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gun control
Trump 'Going to Get Americans Killed' With Industry-Friendly Gun Order, Warn Critics
"Remember the next time that a mass shooting happens," said one gun control advocate, "Trump did everything in his power to enable it, not prevent it."
Feb 08, 2025
An executive order issued Friday by President Donald Trump that aims to rollback gun control measures instituted by his predecessor received a swift rebuke from critics who said the order should be seen as a giveaway to the profit-hungry gun industry at the expense of a society ruthlessly harmed by gun violence year after year after year.
Trump's order tasks U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi with conducting a sweeping review of the policies and positions of the previous administration and Justice Department as it relates to gun policies, including any executive orders issued by President Joe Biden during his term and the DOJ's positions taken on "all ongoing and potential litigation" related to firearms.
"On the chopping block," reportsThe Trace, "are several high-profile attempts by [Biden] to reduce gun violence, including regulations on ghost guns, expanded background checks on gun sales, and tougher regulatory oversight of lawbreaking gun dealers."
"Trump's priorities couldn't be more clear. Spoiler: it's not protecting kids."
According to the outlet, which focuses on the nation's gun violence crisis:
While most of Biden’s policies have taken effect, lawsuits against them are ongoing. In his executive order, Trump directed the attorney general to also review the Justice Department’s decision to defend those regulations, as well as all other gun-related litigation in which the government is involved. From age limits on firearm sales to the ban on gun possession by people convicted of felonies, federal gun laws have been under constant threat in the courts since a 2022 Supreme Court decision dramatically expanded gun rights.
If the Justice Department declines to defend the current federal laws in court, it would significantly raise the chances of them being ruled unconstitutional.
Gun control advocates widely rebuked the executive order, warning that Trump's reversal of the minimal amount of progress Biden was able to make was an endorsement of more death, pain, and suffering for the American people, including children, who too often find themselves at the deadly end of a gun's barrel.
"Trump's priorities couldn't be more clear. Spoiler: it's not protecting kids," said Natalie Fall, March For Our Lives executive director. "Gun deaths finally went down last year, and Trump just moved to undo the rules and laws that helped make that happen."
Trump's right-wing MAGA movement, she continued, "loves to rage about 'keeping kids safe,' but it’s all a smokescreen. They don’t care about what is actually killing and maiming thousands of American kids every year: gun violence. He is going to get Americans killed in his thirst for vengeance and eagerness to please the gun lobby and rally armed extremists. Remember, the next time that a mass shooting happens, Trump did everything in his power to enable it, not prevent it."
Hudson Munoz, executive director of the advocacy group Guns Down America, shared similar sentiments and said the president's latest order "is as reckless as it is predictable."
Not for the first time, he argued, Trump is "proving that he cares more about appeasing the gun industry than protecting the American people. This order is downright dangerous. His incompetence and Attorney General Pam Bondi's blind loyalty to the Trump agenda will lead to more violence while a few shareholders and gun industry executives line their pockets."
Referencing public polls, Munoz said more than 70% of people in the U.S. approve of common-sense gun safety laws that Trump and the gun lobby are attempting to destroy.
"Make no mistake, this executive order is about business," he said. "Trump is working to unleash more guns into American public life to boost the profits of gun manufacturers. This order leaves Americans to foot the bill with more gun deaths, more taxpayer dollars spent on emergency responses, and more families shattered by violence—while a handful of businesses cash in."
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'Will of the People Should Be the Law of the Land': WI Gov. Says Fight GOP With Voter-Led Initiatives
Gov. Tony Evers' suggested priorities for state ballot measures include abortion rights, expanding public healthcare for low-income people, gun safety reform, and marijuana legalization.
Jan 08, 2025
Amid discussions across the United States about how to fight for progressive policies given the federal government's looming Republican trifecta, Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Wednesday renewed his call for letting voters in his state initiate ballot measures.
"Republicans' message to Wisconsinites is crystal clear—anything that gives the people of Wisconsin a voice and direct input on the policies of our state is 'dead on arrival,'" Evers said in a Wednesday statement. "That's breathtaking."
Wisconsin is among the two dozen U.S. states that don't allow citizen-initiated ballot measures, according to Ballotpedia. In the Badger State, only lawmakers can put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot, after it passes two consecutive legislative sessions.
Evers, who is halfway through his second term, is fighting for a citizen-initiated option, despite opposition from Republican state lawmakers. The governor is including his proposal for ballot measures from voters in his budget for 2025-27, as he detailed in a video posted on social media.
"The will of the people should be the law of the land. Republican lawmakers have repeatedly worked to put constitutional amendments on the ballot that Republicans drafted, and Republicans passed, all while Republicans refuse to give that same power to the people of Wisconsin. And that's wrong," Evers told reporters on Friday, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Despite new political maps for the November elections, Republicans retained control of the Wisconsin State Legislature, with a 54-45 majority in the Assembly and 18-15 majority in the Senate. Key lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-63) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-9), have made their opposition to Evers' proposal clear.
While opposing Evers' effort to boost direct democracy in the state, Wisconsin's Republican legislators have taken advantage of the state's existing process. The Senate on Wednesday voted along party lines for a proposed constitutional amendment to require voter ID for elections—continuing a trend from last year.
Evers' office explained that "Wisconsinites saw five statewide referenda questions in 2024—the most in a single year in over four decades, according to a report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel—all of which were drafted, legislatively passed, and placed on the ballot by Republican lawmakers, largely without direct input from the people of Wisconsin."
The governor said Wednesday that "Republican lawmakers in the next week are set to add yet another constitutional amendment to the ballot while telling Wisconsinites they can't have that same power. If Republicans are going to continue to legislate by constitutional amendment, then they should be willing to give Wisconsinites that same opportunity. Pretty simple stuff."
His office also suggested some potential ballot measure priorities: "legalizing and regulating marijuana, ensuring access to safe and legal abortion, expanding BadgerCare, and enacting commonsense gun safety reform policies."
Amid a fresh wave of Republican policymakers' attacks on reproductive freedom in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority reversing Roe v. Wade in 2022, several states have passed protections via ballot measures, including 7 of 10 states in November. Another top priority in recent cycles has been measures to help workers, including raising the minimum wage.
"As Americans prepare for the conservative headwinds in Washington, ballot measures offer a way to circumvent regressive political agendas and partisan gridlock to make change for working families, according to the Fairness Project, an advocacy group that supports progressive citizen-led initiatives.
The Fairness Project last month released a report detailing how it "has an unmatched number of victories on progressive ballot measure campaigns across the country, having won a total of 39 campaigns across 20 states since 2016," including nine efforts in the last cycle.
"We won in some of the deepest red, most conservative places in our country," noted Kelly Hall, the group's executive director, in a statement. "We won against vehement opposition and politicians who tried to stack the odds in their favor. And we won on issues like abortion, paid leave, and raising the minimum wage—issues politicians have failed to advance for their constituents for decades."
"We're not stopping. In fact, we're going on offense," Hall added. "The power of ballot measures is that the American people don't have to wait—they can make change themselves. And we intend to support them with everything we have."
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I'm Too Young to Vote, But Not Too Young to Die From Gun Violence
I’m using my voice to urge you and every other eligible voter, to please vote for gun violence prevention candidates in this upcoming election. Please vote for my life and future.
Nov 04, 2024
It’s official; the Republican Vice Presidential nominee declared school shootings “a fact of life.” That’s what JD Vance said at a rally in Arizona when asked about the recent shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, right after he told the crowd “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in.”
As a high school student, I’m terrified to know that the fate of students like me might soon be left in the hands of candidates who have accepted that we will always have to live in fear and whose only plan is to bring more guns into our schools. These reactive approaches only put students at greater risk and fail to address the root causes of the gun violence epidemic. High schoolers like me deserve more than that, don’t we?
I was 14 years old when I realized that school was not safe. I was riding the bus to school the day after the Uvalde shooting, where an 18-year-old killed 19 children and two teachers with an assault rifle in a Texas elementary school. My friend turned to me with concern in his eyes and asked, “You know what to do if this happens here, right?” I did know. Like most other kids in America, I’d been preparing for a school shooting since I was in elementary school. Lock the door. Cover the window. Hide as far away as possible—in a closet, or under a desk. Don’t let yourself become a target. Locate the first aid kit in case one of us is shot. Stop the bleeding. Wait for help.
So no, gun violence does not have to be a fact of life, and we refuse to accept it. We won’t “just get over it,” as Trump said after a school shooting in Perry, Iowa.
I’ve been preparing for a school shooting since I was five. While kids in other countries were at recess, I was huddled with my classmates in a corner being told to stay quiet and not move as people banged on the classroom door. They used to tell us we were practicing in case a bear got into the school, and I thought that was the most terrifying thing in the world—a bear in our school hallways. But now I know that the truth is far scarier––and far more likely. That day as a 14-year-old riding the bus to school, I realized that the real danger wasn’t some distant threat, but the “fact of life” that anyone could easily access a firearm and kill us. From then on, I became cautious about who I opened the door for at school. And I began to fear for my life every time my principal went over the speakers to announce a lockdown.
And I’ve done more than change my mindset—I’ve taken action. Two days after the Uvalde shooting, I helped students at my school lead a walkout to remember the victims and call for gun safety legislation. Since that first protest, I’ve devoted my time in high school to gun violence prevention, working with March For Our Lives, a youth-led gun violence prevention movement. To JD Vance and anyone who thinks similarly, let me tell you from the young people of America: we do not accept being killed by guns in our classrooms and in our communities as a “fact of life.” Our “fact of life” is that the time we’re meant to spend on school and with friends is instead spent doing what politicians should be doing for us: fighting for a future free of gun violence.
So no, gun violence does not have to be a fact of life, and we refuse to accept it. We won’t “just get over it,” as Trump said after a school shooting in Perry, Iowa. Instead, we will change these so-called facts of life. We will fight for a country where a 14-year-old can’t access an assault rifle from his dad, as in the recent Apalachee High School shooting. We will fight for a country where students like those at Apalachee will never have to drag their teacher’s dying body across the floor and use their clothes to try to stop his bleeding. And we will fight for a country where teachers and students won’t lose their lives simply for attending school.
In 2025, when the next mass shooting happens––statistically about twice a day in America––we will either have a president who tells us to “get over it,” or a president who demands, “We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all.” I want the latter. I want lawmakers who are determined to do what it takes to help students like me feel safe at school. I want an administration that keeps military-grade assault rifles out of the hands of dangerous civilians and will pass safe storage laws so that no one can access someone else's gun to hurt themselves or others.
But right now, what I want doesn’t matter. I’m not old enough to vote yet, and neither is the majority of young people and students who bear the brunt of the gun violence epidemic. So instead, I’m using my voice to urge you and every other eligible voter, to please vote for gun violence prevention candidates in this upcoming election. Please vote for my life and future. As Vice-President Harris reminded us, “It doesn’t have to be this way."Keep ReadingShow Less
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