The epidemic of school shootings in America could be drastically curtailed by a few simple policy changes.
First, school shooters should automatically receive the death penalty with only limited opportunities to appeal. The problem of frivolous appeals and court cases dragging on for decades afflicts our entire judicial system, but it is especially egregious in the case of school shootings.
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Oregon voters are considering passing one of the most restrictive gun control measures in the country that would raise the barriers to purchase a firearm and place gun owners on a searchable database.
Measure 114, often referred to as the Reduction of Gun Violence Act, is a ballot measure that will require background checks, firearm training, fingerprint collection and a permit to purchase any firearm, according to the legislation. Oregon already requires background checks for gun owners, and the new legislation will cost the state $49 million annually while also placing an expected 300,000 residents on a gun owner database, according to Fox News.
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A town in northern Virginia has adopted a gun buyback ordinance, which will allow residents to receive compensation for giving unwanted firearms to the town.
The Dumfries Town Council approved the gun buyback program at a meeting this week. The ordinance the council adopted authorizes the town manager to contract an individual or entity to manage the firearm buyback program. The contract would be administered by the police department.
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Gun sales reached a five-year high in Connecticut in 2021, the year that the FBI saw the second-highest number of recorded background checks.
According to Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there were 21 million background checks for gun sales in 2020 and 18.5 million in 2021, nationwide. Those figures are the top two highest on record.
“Background checks skyrocketed in March 2020, when there were 2.3 million background checks recorded,” Oliva told The Center Square. “That was the most ever recorded in a single month. That, of course, was the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns. People became concerned for their safety when police were warning they would not be able to respond to all emergency calls because they were seeing COVID infections rise.”
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Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed legislation that would have allowed residents to carry a concealed firearm without a license, claiming the measure would exacerbate gun violence in the commonwealth.
“This legislation removes the requirement that an individual obtain a license, and with it, the ability of law enforcement to conduct a background investigation,” Wolf said. “Removal of the licensing background investigation will hinder the ability of law enforcement to prevent individuals who should not be able to carry a firearm concealed from doing so.
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While Americans know that guns take many innocent lives every year, many don’t know that firearms also save them.
On May 15, an attacker at an apartment complex in Fort Smith, Ark., fatally shot a woman and then fired 93 rounds at other people before a man killed him with a bolt-action rifle. Police said he “likely saved a number of lives in the process.”
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California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, said AR-15s are akin to military-grade weapons and not useful for self defense in a 2019 court filing.
The AG’s statements were included in a court case that challenged California’s gun ban titled Rupp v. Becerra, in which multiple state residents sued government officials to overturn the prohibition of certain semi-automatic firearms. Becerra, an advocate for the Affordable Care Act, was announced as Biden’s pick to lead HHS Sunday, according to the New York Times.
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