It’s been a banner year for gun legislation. Only … the other kind.
Gun rights advocates scored new victories in states across the country this year as legislators voted to expand access to guns and implement new protections for those who carry concealed weapons.
While these bills passed before the horrendous shooting in Las Vegas, they passed within months—some within days—of the shooting at the Pulse night club in Orlando. Just as mass shootings seem to drive gun stocks ever higher, they also seem to encourage right-wing politicians to get those pro-gun laws passed. Pronto.
Of course, in Nevada, gun safety forces scored a rare victory when universal background checks passed in an open referendum. However, that victory never turned into law, because it was blocked by Nevada’s Republican attorney general.
The expansion of gun background checks approved by Nevada voters last month will not happen as expected, based on an opinion released Wednesday by the Nevada Attorney General’s Office.
Attorney General Adam Laxalt pointed at a technicality in how the FBI conducts checks as an excuse—a technicality that could have been resolved, had Laxalt not actively ensured that the ballot question approved by voters didn’t go into effect.
It was just part of a very bad year for gun safety, as the nation reached record levels of mass shootings and Republicans backed them at every opportunity.
After Republicans claimed control of Iowa’s state legislature in the 2016 elections, lawmakers this year passed the most sweeping package of gun rights laws in the country. The Iowa measure, House File 517, creates a so-called stand your ground policy. It also prevents cities from enacting stronger restrictions on gun rights than are permitted under state law.
That state-level preemption was a feature of new laws in several states, where cities are now forced to adopt the same rules as rural kin.
Concealed carry expanded. Open carry expanded. States that had previously required a permit for concealed carry dropped it. States that had previously banned concealed carry, added it.
Ohio permit holders will be allowed to carry concealed weapons in day care facilities and in public parts of airports. Those in Wyoming will be allowed to carry firearms in K-12 schools. Georgia and Arkansas residents may carry firearms on college and university campuses.
Texas dropped rules against silencers, a prequel to the national bill Republicans are attempting to pass at the urging of the NRA.
And while the most popular Republican response to the massacre in Las Vegas has been “don’t politicize this,” other Republicans are taking a different tack.
That inability to regulate evil must be why Kentucky is well known for having no laws. Murder and steal at will, people. You can’t regulate evil.
Meanwhile, a reminder that no matter how hopeless they want to pretend it is, things could be different.
Australia on Thursday marked the 20th anniversary of a mass shooting which led to strict gun controls that have in turn led to a huge decline in gun murders, undermining claims in the United States that such curbs are not the answer.
The chances of being murdered by a gun in Australia plunged to 0.15 per 100,000 people in 2014 from 0.54 per 100,000 people in 1996, a decline of 72 percent, a Reuters analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed.