it won't happen until voters get serious about it, and vote the obstructionists out of office. 

I urge all voters of both parties to refuse to vote for any politician who opposes a strict background check law.

U.S. Is Averaging Over 57 Mass Shootings A Month

 

Another mass shooting is making national headlines. This time a right-winger in Maine killed 18 people and wounded over a dozen more. But that is just one of many mass shootings happening in this country. Most of them just don't make the national news.

As I write this, the United States has had 573 mass shooting this year - an average of 57.3 mass shooting each month. And there are still two months to go in the year.

No other developed nation has anywhere near this massive number of mass shootings, or deaths by guns (35,607 so far this year). 

Republicans in Congress are blocking any kind of solution to this problem. They claim to be protecting the Second Amendment right to possess a firearm. But that claim is specious. They want you to believe the right to own a gun is absolute, but no right in our constitution is absolute -- not even the right to vote or the right to free speech (and the GOP supports restriction on both of those).

The Maine shooter has some psychological problems in his past. Republicans will use that to claim the massive number of mass shootings and gun deaths is due to mental illness. That is a lame excuse at best. Other nations also have mentally ill people, and the number of mentally ill in the United States is no larger than in those countries. They just don't make it easy for the mentally ill to by or possess firearms.

Republicans also claim the shootings are due to the diminishing number of religious people in the country. But most European countries are less religious than the United States, and they don't have the problem with shootings.

Republicans have also tried to claim the shootings are due to the proliferation of violent video games -- another lame excuse. Other nations have the same video games without having the problems with mass shootings or gun deaths.

The truth is the United States has too many guns floating around in the country (significantly more guns than people in the country), and it is too easy for criminals and other dangerous people to buy and possess any kind of firearm they want (including weapons of war designed to kill as many people as possible in a short period of time).

It doesn't have to be this way. There are reasonable and constitutional solutions to the problem. While it may not be possible to completely eliminate mass shootings and gun deaths, they could be drastically reduced with some sensible gun laws.

The following measures would save many lives without violating the Second Amendment:

1. Close the holes in the national background check law. The current weak law allows too many people to avoid having to get a background check when purchasing a weapon. This failure just benefits criminals, since law-abiding citizens could easily pass a background check. And the measure is supported by over 80% of the population (including a significant majority of gun owners).

2. Ban assault weapons. These are the choice of most mass shooters. Other weapons of war are banned (machine guns, tanks, etc.), and so should assault-style rifles. Other weapons are better for hunting and self-defense. There was a ban on them for a few years, and the mass shootings were reduced. A new ban could accomplish the same.

3. Ban ammunition magazines holding more than 10 cartridges. The more a mass shooter has to reload, the better chance a person has of stopping him.

4. Red Flag Laws. This would allow the police to take guns away from people whose pose a credible threat to others.

These sensible and constitutional measures would save many thousands of American lives. Sadly though, none of them will happen as long as there are enough Republicans in government to veto them. These Republican politicians have sold their soul to the gun industry, and they would rather protect corporate profits than save American lives.

If you want to stop the carnage, then remember this when you go to the polls to vote.

Does The U.S. Love Guns More Than Lives?

 

The following is a letter to The New York Times by author Stephen King:

There is no solution to the gun problem, and little more to write, because Americans are addicted to firearms.

Representative Jared Golden, from Maine’s Second Congressional District, has reversed course and says he will now support outlawing military-style semiautomatic rifles like the one used in the killing of 18 people in Lewiston this week. But neither the House nor the Senate is likely to pass such a law, and if Congress actually did, the Supreme Court, as it now exists, would almost certainly rule it unconstitutional.

Every mass shooting is a gut-punch; with every one, unimaginative people say, “I never thought it could happen here,” but such things can and will happen anywhere and everywhere in this locked-and-loaded country. The guns are available and the targets are soft.

When rapid-fire guns are difficult to get, things improve, but I see no such improvement in the future. Americans love guns, and appear willing to pay the price in blood.

Why Do We Let Any Idiot Get A Gun In The United States?

As I write this, the media is talking about another shooting. This time it is the deaths of three Black Americans by a racist shooter in Jacksonville, Florida. While tragic, it is sadly just a commonplace occurrence in this country. Guns take the lives of hundreds every day in the United States.

Currently, there have been 28,284 gun deaths and 473 mass shootings (where at least 4 people were shot) this year. And both of those numbers are on a record pace with four months left in the year. Why is this happening? It doesn't happen in any other developed nation.

Republicans try to place the blame on anything but guns. They will tell you it's because of mental illness. Some may be, but not all -- and there is no more mental illness in the United States than in any other country.

They will tell you it's because of violent video games. But other nations have access to the same video games, and it is not causing an exorbitant number of deaths and mass shootings in those countries.

They will tell you it is because of the declining interest in religion in this country. But the European nations have even less interest in religion that American citizens do -- and it is not causing massive gun deaths and mass shootings there.

The obvious answer is because there are too many guns in this society (more than one for every citizen) and it's easy for anyone (regardless of how dangerous they are known to be) to get any kind of gun (and ammunition) they want.

Republicans will also tell you that passing stricter gun legislation would be a violation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. That is simply a lie! The right to own a gun, like our other rights, is not absolute.

We have the right to free speech, but there are restrictions on it. You cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater, and you cannot urge another to commit a violent act. And those restrictions are deemed constitutional.

We have the right to vote, but there are restrictions on it. Most states deny that right to criminals serving a sentence for their crime. And that restriction is deemed constitutional.

There are restrictions on guns that are constitutional and supported by a majority of Americans. One of these is a strict background check law that would deny the right to buy or receive a gun to those deemed to be violent (criminals, terrorists, domestic abusers, and some of the mentally ill).

Currently, there are large loopholes in the background check law. And many states don't report offenders as they are supposed to do. As many as 40% of gun buyers do so with going through a background check. That must be stopped, and over 80% of citizens (including gun owners) want it stopped. They want a stricter background check law that can be enforced.

It simply makes no sense not to do this. Who are the Republicans protecting by their opposition to a stricter background check law? It's not honest and law-abiding citizens. They could still purchase or receive a firearm under a stricter background check law. The only people Republicans are protecting are criminals and other dangerous people -- the people who do not have a right to own a firearm!

Republicans are wrong on this issue, and it's time for voters to make that clear. 

Court To Determine If Abusers Can Own Guns In Next Term

 A case to be heard by the Supreme Court in its next term (United States vs. Rahimi) will determine whether thousands of domestic abuse victims will be killed. New York Governor Kathy Hochul explains in the following op-ed for The New York Times:

The Supreme Court recently announced plans to take up the Rahimi case, which will most likely rely on the court’s recent Second Amendment decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, a majority led by Justice Clarence Thomas overturned New York’s concealed carry law that had been on the books for more than a century — claiming 21st-century gun laws should be consistent with an earlier time, when muskets were common firearms.

In doing so, the court stripped away a critical tool I had as governor to keep New Yorkers safe. In New York, we quickly responded with actions to try to prevent more deadly firearms than ever from flooding our communities, our businesses, our bars and restaurants and even our crowded subway cars. One stray word, or sharp elbow, could immediately have devastating, life-threatening consequences.

Now, in Rahimi, the Supreme Court will decide whether deadly firearms can flood the homes of domestic violence survivors. The case arrives at the court after a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in favor of abusers. The appeals court decided that government cannot prevent an abusive individual, against whom a court has issued a domestic violence protective order, from possessing a deadly firearm.

By striking down a federal law aimed at protecting survivors of abuse, the appeals court put forth an outrageous legal theory that claims individuals with domestic violence orders have a constitutional right to possess a gun. Using Justice Thomas’s historically focused argument from Bruen as precedent, the Supreme Court could rule that domestic violence survivors today deserve only the protections they had in the 18th century — a time before most women could own property or work outside the home, let alone vote.

The stakes could not be higher. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey indicates that about 41 percent of women and 26 percent of men in the United States have experienced sexual violence, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner and reported being affected by it during their lifetime. According to U.S. crime reports, about one in five homicide victims is killed by an intimate partner, and over half of female homicide victims are killed by a current or former male intimate partner. . . .

The Supreme Court has a choice: It can lean into the dangerous Fifth Circuit theory that guns cannot be regulated for the purpose of protecting survivors of domestic violence, or it can uphold federal law that keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals.

Before oral arguments are heard, there’s no way to tell which way the Supreme Court will rule. The precedent set by Bruen is extraordinarily troubling. Yet even within the court’s majority in Bruen, there was a split. Justice Thomas kept his focus on historical arguments. But a concurrence by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in which Chief Justice John Roberts joined, left room for certain basic protections, noting that “properly interpreted, the Second Amendment allows a ‘variety’ of gun regulations.”

This concurrence helped inform New York’s response to Bruen. After New York State’s century-old gun law was overturned, I took immediate steps to restore protections from gun violence, including signing new laws to strengthen training and gun licensing requirements. In the spring of 2022, we bolstered our state’s red flag laws, getting guns away from people like domestic abusers who pose a risk to themselves or others and closing loopholes that made the tragedies in Buffalo and in Uvalde, Texas, possible. As a result, courts have issued roughly 9,000 extreme-risk orders of protection in the past year, up from 1,400 in the preceding two and a half years.

Depending on the scope of the court’s decision in Rahimi, these protections could be at risk as well. After a brief spike during the start of the pandemic in 2020, New York is gradually and steadily returning to prepandemic shooting levels and has one of the five lowest rates of firearm-related deaths. I’ve always said public safety is my top priority as governor, and I’m committed to using every tool at my disposal to keep our communities safe from gun violence.

An extreme, out-of-control Supreme Court put gun safety laws at risk in Bruen. Across America, survivors of domestic abuse will now wait in fear to see whether Justice Kavanaugh and his colleagues deem laws that protect survivors to “properly” interpret the Constitution.

People Expect Gun Violence To Increase - Want Stricter Laws

 

The charts above are from a Pew Research Center survey -- done between June 5th and 11th of a nationwide sample of 5,115 adults, with a 1.7 point margin of error.

Kansas City Shooting Is Due To Combining Racism & Guns

The following is an article by Jarvis DeBerry at MSNBC.com: 

American racism in its most common expression dictates who gets the benefit of the doubt. Thursday night, in Kansas City, Missouri,Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old Black boy, mistakenly rang a doorbell on Northeast 115th Street, rather than his intended destination of Northeast 115th Terrace. The resident, whom police have identified as 84-year-old Andrew Lester, a white man, apparently didn’t consider that Yarl may have made a wrong turn or even be a stranger in need of assistance. According to a statement that police say he gave them, Lester, a white man, assumed the teenager was attempting to break in and he fired twice through a glass storm door and struck Yarl in the head and the arm.

Ringing a doorbell and waiting for an answer is not a crime. But the police who interviewed Lester the night they say his .32 caliber bullets sent Yarl to the hospital didn’t arrest him. They had to first consider if Lester may have been standing his ground, they said. Only on Monday, four days after the man shot the teenager, Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson announced Lester has been charged with assault in the first degree and armed criminal action. Lester turned himself in Tuesday.

Racism is not just the assumption that a Black teenager is a threat; it’s the guiding spirit that prompted lawmakers in so many states toreplace the “duty to retreat” language in state laws with the right to stand one’s ground no matter where you are. In a country where Black people are rarely given the benefit of the doubt, Black people in and out of legislative chambers warned that encouraging the public to shoot and discouraging them from de-escalating would lead to shootings such as what happened in Kansas City. But those warnings were disregarded.

To be clear, while Black boys and men may be among the most at risk from America’s “shoot first” mentality, we’re not the only ones. It’s been almost 10 years since Theodore Wafer, a suburban Detroit homeowner, used a shotgun to kill Renisha McBride, a 19-year-old Black woman who knocked on his door after she’d had a car accident.

In an eerie facsimile of the Kansas City shooting, on Saturday night in rural New York, Kevin Monahan, a 65-year-old white man, allegedly shot and killed Kaylin Gillis, a 20-year-old white woman. A car Gillis was in pulled into the wrong driveway, Monahan’s driveway, as a group she was with searched for a friend’s house. Officials say Monahan walked out of his house and fired two shots. One bullet hit the car, a law enforcement official said. Monahan has been booked with second-degree murder.

It’s unclear if the person who shot at the car Gillis was in was able to detect anything in particular about the people in the car before shooting. But, according to the statement that he gave police, we do know that Lester got a good look at Yarl. He professed to have been “scared to death” at the sight of him.

Lester blamed his fright on the teenager’s size, he told police. I don’t know how big or small the teenager is, but being big doesn’t make an innocent person less so. And whatever size a Black boy, a Black teen or a Black man is, he often looms larger in the white imagination. Almost nine years ago on the opposite side of Missouri, then-28-year-old Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson — who at about 6 feet, 4 inches was around the same height as 18-year-old Michael Brown — told grand jurors that when he grabbed the heavier teenager, “I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan.” In Wilson’s telling, Brown, whom Wilson had already shot at least once, “looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots.” There are times, you see, that we don’t even get the benefit of being seen as human.

People who know Yarl have been quick to tell the world what a great kid he is: that he’s a “gentle soul,” that he’s a talented musician who’s been excelling at college-level courses and that he plans to study chemical engineering. It’s a shame they feel a need to describe his personality, his accomplishments and his ambitions in that way; it would have been just as awful if a Black teen with bad grades, less talent and no real ambition had been shot for ringing Lester’s doorbell.

Yes, the teenager sounds close to perfect, but being perfect is no protection from racism. According to Kansas City authorities, Lester said shooting Yarl “was the last thing he wanted to do.” But, according to police, he also admitted that he exchanged no words with the teenager and that he opened fire soon after he opened his main door. Being perfect doesn’t mean a Black teen who rings the wrong doorbell is perceived as anything less than a threat.

We Must Cut Off The Gun Pipeline To Mexican Cartels

The best way to defeat the Mexican cartels is to cut off their supply of guns -- most of which come from dealers and manufacturers in the United States. Here's how Jonathan Lowy and Luis Moreno describe this in The Washington Post: 

According to recent reports, former president Donald Trump is preparing battle plans to attack Mexico if he regains the White House. This is only the latest escalation of saber rattling in the wake of the recent kidnapping and killing of Americans in Mexico. Former U.S. attorney general William P. Barr, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham are among those calling for U.S. military action in Mexico to take on drug cartels.

There is no debating the threat the cartels pose. The fentanyl they push is killing thousands on both sides of the border. In Mexico, they torture and kill journalists to silence them, battle law enforcement and the military, and terrorize civilians. Cartels are largely responsible for as many as 100,000 Mexicans who have been “disappeared” — kidnapped and probably killed — and the 20,000 confirmed killed every year. The violence is spurring migration at the U.S. border. And these transnational criminal organizations are spreading to the United States.

The cartels need to be stopped. But this is not a problem Washington can bomb its way out of. Sending in troops won’t help stop the violence and drug trafficking. There is, however, something the United States can do that would: cut off the gun pipeline that arms the cartels.

It’s shocking but not surprising that at least one of the guns used in the recent kidnapping was trafficked from the United States. Seventy to 90 percent of Mexican drug cartels’ guns are trafficked from U.S. gun stores, supplied by U.S. manufacturers and distributors.

Why do the cartels’ traffickers risk border crossings to get guns? Because Mexico has strong laws regulating gun sales and only one gun store, which restricts criminals from obtaining weapons there. But in the United States, federally licensed firearms dealers can sell dozens of AR-15s and AK-47s and thousands of rounds of ammunition to purchasers without even asking why a buyer would want such an arsenal. Manufacturers continue to supply these dealers despite their dangerous practices, even though the U.S. Justice Department told them to self-police their distribution chain more than 20 years ago.

Money and guns from the United States drive the deadly violence and drug trafficking in Mexico. The money the cartels use to pay for the guns comes largely from their sale of illegal drugs to buyers in the United States. The cartels and the gun industry profit from this deadly trade, while hundreds of thousands suffer.

What has Congress done about it? In 2004, it failed to renew the 10-year ban on assault weapons, which made it possible to recklessly sell them to traffickers. A study found that for both of the two years that followed, there was a 60 percent spike in homicides in Mexico near the border. And mass shootings in the United States tripled since the ban lapsed.

In 2005, Congress passed a law to shield bad actors in the gun industry from accountability for the harm they cause. Gun manufacturers Barrett and Browning make and sell to civilians .50-caliber sniper rifles that can pierce armor and shoot down helicopters. U.S. law enforcement focuses on arresting traffickers, who are easily replaced. But it refuses to take on the U.S. gun industry, which is the source of the weapons used by criminals in Mexico and the United States.

If those who call for military intervention in Mexico truly want to stop the cartels, they should support a ban on assault weapons and bulk sales, and greater accountability and enforcement against gun companies that supply cross-border traffickers. The Biden administration should also crack down on dangerous industry practices.

Instead, the “send in the troops” politicians support policies that enable cartels to amass arsenals. After assault weapons were used to kill 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, 23 people in El Paso (including eight Mexicans) and 26 in Sutherland Springs — all in his home state of Texas — Crenshaw opposed requiring background checks for all gun sales, even though nearly 90 percent of Americans support them.

There is serious policy, and then there’s political bluster. When it comes to the fentanyl crisis and violence in Mexico, there has lately been too much of the latter and not enough of the former. Reforming the gun industry to stop the crime gun pipeline is a serious and necessary solution to this ongoing emergency.

Millions Of Americans Have Been Touched By Gun Violence

These charts are from a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation -- done between March 14th and 23rd of a nationwide sample of 1,271 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

Two-Thirds Of Voters Want Stricter Gun Control Laws

 The chart above is from the Morning Consult Poll -- done between March 30th and April 2nd of a nationwide sample of 1,989 registered voters, with a 2 point margin of error.