But far too many people will look back without any real context or any desire to look beyond their preconceived notions.

I’m talking about Vox, where it seems someone decided to look back at the year with regard to so-called gun violence. It’s just too bad they glossed over just about everything.

If you follow the news about gun violence in America, you know that there’s a lot to be pessimistic about.

Guns were already a major public health concern when the pandemic hit and the murder rate skyrocketed. The surge in homicide in 2020 and 2021, research has shown, was best understood as a surge in gun violence, with firearms-related deaths counting for the majority of the increase. Not all communities suffered equally: In 2020, 61 percent of victims of gun homicide were Black, with the largest increases among boys and men ages 10–44. The following year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, the number of mass shootings — shootings in which four or more people, not including the shooter, are shot and injured or killed — reached 689, up more than 50 percent from the number of mass shootings in 2018.

And then the Supreme Court issued a ruling that functionally allowed all Americans to carry weapons in public. Coming on the heels of an awful rise in gun violence, experts warned that it would almost certainly get worse.

But that hasn’t really happened. Some of the worst-case scenarios, based on the recent trends around gun violence, haven’t yet come to pass. To be clear, the United States still has exceptionally high levels of gun violence. The country has more guns per capita than any other nation on Earth, and a messy patchwork of laws that make regulation extremely difficult. For those reasons, the country is still incredibly vulnerable to seeing more gun-related deaths in the future.

This is, to me, the big story. Vox was right to put this near the beginning because Bruen was touted as the end of the republic by some, all because no suddenly we’d be the Wild West with gunfights happening daily, with people gunning down others over perceived slights, and even Vox has to acknowledge that none of that happened. […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com

I may not have always liked the people in my school, but wholesale slaughter was never really something I’d have considered.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of people in Wisconsin are using this as an opportunity to push gun control. Most of the push is ridiculous and includes things like assault weapon bans and universal background checks, despite the fact that there’s no evidence that they would have accomplished anything.

But now some are talking about red flag laws and how it’s just unfortunate that the meanie Republicans in the legislature won’t pass it.

Attempts to implement a red flag gun control measure in Wisconsin have been rebuffed several times in recent years, but some legislators hope the results of last month’s election can change that.

“When the political dynamic shifts in the Legislature, we have a better shot at not only introducing the (red flag) legislation but giving it a fair public hearing,” said Dora Drake, current state representative and senator-elect. “The people of Wisconsin overwhelmingly support red flag laws.”

Red flag laws, also known as Extreme Risk Prevention Orders, allow judges to issue court orders to temporarily restrict access to guns by individuals who could pose a threat to themselves or others. […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com

James Gould is bringing a facial challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4), which bars firearm possession by anyone who’s been adjudicated as a “mental defective” or who’s been “committed to a mental institution”. That doesn’t apply to those who’ve voluntarily sought mental health treatment in either an inpatient or outpatient setting, but anyone who’s ever been committed by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority essentially loses their Second Amendment rights forever, even if their underlying illness is treated, unless they can receive relief from their federal firearm disability through federal or state programs that meet the requirements of the NICS Improvement Act of 2007.

The problem is that the federal relief program has been unfunded by Congress for decades, and there are only 33 states that have their own disability relief programs, so depending on where someone lives it may be impossible for them to ever have their rights restored.

Gould is hoping to change that, arguing the statute violates the Second Amendment’s protections.

Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Albert Diaz, a Barack Obama appointee, questioned whether an as-applied challenge is a better vehicle for Gould. Unlike in an as-applied challenge, where the judges consider the specifics of the challenger’s case, to successfully challenge a law on its face the challenger must show that it is unconstitutional in all applications.

“You seem to be toggling back and forth between an as-applied and facial challenge,” Diaz told public defender Lex Coleman, representing Gould. “The question is, is this statute in its most extreme or most favorable application by the government constitutional, notwithstanding that there might be nuances.”

Gould claims the sweeping prohibition doesn’t allow for the possibility that those involuntarily committed can recover from their mental illness.

“That someone is deprived of a gun while they’re under a commitment order and in a mental hospital, well, that makes plenty of sense,” Coleman said. “That order doesn’t end until someone is deemed to no longer be a danger to themselves and the community, and yet we are depriving them lifelong.”

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that someone who checks themselves into a mental health facility to get treatment can purchase a firearm as soon as they’re released, but someone who was involuntarily committed is considered dangerous for the rest of their life, even if they’ve been successfully treated. […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com

But for me to buy that they’re right, they’d need a lot more evidence that it would work. I wouldn’t support it anyway, of course, but I could at least accept that they had a point.

While they can point to heavily biased studies as “proof,” we’ve got reality showing us otherwise.

Take this situation in Pennsylvania, for example.

A man who was 15 when he was involved in a gun battle outside a high school football game that set off a chain of events that ended in the death of an 8-year-old girl in Sharon Hill has been sentenced to 14 to 28 years in prison.

Nineteen-year-old Angelo Ford was sentenced Friday in Delaware County on several cases including attempted murder, aggravated assault, and related convictions stemming from the 2021 gunfire in Sharon Hill that eventually led to the death of Fanta Bility.

Prosecutors said Ford and a group of other males got into an argument while leaving an Academy Park High School football game in August 2021. Ford, then 15, pulled a handgun and exchanged gunfire with a 21-year-old man about a block away from the stadium, firing five times as the other person fired twice, authorities said.

Authorities said two shots went in the direction of three Sharon Hill police officers monitoring the crowd leaving the game. The officers returned fire toward a car they believed was involved, and one of the rounds hit Bility, who was leaving the game with her family, authorities said.

“There is not loss of life that night if AJ Ford doesn’t bring a gun,” Deputy District Attorney Laurie Moore said. “Fanta would still be here. She’d be 11 years old.”

Moore sought a term of 32 to 67 years, citing the trauma of the child’s family and the community. She also said Ford had never displayed an ounce of remorse, fleeing a juvenile facility after the arrest and eluding police for more than a year as he posted Instagram videos taunting his pursuers and waving guns around. […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com

Yet, according to the polls, if it were that important, gun control candidates would win hands down. The polls all claim that a massive majority of people want gun control of various kinds. That didn’t seem to pan out in the least. We can see that in part based on the “Leaders We Deserve” being handed their collective posteriors anywhere they faced a real challenge, with the only exception being someone who never talked about gun control.

At the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, they’re not thrilled with the outcome of the election, and the cope is strong there.

Common-sense gun laws, such as universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs), continue to stall in Congress and struggle to pass in many states—even though most Americans support these policies: Over 80% support universal background checks, and about 70% support ERPOs.

So why is gun policy so out of step with the preferences of most Americans?

Silvia Villarreal, MPP, director of research translation at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, says that today, the support of the majority of the population, including most gun owners, is being drowned out by a highly organized and committed group spurred by a powerful gun lobby that perpetuates the myths that owning guns makes people safer and that common-sense gun laws threaten Second Amendment rights.

The fact that they keep using the term “common sense” for these anti-gun proposals just tells you where their priorities are, not that we needed to figure it out. Bloomberg’s name is on the school, for crying out loud. We know what the agenda is. […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com

While, as of this writing, we’re still waiting on results from Arizona, but they’re not going to have any ramifications on who the president will be come January. There are some House races that might have an impact on who holds the majority in that chamber, but that’s just about it as far as national ramifications go.

But the polls were…questionable.

RealClearPolitics, which doesn’t play with the numbers at all, simply averages the polls together, had Kamala Harris with a slight lead. FiveThirtyEight had her winning with a slightly larger lead, but it was still close. Yet Trump won the popular vote entirely, and by a couple of percentage points, meaning they missed it by a fairly significant margin.

That’s interesting, because nearly a week before the election, pollster Nate Silver called out his colleagues. […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com

Johnson captured the hearts and minds of Democrats around the country when she and two other Memphis-area legislators led protests for more gun control laws from the floor of the state House after the Covenant School Shootings last year. Johnson was hoping to use her newfound celebrity on the left as a springboard to the Senate, but even before the first returns came in there were clear signs that her campaign was struggling.

Last week the New York Times ran a glowing profile of Johnson, but admitted in the headline that her campaign “appears destined to fail.” Instead of seeking victory, Johnson moved the goalposts for her campaign and said she was really thinking about “the importance of flipping the State House and the State Senate.”

Well, that’s not going to happen either. Though Democrats may pick up a couple of seats in both chambers, it looks like Republicans will keep control of the state House and Senate this year. And though Johnson won’t be heading to Washington, D.C., she will be returning to Nashville.

Regardless of the Senate outcome, Ms. Johnson is guaranteed to remain in office: She is also running unopposed for her seat in the State Legislature. She was first elected in 2012 and represents part of Knoxville.

Her position within the state party has also shaped her alliance with a number of first-time candidates, many of whom cite the aftermath of the 2023 school shooting as motivation for running.

Few are expected to flip Republican-held seats. But even contesting some of these seats is a signal of progress for the party, which has repeatedly failed to recruit any candidates or secure national support for those who do run. […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com

After all, if every gun buyer anywhere in the nation has to undergo a background check, convicted felons aren’t going to be able to buy them.

That makes a lost of sense. At least, it does until you finish the second grade and realize that this assumes that everyone is going to follow the law while they’re trying to break the law.

Yes, that’s really what it does.

It basically assumes that everyone will conduct a transaction as if everyone is law-abiding rather than some people simply buying guns from those who don’t care about such things. […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com

Sure, we could argue that shootings tend to act almost like a virus, starting in one place, and then spreading out as various people retaliate, so if we look at it via a public health framework that way, we might be able to stop the cycle in its tracks.

But too many people want to go well beyond that, people like Jonathan Metzl, a professor of sociology and psychiatry and director of the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University.

It seems he wants a public health view of gun violence, too, but he’s focusing on the wrong word in that term.

Metzl referenced his newest book, What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms, where he explores how the topic of guns is not only a conversation about safety or law, but one of identity.

“There are issues about identity that I think are important to think about, which is the polarization where people’s identities become oppositional to each other,” Metzl said. “People get on different sides of these issues, about issues of safety, and for them that’s a really deeply existential and deeply psychoanalytic topic of asking how exactly these identities form.”

Metzl said that drastically different opinions across the country create a polarized political sphere among voters, politicians, and legislators when it comes to gun violence.

“Americans basically are divided almost down the middle about what mass shootings mean,” Metzl said. “Half of our country thinks we need more regulation, and the other half of the country says this means we need more guns.”

While the U.S. has made powerful strides toward resolving other public safety concerns by enacting a ban on smoking or educating the public about its associated risks, the same cannot be said about gun safety, Metzl said.

“We made people believe, and rightly so, that secondhand smoke is a risk, that being in a car without a seatbelt is a risk,” Metzl said. “The question is, why didn’t we convince the entire country to do the same thing, but with guns?” […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com

Then David Hogg got in after being turned down by much lesser schools than Harvard claims to be. It became clear that the Ivy League’s prestige is based on history more than anything else.

But one would hope that most who end up at Harvard have at least some inkling of an idea of how to think. I’d like to think that. I can’t, but I’d like to, and this point-counterpoint article on guns certainly didn’t help.

I’m going to to delve too far into the pro-gun arguments because, well, they’ll all look familiar enough. I’ll only use summarize them to frame some of the anti-gun arguments.

It starts with the pro-gun perspective saying that we need guns for self-defense. The author points out that defensive gun uses are far more common than offensive gun uses, etc. […]

— Read More: bearingarms.com