U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

'The evil in Texas' is Greg Abbott: Uvalde state senator calls out governor over his NRA comments



Appearing on MSNBC with host Alex Witt, State Sen. Roland Gutierrez who represents the district that was home to a mass shooting at an elementary school on Tuesday, hammered Gov. Greg Abbott for not doing anything to limit the availability to purchase high-powered weapons and then having the audacity to speak to an NRA convention just days after the 19 children and two adults were murdered by a gunman.

Noting that Abbott used his speech to lament the "evil" in the world that he blames for mass shootings, Guiterrez begged to differ.

"Last night, a speaker after speaker denounced the massacre," host Witt prompted the lawmaker. "They insisted that any new gun laws are not the answers to prevent future tragedies. Sir, it feels like statistics are indicating otherwise, and the feelings of the vast majority of Americans are simply being ignored. Even right there, it is like the speakers are playing to the crowd in the convention center. They are ignoring the throngs of protesters outside. What is your reaction to their tin ear?"

"I think it is the most disgusting thing coming to a community three days after a massacre like this, they should have canceled," he began. "They refused."

"Abbott should not have gone, he says 'Well, I didn't go,' well he sure sent us a video in support thereof, right?', he continued "He talking about mental health, talking about evil. The only evil that we have in Texas is that we have a feckless leader. That he has refused to do anything on this issue, even a modicum of gun-sense sense. That is the evil in Texas."

"Governor Abbott was probably pulling a CYA by not attending the convention," host Witt added. "He claimed he was busy doing other things. Perhaps."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

Texas Dems demand special session to raise the age to buy AR-15s and require background checks

The Texas Senate Democratic Caucus is urging Gov. Greg Abbott to call an emergency special legislative session to consider a variety of gun restrictions and safety measures in the wake of a mass school shooting in Uvalde that left 19 children and two adults dead this week.

In a letter released SaPersonay morning, all 13 Senate Democrats demanded lawmakers pass legislation that raises the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21 years old. The Uvalde gunman was 18 and had purchased two AR-style rifles which he used in the attack.

The caucus is also calling for universal background checks for all firearm sales, “red flag” laws that allow a judge to temporarily remove firearms from people who are considered an imminent threat to themselves or others, a “cooling off period” for the purchase of a firearm and regulations on high capacity magazines for citizens.

“Texas has suffered more mass shootings over the past decade than any other state. In Sutherland Springs, 26 people died. At Santa Fe High School outside Houston, 10 people died. In El Paso, 23 people died at a Walmart. Seven people died in Midland-Odessa,” the letter reads. “After each of these mass killings, you have held press conferences and roundtables promising things would change. After the slaughter of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, those broken promises have never rung more hollow. The time to take real action is now.”

Such laws are unlikely to gain traction in the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has a track record of favoring legislation that loosens gun restrictions. Only the governor has the power to call lawmakers back into a special session for emergency work.

Asked about a special session at a Friday press conference in Uvalde, Abbott said “all options are on the table” adding that he believed laws would ultimately be passed to address this week’s horrors. However, he suggested laws would be more tailored toward addressing mental health, rather than gun control.

“You can expect robust discussion and my hope is laws are passed, that I will sign, addressing health care in this state,” he said, “That status quo is unacceptable. This crime is unacceptable. We’re not going to be here and do nothing about it.”

He resisted the idea of increasing the age to purchase a firearm, saying that since Texas became a state, 18-year-olds have been able to buy a gun.

He also dismissed universal background checks saying existing background check policies did not prevent the Santa Fe and Sutherland Springs shootings, which both happened while he has been in office.

“If everyone wants to seize upon a particular strategy and say that’s the golden strategy right there, look at what happened in the Santa Fe shooting,” he said. “A background check had no relevance because the shooter took the gun from his parents…Anyone who suggests we should focus on background checks as opposed to mental health, I suggest is mistaken.”

Since the massacre at Robb Elementary School, the governor’s comments about potential solutions have centered around increasing mental health services, rather than restricting access to firearms.

But in the letter, Senate Democrats criticized the governor for blaming a “broken mental health care system – that you and other state leaders continue to underfund severely.”

“We need evidence-based, common sense gun safety laws. Without a doubt, if at least some of the measures noted above had been passed since 2018, then many lives could have been saved,” the caucus wrote.

Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter.

After the Santa Fe school shooting in 2018, Abbott released a variety of recommendations to address school safety, including a call to the Legislature to consider a “red flag” law.

At the time, Abbott claimed in his plan to improve school safety that similar protective orders restricting gun possession could have prevented the mass shootings in Sutherland Springs, southeast of San Antonio, and Parkland, Florida.

But Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and gun rights activists pushed back and the proposal died.

By the end of the 2019 legislative session Abbott signed a package of school safety measures that primarily focused on expanding mental health resources and “hardening school buildings.” He expanded the number of school staff who could have a firearm on school grounds.

When he signed that legislation at the end of the 2019 session, reporters asked if he still supported a “red flag” law.

Abbott said such a measure wasn’t necessary in Texas “right now.”

On Friday, Roland Gutierrez, the Democratic state senator who represents Uvalde, interrupted Abbott’s press conference by walking to the front of the auditorium and urged the governor to bring lawmakers back for three weeks.

"We have to do something, man,” he said to Abbott, the second Democratic politician to interrupt a press conference this week. "Just call us back.”

In the hours after the shooting on Tuesday, Gutierrez told the Texas Tribune that the state needed to make it more difficult to obtain a firearm, especially the gun used by the shooter, an AR-15, which he called a “weapon of mass destruction.”

“There's not a hunter in Texas that utilizes these kinds of weapons,” he said. “And so I'm not saying let's take those kinds of weapons away, I'm saying that we should have some greater accessibility restrictions …When you've got an 18-year-old kid getting his hands on this kind of weaponry, it just makes no sense to me.”

https://www.rawstory.com/texas-special-session/

[Rick Plant]

'Not the kind of country I want to live in': Adam Kinzinger bashes Ted Cruz's proposal to stop school shootings



Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" with host Dana Bash, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) dismissed the central half-measure being made by some of his Republican colleagues to halt school shootings and admitted that he s now open to some type of ban on assault weapons.

Speaking just moments after his House colleague, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) blew off the idea of any changes to the country's law gun laws, Kinzinger said his party needs to get behind some kind of reform -- and that Sen Ted Cruz's plan for "hardening" schools is a questionable solution after the Uvalde mass shooting.

After admitting that Republicans really don't want to address the problem, he stated, "If you look at this [Uvalde] shooting, you look at Buffalo, you look at Parkland and all these others, there are people taking these ARs under the age of 21, can we stop all of it? No. Can we mitigate it? Certainly and we should be doing that now."

"Texas Governor Greg Abbott says this shooting shows the need for more laws addressing mental health. Texas Senator Ted Cruz wants to reduce the number of doors in schools, put armed cops on school campuses and bulletproof glass. Is that enough to stop mass shootings if the U.S. doesn't also do something about guns?" host Bash asked.

"Ultimately I think it's a hard issue because people have to make a decision to go and do a mass shooting," the GOP lawmaker replied. "But basically turning schools into military camps, if we think that's going to be the answer, even if it does work, which it won't, but even if it does, that's not the kind of country I want to live in."

"I've got a kid that's 4-months old and will be going to school someday. I don't want him to have a military ID. to get into an elementary school," he continued. "These politicians that are scared to death to talk about the gun issue, they know that this is an issue, but they're scared to talk about it so they launch into this thing about mental health. We all agree that mental health is a problem. First off, I'd ask have they actually put any more money into mental health, people like Ted Cruz? Highly doubt it."

"But, secondarily, at the same time, why is an 18-year-old buying an AR?" he asked. "It's not an if or that. There's always the old saying too about the way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Typically I agree, but there are there were 150 good guys with guns at this shooting who didn't do anything until basically Border Patrol SWAT showed up. We've got to take handle of this, this is insane."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Biden grieves with Texas town as anger mounts over school shooting



(Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Sunday headed to a Texas town to comfort families ripped apart by the largest U.S. school shooting in a decade amid lingering questions about whether law enforcement's failure to act swiftly contributed to the death toll.

Biden’s familiar role as consoler-in-chief will be complicated by local anger over a decision by law enforcement in Uvalde, Texas, to allow the shooter to remain in a classroom for nearly an hour while officers waited in the hallway and children in the room made panicked 911 calls for help.

Investigators on SaPersonay were seeking to determine how critical mistakes were made in the response to the shooting that left 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School dead, and some are calling on the FBI to look into police actions.

Biden is scheduled to visit a memorial erected at the school, and meet with victims' families, survivors and first responders.

"He has to stay focused on the pain and grief of the families and the community and understand that all of this has been compounded by the fact that we still don't know exactly what happened. The more we learn, the more it seems the children were poorly served," said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist and a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The Democratic president also confronts the stark reality that he has been relatively powerless to stop American mass shootings or convince Republicans that stronger gun controls could stem the carnage.

The Texas visit will be his third presidential trip to a mass shooting site, including earlier this month when he visited Buffalo, New York, after a shooting that left 10 Black people at a supermarket dead.

"Too much violence, too much fear, too much grief," Biden told graduates in a commencement speech SaPersonay at the University of Delaware. "We cannot outlaw tragedy, I know, but we can make America safer. We can finally do what we have to do to protect the lives of the people and of our children.”

The Uvalde shooting has once again put gun control at the top of the nation's agenda, months ahead of the November midterm elections, with supporters of stronger gun laws arguing that the latest bloodshed represents a tipping point.

"The president has a real opportunity. The country is desperately asking for a leader to stop the slaughter from gun violence," said Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America.

He urged Biden to immediately enlist a senior official to tackle the country’s gun problem and crisscross the United States to pressure Congress to pass meaningful gun reform, saying Biden promised to be a deal maker and to tackle guns.

Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on assault-style weapons during a trip to Buffalo on SaPersonay, saying that in the wake of two back-to-back mass shootings such arms are "a weapon of war" with "no place in a civil society."

White House aides and close allies say Biden is unlikely to wade into specific policy proposals to avoid disrupting delicate gun control negotiations in the Senate. He is also unlikely to immediately take executive action to crack down on firearms, sending Republican lawmakers otherwise open to negotiating back to their corners, aides say.

Meanwhile, leading Republicans like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former President Donald Trump rejected calls for new gun control measures and instead suggested investing in mental health care or tightening security at the nation's schools.

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott denied that newly enacted Texas gun laws, including a controversial measure removing licensing requirements for carrying a concealed weapon, had "any relevancy" to Tuesday's bloodshed. He suggested state lawmakers focus renewed attention on addressing mental illness.

© Reuters

[Rick Plant]

'Do something!’: Biden visits Uvalde after mass shooting as onlookers urge him to take action

President and first lady seek to comfort community as DOJ launches investigation into police response to school shooting


President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visit a memorial at Robb elementary school to pay their respects to the victims of the mass shooting, Sunday, in Uvalde, Texas. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

President Joe Biden on Sunday visited Uvalde, Texas, seeking to comfort a community devastated by the latest American mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 19 elementary school children and two teachers.

The visit marked the second presidential visit related to a massacre within two weeks following a racist attack in Buffalo, New York, as Democrats in Washington offered tentative hope of bipartisan gun reform legislation in Congress.

Onlookers cheered Biden but also called out to the Democratic president and visiting Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott about taking action to make America safer for their children.

The US president and First Lady Jill Biden, both wearing black, paid their respects at a makeshift memorial site outside the Robb elementary school in Uvalde, laying a bouquet of white flowers amid a mass of candles, flowers, and photographs of the victims.

Biden could be seen reaching out to touch the pictures of the children and at one pointed wiped tears from his eyes as he made his way slowly through the memorial.

Abbott was close by and since last Tuesday’s shooting has talked about greater security for schools, but not about restrictions on guns, drawing heckling on Sunday. “We need help, Governor Abbott,” shouted one onlooker. “Shame on you, Abbott,” shouted another.

Uvalde resident Ben Gonzalez, 35, called out to the politicians and said after that he wanted to see change on several issues, including more gun laws, more resources for mental health and for schools and that it was up to state and federal lawmakers to act.

“At a certain point of time it’s going to be on us, because we vote these people in to represent us and they are not representing us and it’s heartbreaking because things like this happen. Something needs to be done, we need change, we need help and my biggest fear is that nothing is going to change, and six months from now Uvalde is just going to be Uvalde, it’s just going to be history and nothing will have changed,” he told CNN.

The Bidens walked past the school before being whisked away in the presidential motorcade to attend mass at the local Catholic church, without making public comment.

After the service the Bidens left the church and someone in the crowd yelled: “Do something!”

The president called back: “We will.”

Biden was due to join mourners after the service and, later, first responders, as the US justice department announced it would conduct a critical incident review of the law enforcement response to the shooting, after it emerged that local police had waited for at least an hour outside the classroom where the gunman had barricaded himself and opened fire.

On SaPersonay in a speech in Delaware Biden lamented “too much violence, too much fear, too much grief” in repeated gun violence across America, which he called “acts of evil”.

The Texas visit came as senators in Washington DC, offered cautious optimism over a legislative deal on a package of small-scale gun safety measures.

On Sunday, Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said ongoing talks between Senate Democrats and Republicans would involve compromises on both sides of the political aisle.

“I think there is something dying inside the soul of this country when we refuse to act at a national level, shooting after shooting,” Murphy told CBS News.

“And I do think there is an opportunity right now to pass something significant. I’ve seen more Republican interest in coming to the table and talking this time than at any moment since Sandy Hook,” he said, referring to the devastating mass shooting in an elementary school in his state almost 10 years ago that claimed 26 lives.

A small group of US senators began negotiations earlier in the week with a number of control measures reportedly on the table. These include a national expansion of background checks for firearms purchases and the adoption of so-called red flag laws, which allow authorities to order the removal or restriction of weapons from a person deemed to be a public safety risk.

But Murphy, who is joined at the negotiating table by a handful of senior Republican senators, including John Cornyn from Texas and Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, made clear that a number of key proposals endorsed by gun control advocates were unlikely to form part of any legislative package. These included a national ban on assault rifle purchases or limits to magazine capacity.

Vice-President Kamala Harris made a fresh call on SaPersonay for banning military-style assault weapons for the general public, as she attended the last funeral for the 10 victims gunned down in Buffalo, two weeks ago in a racist attack on a supermarket in a majority-Black neighborhood.

Both the alleged gunman in New York and the one who attacked the elementary school in Uvalde last week were 18 year-olds but were legally able to buy the assault rifles and ammunition they used in the attacks.

There remain significant hurdles to achieving any major legislative measures, which have continually faltered in the aftermath of mass shootings in recent years.

At least 10 Senate Republicans would need to cast a vote in favor of proposed legislation in order to win the 60 votes required for legislative passage, with the chamber split 50-50 between the two parties.

This week, the New York Times contacted all 50 Republican senators to gauge their position on gun reform. Only five have so far indicated a willingness to vote for any legislation, highlighting the power the pro-gun lobby holds over the party.

In Texas a handful of senior state Republicans joined Democrats in calling on Abbott to convene a special session of the state legislature, who later said: “All options are on the table”.

But any reform is still likely to be an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled state, that has passed successive pieces of legislation loosening gun laws after recent mass shootings.

On Sunday, Texas Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw knocked down new restrictions when interviewed on CNN.

Crenshaw, a former US Navy SEAL, also claimed AR-15-style assault rifles are “more self-defense weapons” than a tool of war.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/29/texas-school-shooting-biden-visits-uvalde

[Rick Plant]

After another mass shooting, Texas Democrats again push for gun control measures
https://www.rawstory.com/after-another-mass-shooting-texas-democrats-again-push-for-gun-control-measures/

[Rick Plant]

Texas governor has not yet spoken with Uvalde's state senator — who says Abbott has 'done nothing'



Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet spoken to state Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) about the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, which he represents in the legislature.

Gutierrez was interviewed on Monday, nearly a week after the attack, but MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell.

On Friday, Gutierrez interrupted a press conference the governor was holding to demand a special session of the legislature to address the mass shooting crisis in Texas.

O'Donnell noted Abbott did not respond to Gutierrez and simply said, "next question" and asked if that was the longest time he has gotten to speak with the governor.

"Yes, Lawrence," Gutierrez replied. "To be clear, the lieutenant governor called and asked what I needed for the community that he could do within his power. He's been helpful."

"I've had Republican colleagues in the senate call me. The governor has not contacted me," he said.

"If I'm the governor, I'm coming down here to help people and give them the things they need and talk about policy changes that need to happen. He has gone through seven massacres and done nothing, Gutierrez said.

On Sunday, Abbott was booed in Uvalde.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Ohio is 2½ weeks from allowing people to carry a concealed firearm without a permit: The Wake Up for Thursday, May 26, 2022
https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2022/05/ohio-is-2-weeks-from-allowing-people-to-carry-a-concealed-firearm-without-a-permit-the-wake-up-for-thursday-may-26-2022.html