WaPo:
Dylann Roof, who is accused of killing nine people at a church in South Carolina three weeks ago, was only able to purchase the gun used in the attack because of breakdowns in the FBI’s background-check system, FBI Director James B. Comey said Friday.
Comey said that Roof should have been prevented from buying the .45-caliber weapon used in a shooting that authorities have said was motivated by Roof’s racist views. The political repercussions of the June 17 massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston led South Carolina to remove the Confederate flag from its statehouse grounds Friday.
“This case rips all of our hearts out, but the thought that an error on our part is connected to a gun this person used to slaughter these people is very painful to us,” said Comey.
New York Magazine:
The Gun-Control Movement Is Borrowing the Marriage-Equality Playbook — and Hoping for Similar Results
WaPo:
In her standard stump speech, Hillary Rodham Clinton talks about fighting income inequality, celebrating court rulings on gay marriage and health care, and, since the Emanuel AME Church massacre, toughening the nation’s gun laws.
That last component marks an important evolution in presidential politics. For at least the past several decades, Democrats seeking national office have often been timid on the issue of guns for fear of alienating firearms owners. In 2008, after Barack Obama took heat for his gaffe about people who “cling to guns or religion,” he rarely mentioned guns again — neither that year nor in his 2012 reelection campaign.
But in a sign that the political environment on guns has shifted in the wake of recent mass shootings — and of Clinton’s determination to stake out liberal ground in her primary race against insurgent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — Clinton is not only initiating a debate about gun control but also vowing to fight the National Rifle Association.
See also
Obama's remarks during Rev. Pinckney's eulogy
None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says we have to have a conversation about race. We talk a lot about race. There’s no shortcut. And we don’t need more talk. (Applause.) None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy. It will not. People of goodwill will continue to debate the merits of various policies, as our democracy requires -- this is a big, raucous place, America is. And there are good people on both sides of these debates. Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete.
But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again.
More politics and policy below the fold.
US News:
As a lifelong Bernie Sanders fan, Honora Laszlo was hoping for the best when she came to a forum here Thursday night to challenge the Vermont senator and presidential candidate on his gun control position.
The avowed socialist Sanders voted in 2005 to prohibit lawsuits against gun manufacturers when crimes are committed with their weapons. In the wake of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, he told a home-state media outlet that stronger gun control legislation wouldn't have prevented the shootings.
This bothered Laszlo, a member of the local chapter for Gun Sense In America, who agrees with Sanders on virtually every other issue. So she stood up to pointedly pin him down on the matter, seeking a conversion or at least a concession. Instead, she got a confrontation – which illuminated Sanders' weakest spot with liberals in his long-shot quest for the Democratic Party nomination...
Let's be clear: this isn't a scurrilous attack on Bernie. In fact, this doesn't disqualify Bernie for me. He's right to represent his constituents in rural VT. But he's on the wrong side of this one issue (I'm a Newtown, CT resident) as far as I'm concerned. Protecting gun manufacturers from liability isn't necessary to preserve a rural way of life. Just as Hillary ought to pay attention to Bernie on economic and trade issues, Bernie ought to heed Hillary on gun safety legislation. More, same piece:
"The overwhelming majority of people who hunt know about guns and respect guns and are law-abiding people. That's the truth," he said. "We will not succeed on this terribly important issue if we continue the cultural warfare between urban America and rural America."
But his answer on why gun manufacturers should be shielded from civil lawsuits is what really irked Laszlo.
"If somebody sells you a baseball bat and you hit somebody over the head, you're not going to sue the baseball bat manufacturer," Sanders said, to a smattering of applause among a mostly liberal audience. "I don't apologize for that vote."
Afterward, Laszlo called that analogy "ridiculous" and felt Sanders was employing language that mimicked the "dog-whistling" of the National Rifle Association. (The lawmaker's current grade from the NRA is still an F.)
I like that F. By the way,
Flint has a diary with video from the above exchange. Bernie defends himself
here, and you can see why he earned his F. He still needs to go further, in my view, but YMMV. Newtown and Charleston people will continue to be talking to him.
Politifact:
An attack ad said, "Bernie Sanders voted against the Brady Bill -- background checks and waiting periods."
The Brady bill imposed a five-day waiting period for would-be purchasers of handguns. Between 1991 and 1993, Sanders voted against it five times. He did, however, vote for a version of the bill that imposed instant background checks, and against an amendment that repealed state background checks.
Experts noted Sanders’ votes were representative of Vermont’s gun owners and gun laws. Since the 1990s, his record on gun control is mixed.
We rate the ad’s claim Mostly True.
I include this piece because it has a pretty good list of Bernie's votes.
AP from 6/7/2015:
A relative of one victim of the mass church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, and other activists from the city are coming to the Capitol on Wednesday to try doing what others have failed to achieve before: Pressure lawmakers to approve gun control legislation.
The visitors are planning a news conference with lawmakers and leaders of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence at which they will press Congress to vote on legislation expanding required background checks for firearms buyers at gun shows and online.
WaPo:
The South Carolina state house isn’t the only public place that has taken down its Confederate flag.
All of the Confederate flags that used to fly over Fort Sumter National Monument — where the first shots were fired — were removed late last month, a National Park Service spokesperson, Kathy Kupper, said Friday.
The moves, prompted by the racist hate killings of nine African Americans in a Charleston, S.C. church on June 17, came as leading retailers (Wal-Mart, Sears, Amazon.com) decided to no longer sell the flag and major manufacturers (Annin Flagmakers, Valley Forge Flag ) said they would no longer make it.
“Any (national) park that flies a version of a Confederate flag may do so only if it is in historical context,” Cupper said.
Dana Milbank:
Blame John Boehner for the House GOP’s Confederate flag fiasco
The Confederates launched a surprise attack, under cover of darkness.
It was 8:30 Wednesday night, and the House was plodding toward its 20th hour of debate on a little-watched appropriations bill, when Rep. Ken Calvert (Calif.), who had been leading the Republican side of the debate, rose. “I have an amendment at the desk,” he said.
Yes he did: A proposal to protect the sale and display of the Confederate battle flag at national parks and cemeteries.
Gallup:
Shortly after the Supreme Court in late June turned back a second legal challenge to the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Americans' approval of the law rose to 47%, the highest level since 2012. Still, Americans are as likely to disapprove as to approve of the law.
AP:
Maine Attorney General Janet Mills says roughly 20 bills that Republican Gov. Paul LePage has held for more than 10 days have become law.
Mills released her opinion Friday that LePage missed the deadline to veto the bills.
James Risen/NY Times:
The Central Intelligence Agency’s health professionals repeatedly criticized the agency’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation program, but their protests were rebuffed by prominent outside psychologists who lent credibility to the program, according to a new report.
Let's have none of this W rehab. This happened on his watch.