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Murder appears to be decreasing nationwide, and if the trend holds, it could be one of the largest declines in homicide ever formally recorded. [Jeff Asher via Substack]
From Our Team
In their last legislative session, Minnesota Democrats passed a wish list of progressive policies, including a number of gun reforms: A red flag law, universal background checks, a measure to crack down on machine gun conversion devices, and one of the largest investments of any state in community violence intervention programs.
It might not be the story you’d expect from a heavily rural, Midwestern state like Minnesota. But Democrats — who last November won trifecta control of the state House, Senate, and the Governor’s Office for the first time in a decade — entered the session ready to aggressively pursue their agenda, with the understanding that it could be “a once-in-a-generation opportunity.” Read more →
What to Know Today
A U.S. District Court judge issued a nationwide block against a new ATF rule restricting the sale of “weapon parts” and kits used to assemble ghost guns. [Mark Joseph Stern via Twitter/U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas] Context: Ghost guns are homemade, untraceable firearms that have been used in a number of mass shootings, as well as high-profile shootouts with police.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams reportedly pressured Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who left the job last week, to not discipline the department’s highest-ranking uniformed officer for ordering that a gun charge against a retired officer be dropped. [THE CITY]
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to enact national gun safety measures through a constitutional convention has been largely met with praise from Democrats in favor of firearm reform. But some California Democrats worry that Republicans could use Newsom’s proposed convention to further right-wing policy goals. [San Francisco Chronicle]
Police in Santa Monica, California, have a new response tactic: When a resident calls 911 to report an emergency, they send a drone equipped with a camera to scope out the situation while officers head to the scene. On at least three occasions, drone footage identified that what at first looked like guns in people’s hands were not real firearms. [NBC]
A Texas judge ordered the state Department of Public Safety to start the process of releasing documents related to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. The agency has withheld almost all of its records on the botched law enforcement response to the attack. [The Texas Tribune]
Khalif Cooper lost a kidney, half of his colon, and his ability to walk when a Paterson, New Jersey, police officer shot him in his lower back without warning or apparent cause. The shooting was one of many reasons the state attorney general’s office cited for seizing control of the Paterson Police Department earlier this year. [The New York Times]
Zackey Rahimi is a suspect in multiple shootings who allegedly threatened at least two women with a gun. The Supreme Court just agreed to hear his bid to possess firearms while being the subject of a domestic violence protective order — and the case could change the future of gun rights. [HuffPost]
Archive
Is NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ Crime Reduction Strategy Ignoring Lessons of the Past?: Following a troubling surge in shootings, advocates worry the city’s new administration is falling back on a “tough-on-crime” approach to reducing violence. (June 2022)
