The United States, home to around 4 percent of the world’s population, accounts for nearly half the civilian-owned guns in the world.

But it isn’t just the number of guns; it’s also what kind of guns and ammunition are legal and how you buy them. The shooter in Dayton, Ohio, who killed nine people in less than a minute, legally ordered his AR-15-style assault rifle online. He also bought a “double drum” magazine, allowing him to fire 100 rounds in the span of a matter of seconds without reloading. In most other developed countries, such semiautomatic assault-style weapons and ammunition magazines are banned. There are also several more hurdles to clear before buying a gun in every other developed country compared to the United States.

And yet, despite the relentless body counts piling up in movie theaters, food festivals, Walmarts, schools, synagogues, churches, offices, hospitals, bars and nightclubs, the Republican-controlled Senate refuses to even vote on a common-sense measure: requiring universal background checks before all gun purchases, without any loopholes. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is blocking a vote on that bill, even though 92 percent of Americans support that reform, including 89 percent of Republicans.

Will that measure prevent every gun death in the United States? Clearly not. But that reform, along with others — such as reintroducing the ban on assault-style weapons, banning large-capacity magazines such as the one used in Dayton, and requiring gun safety training — would go a long way in reducing deaths. We should also consider requiring licenses from those who wish to own a firearm as well as some form of reference system (such as the character references required in Canada or some form of mental health evaluation as is used in Germany, Austria, India, Brazil, Israel and Japan). A recent international study that examined the entire body of research on gun legislation found convincing evidence that gun safety legislation reduces gun-related deaths.

America is the only rich democracy that features the routine mass slaughter of its citizens with guns. Why does this happen? The data show a really clear picture: It's the guns. Yes, it's that simple. [snip]

With guns, gun violence, and mass shootings, the United States is in a dystopian league of its own. But whenever I write about guns, I get the same bad-faith arguments shot back at me by American gun advocates who are, perhaps, unaware of just how extreme, and just how unusual America’s gun culture is relative to the rest of the rich, democratic world.

The satirical newspaper The Onion nailed this dynamic with one of its all-time great headlines.

“No Way to Prevent This,” Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”

I’ve decided to write a comprehensive guide to understanding America’s gun extremism, engaging with all the main, spurious arguments, showing the truth with proper evidence and data. It’s my hope that this can be your go-to guide to defeating bad arguments being made about America’s gun culture—and that you can share this article with others, perhaps to help persuade them that the United States needs to fix its broken gun culture. [more]

August 31, 2021

While the Trump era exposed weaknesses in many U.S. institutions and resulted in the proliferation of reform proposals from organizations like ours, relatively little attention has been paid to much-needed reforms to the domestic deployment of the National Guard. The brutal crackdown on nonviolent demonstrators on June 1, 2020, at Lafayette Square and the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, provide important lessons about how and when the National Guard is (or is not) deployed domestically, its command structure for domestic deployment, and the Guard’s legal authority when it acts. [snip]

In response to the widespread protests following the murder of George Floyd last summer, former-President Trump deployed both the D.C. National Guard and thousands of out-of-state National Guards members into Washington, D.C. to police protestors. In doing so, the administration performed an end-run around the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of federal military forces inside the United States for law enforcement purposes unless doing so has been expressly authorized by Congress or the Constitution.

Aug. 7, 2020, 8:30 AM UTC
By Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Jim McGovern

The Posse Comitatus Act bans the use of National Guard units for law enforcement only when they are federalized, meaning they are brought under the command and control of the president. When National Guard units are operating in so-called hybrid status — serving federal missions funded with federal dollars but under state governors' command and control — they are not subject to the act and therefore are able to perform law enforcement functions, like searches and arrests.

Congress has limited the activities the National Guard can perform in hybrid status, but it does allow it to perform training exercises in this formulation. Barr twisted this provision to enable the rogue deployment in Washington from 11 states.

Several of the signatories are represented by Mark Zaid, who provided me with a copy of a letter challenging the fishing expedition. In a response to the chairmen, Zaid notes that the power of Congress to exercise oversight is not “unbounded.” Citing the 2020 Trump v. Mazars Supreme Court case, Zaid explains that Congress needs a legitimate legislative purpose to demand compliance with a subpoena. And here, “no conceivable legislative purpose” exists, he says, only a “purely political, partisan exercise” that wastes taxpayer money. [snip]

However, should the committees issue formal subpoenas to others or demand the former officials reveal classified information about their past service (which is the basis for their opinions set out in the statement), the issue likely would head to the courts in the first substantial legal challenge to the House GOP’s conspiracy-driven inquests.

The last thing these right-wing congressmen likely would want is a court ruling that their three-ring circus lacks any legitimate legislative purpose and, therefore, cannot compel testimony or document production. A legal defeat for MAGA-inspired investigations (which to date have spectacularly flopped) would be the perfect denouement to Republicans’ inept efforts to harness congressional power for political gain.