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FILE PHOTO: Parts of a ghost gun kit are on display at an event held by U.S. President Joe Biden to announce measures to fight ghost gun crime, at the White House in Washington U.S., April 11, 2022.
The Supreme Court takes aim at “ghost guns”
The US Supreme Court agreed Monday to rule on a challenge to the Biden administration’s efforts to crack down on untraceable “ghost guns.”
What are “ghost guns”? Basically, privately manufactured kits that give customers all the individual parts they need to build a firearm themselves, like a deadly version of IKEA.
Before the Biden administration’s new regulations, customers did not need to pass background checks to buy these kits, and law enforcement struggled to trace the guns when they were used in crimes. Unsurprisingly, a lot of criminals bought these kits. In 2020, law enforcement agencies recovered 19,344 ghost guns from crime scenes, up from just 1,758 in 2016.
What’s the argument? The White House’s regulations don’t ban the sale of gun kits but require manufacturers to put serial numbers on components and conduct background checks. Manufacturers and Second Amendment activists say the government is overstepping its powers in regulating the kits like actual firearms.
What’s the outlook? The court has a 6-3 conservative majority that generally favors expansive Second Amendment rights. That said, two conservatives – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett – joined the liberals to let the White House allow the regulations to take effect temporarily last August. Their votes will be key, with a decision expected after the November election.Graphic Truth: The rise of US school shootings
Saturday marks 25 years since the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The attack in which two students used high-powered rifles to murder 12 of their classmates and a teacher before killing themselves was the largest school shooting in US history at the time.
It was also the first to be covered extensively in real-time by cable news, and it set off a national debate about gun violence, as well as the impact of bullying, video games, and prescription drugs on teen mental health.
A quarter of a century later, those debates continue — what’s different is that the frequency of school shootings has surged, increasing nearly sevenfold over the past decade alone.
Although deaths from these kinds of attacks account for only about 1% of total firearm fatalities, their rise tracks a broader increase in gun homicides and suicides that began during the pandemic in 2020.
Here is a look at the rise of school shootings in America beginning in the early 1990s.
People participate in the March for Our Lives on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
What We're Watching: US gun-control deal, Indian protests, Macron's majority, Biden goes to Saudi
US Senate reaches compromise on guns
On Sunday, a group of 20 US senators announced a bipartisan framework on new gun control legislation in response to the recent wave of mass shootings. The proposal includes more background checks, funding for states to implement "red-flag" laws so they can confiscate guns from dangerous people, and provisions to prevent gun sales to domestic violence offenders. While the deal is much less ambitious than the sweeping ban on assault weapons and universal background checks President Joe Biden called for after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, it's a rare bipartisan effort in a deeply divided Washington that seeks to make at least some progress on gun safety, an issue on which Congress has been deadlocked for decades. Biden said these are "steps in the right direction" and endorsed the Senate deal but admitted he wants a lot more. The announcement came a day after thousands of Americans held rallies on the National Mall in the capital and across the country to demand tougher gun laws. Will the senators be able to turn the framework into actual legislation before the momentum passes?
Prophet protests grow violent in India
Protests across India over the government's failure to punish two officials from the ruling BJP party for making derogatory remarks about Islam and the Prophet Mohammad turned violent over the weekend, with two demonstrators shot dead by police in Jharkhand state. In Uttar Pradesh, cops razed houses belonging to Muslim protesters as hundreds were arrested and mass gatherings were banned. Although India has seen communal tensions for decades, the new wave of protests is growing, with Muslims clashing with police, Hindu mobs, or both, ranging from as far east as Bengal to as far west as Kashmir. Why? Because the BJP handled the controversy like just another day at the office, suspending one official and firing the other after almost all Islamic countries in the region — including Saudi Arabia and Iran, which rarely agree on anything — demanded corrective action from the government. PM Narendra Modi's foot-dragging on this issue is deeply resented by many of India's 200 million Muslims, who feel they've been marginalized under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, and by many Islamic countries that trade with India.
Vote throws Macron's parliamentary majority in danger
French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble (Together) Party looks set to win the most seats in parliament after the first round of voting on Sunday, but projected results show it might fall short of an outright majority. Ensemble was tied at 25.2% of the vote with Nupes, the resurgent left-wing coalition led by firebrand candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Macron's party is projected to secure 260-310 seats in the National Assembly, where the magic number is 289. The French president needs a parliamentary majority to carry out his ambitious reform agenda. Without it, his government will have to form ad-hoc parliamentary alliances to win votes on individual proposals like raising the retirement age from 62 to 65, which Mélenchon strongly opposes. Far-right leader Marine le Pen, who lost the presidential election to Macron in April, called on her supporters to abstain wherever Ensemble candidates are running against Nupes challengers in the second round of voting next Sunday, when voters will have another go in constituencies where no one candidate got 50%.
Risks and rewards await Biden in Saudi Arabia
The White House, after changing the itinerary, is expected to announce President Joe Biden’s first trip to Saudi Arabia as early as Monday. What an about-face for Biden, given his earlier rebukes about the Saudi human rights record and not giving dictators blank checks. The trip includes a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, who an American intelligence report says was the signing authority on the Jamal Khashoggi murder (this obviously hasn’t gone down well with Khashoggi’s widow). But there’s an element of realism at play here: MBS is likely to rule Saudi for decades, and Riyadh needs to sign the Abraham Accords in order to really stabilize the Middle East. The groundwork has been set by friends: the Israelis have been lobbying for the trip, while British PM Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron have already met MBS and encouraged Biden to do the same. In a big get for Washington, the Saudis might have some welcome gifts: ousting Russia from the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries led by Riyadh or perhaps announcing the normalization of ties with Israel. But don’t expect anything to change on the Saudi human rights front.
An image of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting displayed at a House hearing on gun violence on Capitol Hill.
What We’re Watching: United States of Guns, Ukrainian strategy, Iran censured
The United States of Guns
The US House of Representatives kicked off a grueling two-day hearing on gun violence in America on Wednesday, just two weeks after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers. Miah Cerrillo, 11, whose classroom was attacked, recounted how she painted herself with a classmate’s blood and played dead. Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter Lexi was killed, recalled how she ran miles barefoot looking for her daughter that fateful day. The hearing is part of the Congressional debate on how to respond to a spate of recent deadly shootings, most notably in Uvalde, as well as at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, where Black Americans were targeted by a white supremacist. Senate Democrats, in coordination with the White House, are working on narrow legislation that could get the support of at least 10 Republicans needed to pass. Proposals center on addressing mental health issues in young males and incentivizing states to introduce their own “red-flag laws” to remove guns from dangerous owners. The Democrat-controlled House, meanwhile, has advanced a bill with eight gun-control measures – including banning large-capacity magazines – but it's unlikely to pass the Senate, where Dems hold a razor-thin majority. It’s a busy week for the House, which will also launch hearings on the Jan. 6 riots on Thursday. Check out what Eurasia Group's lead US analyst, Jon Lieber, has to say about how the Dems hope to use these hearings to gain an edge in the midterms here.
What are the Ukrainians up to?
Western media coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has focused mainly on the Russian side of the fight. We see plenty of estimates of Russian casualties and reports on Russian tactics. Invaluable coverage from the Institute for the Study of War more often quotes Russian military bloggers, aka “milbloggers,” on Russia’s wins and losses than analysts who can estimate Ukraine’s strengths, losses, and changes of plan. The New York Times reports that even the Pentagon remains partially in the dark on what the Ukrainians are doing and how well they’re doing it. Why the secrecy? Ukraine’s leaders want to control the war’s narrative for multiple audiences. The news shared by President Volodymyr Zelensky and others is sometimes designed to persuade both Ukrainian and foreign audiences that Ukraine can win the war, and at other times to emphasize the need for immediate help. Ukraine’s US and European backers, who want their help to have maximum impact, also have an interest in keeping Ukraine’s secrets, and Russian sources on the war are tightly controlled by a government that doesn’t produce credible info. We must keep these realities and limitations in mind as daily updates inform our understanding of this war and where it’s headed.
📸 Iran turns off nuclear surveillance cameras 📸
Iranian authorities turned off two cameras monitoring one of its nuclear sites, obstructing the International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN body, from surveilling some of its ongoing uranium-enrichment activities. Tehran removed the cameras on Wednesday in response to a group of Western IAEA member states calling for Iran to be censured for failing to comply with the ongoing investigation into its nuclear program – a core condition to getting the now-stalled Iran nuclear deal back on track. The vote passed with 30 voting in favor, two against and three abstentions. The IAEA could now technically refer the matter to the UN Security Council which could enforce more hard-hitting measures against Iran. (That’s unlikely, however, because two permanent UNSC members, China and Russia, both voted against the resolution and would never go for it.) Indeed, the latest tit-for-tat is a sign of how much the Iran-US relationship, in particular, has deteriorated under both former President Donald Trump as well as the Biden administration. This game of brinkmanship is particularly dangerous right now because, as the IAEA chief warned this week, it could be “a matter of just a few weeks” before Iran gets sufficient material needed for a nuclear weapon if it continues nuclear enrichment at its current clip. Iran, for its part, said it might respond to the censure by taking new nuclear steps.This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Subscribe for your free daily Signal today.
General view of Severodonetsk from the last floor of a damaged building in the outskirts of the city.
What We’re Watching: Russian progress in Ukraine, gun ban plans in Canada, DRC-Rwanda tensions
Ukraine update: Is the war really shifting?
In recent days, Russian forces have made incremental gains in the Donbas. Vladimir Putin’s military now controls most of Luhansk province, and they are close to taking the strategic city of Severodonetsk, which would open the way to a wider Russian occupation of Donetsk province. Russia has shifted strategy in recent weeks, withdrawing from areas it couldn’t hold around Kyiv and Kharkiv to focus on more limited objectives in the East and South. Some military analysts warn that Russia’s recent gains are still coming at a very high cost in terms of human losses and morale. But even these slight shifts in the winds of war have raised fresh questions in the EU and US about what comes next. Driving Russia out of the east and south does not seem immediately possible. And although Washington continues to send Ukraine advanced weapons, US President Joe Biden on Monday said he would exclude rockets that could strike into Russian territory. After more than three months of war, the Ukrainians are still fighting like hell to defend their country and their democracy, but it’s no clearer yet what a reasonably achievable endgame looks like for Ukraine, for its Western backers, or for Moscow.
Canada’s Trudeau goes after guns
Another mass shooting that killed US schoolchildren in Texas has provided Canada’s Justin Trudeau with a big political opportunity to propose new gun laws. The prime minister has promised stricter gun control, and his government has proposed a ban on the purchase, sale, transfer, or importation of handguns in hopes of freezing the number of personally owned handguns across Canada. Trudeau’s interest in tougher gun laws isn’t new; his government had expanded background checks for firearm purchases and proposed a ban on assault weapons before the latest US shootings. But Ottawa will also have to continue to increase funding for security at the US border to keep smugglers from expanding the black market for weapons and ammunition. Republicans will continue to block tougher gun rules in the United States, but in Canada there are enough votes from Trudeau’s Liberals and the leftist opposition New Democrats to ensure this latest handgun proposal becomes law later this year. How effective will it be in reducing gun violence? It will be years before that question can be answered.
Tensions rising between DRC and Rwanda
The Rwandan genocide ended in 1994, but its ripple effects continue today in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. On Monday, hundreds of people took to the streets of the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, to call out Rwanda for allegedly supporting the notorious M23 rebels. (This armed group is made up of ethnic Tutsis who fled Hutu massacres in Rwanda some 28 years ago, and is currently staging its largest offensive in almost a decade.) The protesters want to kick out the Rwandan ambassador following a recent uptick in M23 violence in the eastern DRC, which has suffered near-constant conflict since Rwandan forces began crossing the border to go after escaped Hutu génocidaires. Rwanda, for its part, denies backing the M23 and on Saturday accused the DRC of being behind the kidnapping of two Rwandan soldiers by the FDLR, an anti-Rwanda Hutu armed group that operates inside the DRC and opposes the M23. If this all was not complicated enough, Ugandan forces recently entered the same region on a joint mission with the Congolese military to fight the Allied Democratic Forces, a jihadist outfit blamed for a string of attacks on civilians. We'll keep an eye on how this very messy situation plays out.
This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Subscribe for your free daily Signal today.
After the Buffalo shooting: gun violence and US polarization
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, discusses Washington's response to the Buffalo shooting.
How is Washington responding to the Buffalo shooting?
Multiple mass shootings this weekend were quickly picked up by partisans on both sides who filtered them through purely political lenses. And notably those lenses ended up being about something other than gun control. Sadly, gun violence has become so common in the United States that the shootings that generate national news coverage tend to be those that fit, that can be most easily politicized. There have been at least 200 incidents involving four or more victims so far in 2022, and these shootings will not move the needle on policies that could prevent them and it's notable that so few politicians are even trying at this point. The national media response tends to see more significance in the political context of the shooting than in the shooting itself.
For example, a number of mainstream outlets and journalists focused on a manifesto left behind by the white supremacist who killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York, and immediately linked it to conspiratorial views from the far-right fringe of conservative politics and media. In contrast, conservatives and social media drew attention to street violence in Chicago and Milwaukee as proof that Democratic cities are overrun by crime due to lax policing policy and mismanagement. Meanwhile, yet another mass shooting at a predominantly Asian church in Southern California went largely unnoticed due to its lack of fit in political narratives.
It almost goes without saying that there's little hope for legislation that would respond to any of these shootings anytime soon. This is yet another intractable political issue in the United States with roots in constitutional law. And in fact, one watchpoint for the year is a potential Supreme Court case involving concealed carry regulations in New York that could potentially be a massive setback for gun restrictions nationwide, which will become yet another cultural flashpoint over a deeply polarizing issue.
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