GLOW IN THE DARK

Energy Chief Asks Manchin for Domestic Uranium Enrichment Funds

Ari Natter, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- The US Department of Energy is asking Congress for funding to create a domestic source of enriched uranium, calling the country’s reliance on Russian imports a “vulnerability” for both national and economic security.

The letter from Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm comes as the Biden administration continues to weigh slapping sanctions on Russia’s state-owned atomic energy company, Rosatom Corp., in response to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Rosatom is the world’s biggest supplier of nuclear fuel and reactors, while Russia overall supplies more than 50% of global enriched uranium. Meanwhile, US enrichment capacity has waned after being undercut by state-subsidized competition, Granholm said in the letter, which was sent Friday to Senator Joe Manchin, the powerful moderate Democrat who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 

“We should take steps to address this vulnerability and build a stronger domestic nuclear fuel supply for the future,” Granholm wrote in the letter, which asked for more investment to boost domestic manufacturing of low-enriched uranium as well as other forms of uranium needed for some advanced nuclear reactors.

Manchin of West Virginia, a key-swing vote who is playing a central role in Democrats’ efforts to pass Biden’s spending plan, has also endorsed increasing funding for domestic enrichment of the nuclear reactor fuel.

The US only has one remaining commercial enrichment facility, in New Mexico, which is owned by Urenco Ltd., a British, German and Dutch consortium. Bethesda, Maryland-based Centrus Energy Corp. is constructing an enrichment facility in Ohio.

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the corresponding impacts on global fuel supplies have cast into sharp relief the threat to global energy security from dependence on Russian-supplied fuels,” Granholm wrote. 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Unloved since Fukushima, uranium is hot

again for miners


Reuters
Praveen Menon and Sonali Paul
Publishing date: May 20, 2022

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE — Uranium miners are racing to revive projects mothballed after the Fukushima disaster more than a decade ago, spurred by renewed demand for nuclear energy and a leap in yellowcake prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Spot prices for uranium have doubled from lows of $28 per pound last year to $64 in April, sparking the rush on projects set aside after a 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant

“Things are moving very quickly in our industry, and we’re seeing countries and companies turn to nuclear with an appetite that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen in my four decades in this business,” Tim Gitzel, CEO of Canada’s Cameco, which mothballed four of its mines after Fukushima, said on a May 5 earnings call.

Uranium prices began to rise in mid-2021 as several countries seeking to limit climate change said they aimed to move back to nuclear power as a source of carbon-free energy.

A quest for secure energy supplies has added to the potential demand.

Unrest in January in Kazakhstan, which produces 45% of primary global uranium output, had already driven prices further when Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine spurred a 50% rally.

Russia accounts for 35% of global supply of enriched uranium.

Prices have retreated since a peak in April, but John Ciampaglia, CEO of Sprott Asset Management, which runs the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust, told Reuters Moscow’s invasion had “shifted the energy markets dramatically.”

“Now the theme is about energy security, energy independence and trying to move away from Russian origin energy supply chains,” he said.

There are about 440 nuclear power plants around the world that require approximately 180 million pounds of uranium every year, according to the World Nuclear Association.

Uranium mines produce about 130 million pounds, a deficit that mining executives predict will widen even if idled capacity by major producers such as Cameco and Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom comes back online.

The supply gap used to be filled by stockpiled material, much of which came from Russia.

Now, miners are dusting off feasibility studies for mothballed mines and reviving projects.

In Australia, uranium producers – including Paladin Energy Ltd which aims to restart its Langer Heinrich uranium mine in Namibia, idled over a decade ago – have raised close to A$400 million ($282.08 million) in share sales over the last six months to fund exploration and resuscitate mines on three continents.

“With all of the additional demand that’s coming from the new nuclear (plants), the thesis is that over a five or 10-year period, that additional demand will just dwarf those volumes coming back to market,” said Regal Funds Management analyst James Hood.

China plans to build 150 new reactors between 2020 and 2035 and Japan also aims to boost nuclear capacity as does South Korea.

In Europe, Britain has committed to build one new nuclear plant every year while France plans to build 14 new reactors and the European Union has proposed counting nuclear plants as a green investment.

EASIER SAID THAN DONE?

Delivering the new reactors, however, will be a challenge as repeated delays and cost-overruns could be exacerbated by the supply chain problems following the pandemic and the additional disruption of the Ukraine war, making demand for uranium hard to predict.

Many environmental campaigners, especially in the West, also remain opposed to nuclear energy because of the waste it generates even though atomic power is emissions-free.

Advocates of nuclear energy say small modular reactors are a solution to the difficulty of bringing on new capacity.

Keith Bowes, managing director of Lotus Resources, which owns the idled Kayelekera uranium mine in Malawi, says modular reactors will be a major source of growth from 2028 onwards.

Others say the traditional obstacle of high cost is less of a problem given the sharpened focus on security of supply.

“No longer is price the determinant, it’s now security of supply,” Duncan Craib, managing director at Boss Resources told the Macquarie Australia conference on May 9.

Boss will make a final investment decision soon on developing the Honeymoon uranium mine in South Australia, aiming for first production 18 months after any go-ahead.

Sprott’s Ciampaglia said uranium could hit $100 per pound in the long run. Prices peaked around $140 per pound in 2007.

This year’s rally has taken them to levels last seen in 2011 in part as a result of Sprott’s activity in the market with its uranium funds growing from near zero last year to about $4 billion now.

Ciampaglia said Sprott’s buying is in response to investor demand: “The Trust provides investors with a vehicle to express their view on physical uranium.”

Smaller uranium developers also want to get involved, but will need prices of at least $60 a pound to ensure the economic viability of projects, industry watchers said.

Even then there would be risks. The restart of idled capacity from uranium giants could disproportionately hit smaller players while community opposition in some areas remains.

“No mine development or restart of an idled mine is easy or without challenges,” said Guy Keller, manager of Tribeca Investment Partners’ Nuclear Energy Opportunities Fund.

($1 = 1.4180 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Praveen Menon and Sonali Paul; editing by Barbara Lewis)

The West Desperately Needs To Invest In

Uranium Mining

Editor OilPrice.com
Tue, May 24, 2022

The European Union, the United States, and their Asia-Pacific allies have been on a sanction crusade against Russian for three months now. Energy was not the first target of sanction action, but it has risen to the top of the agenda now. And nuclear is no exception.

While sanctions on Russian oil and gas have taken up the most headline space, Russia is a big player in nuclear power as well, which has raised concern about the security of uranium supply—specifically enriched uranium supply.

The World Nuclear Association says Russia supplies over a third of the world's enriched uranium and has the biggest enrichment capacity globally. China comes second in terms of capacity.

According to a fresh report from the Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, however, Russia's share of global uranium enrichment capacity is greater, at 46 percent as of 2018. And that, according to the authors, might become a problem unless countries that have Russian-technology nuclear reactors start preparing now.

The preparations would basically come down to boosting uranium enrichment elsewhere—France, China, the U.S., and Canada have substantial enrichment capacity that they are under-utilizing—and fuel replacement, where possible.

According to the authors of the report, Russian VVER reactors can work with non-Russian fuel, the closest analog being produced by U.S. Westinghouse. A Bulgarian nuclear energy government consultant recently said Russian nuclear fuel is being successfully replaced at the Czech power plant Temelin and Bulgaria's Kozloduy.

Power plant maintenance could be a problem in case sanctions target Russia's nuclear power industry because Russia-made VVER reactors can only be serviced by Rosatom staff. Equipment replacement during repairs has alternatives due to other countries with well-developed nuclear industries, including France and the Czech Republic in Europe.

Yet, according to some, sanctions on Russian nuclear power may not come anytime soon. And this is because although Russia is not among the largest producers of uranium, it is one of the biggest exporters of enriched uranium.

According to a report published recently in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Russia exported $13 billion worth of mineral fuels in 2019, including uranium and enriched nuclear fuel. In 2020, Russian uranium represented 16 percent of the uranium that U.S. power plants purchased. In Europe, this percentage was even higher, at 20 percent. The problem is that alternative suppliers are few and far between.

On the other hand, these few suppliers—of uranium—are large enough, it seems, to step in and replace Russian uranium. Swedish Vattenfall, for instance, stopped its purchases of Russian nuclear fuel on February 24. The power company buys its uranium from places like Kazakhstan, Namibia, Canada, and Australia—all major producers, and would only need to process and enrich it somewhere, which could be, for example, China.

In the U.S., some are calling for the buildout of local processing and enrichment capacity in order to reduce the country's dependence on Russian fuel, but it will come at a cost—some $1 billion.

"We need to build out capacity for a Western alternative for the Russian component of the uranium market, including conversion and enrichment capacity," Kathryn Huff, a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in March, as quoted by Bloomberg. "There is no question in my mind that we will continue to focus on uranium as an incredibly important fuel."

And then there is the time issue because the buildout of processing and enrichment capacity is not something you can do in a week, rather like the construction of liquefied natural gas import terminals. These things take years.

"More investment in mining, conversion, and enrichment facilities may be necessary to fully extricate Western nuclear fuel chains from Russian involvement," wrote Paul Dabbar and Matt Bowen, the authors of the Columbia University report. "However, adding sufficient new conversion capacity and enrichment capacity will take years to accomplish."

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

Why the “Cool Dictator” of El Salvador Went All-In on Bitcoin

Nayib Bukele’s crypto bet wasn’t visionary. It was desperate.

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele attends the first stone laying ceremony of the new National Library, financed by China, in San Salvador, El Salvador February 3, 2022. 

Photo: Reuters/Jose Cabezas

Michael Ahn Paarlberg

The first indication from El Salvador’s extremely online president Nayib Bukele that his country’s experiment with Bitcoin was not going well came the second week of May, in typical fashion, on Twitter. But this time it was uncharacteristically subtle: He briefly removed the red laser eyes from his avi.

The laser eyes motif, adopted by many a crypto bro on social media, had marked Bukele as a true believer. It dovetailed well with the 40-year-old’s carefully crafted public image of a hip, young, tech-savvy entrepreneur-president, which extended to his sartorial style of shades, baseball caps, and leather jackets. If this conflicted with his other image – that of an autocrat who has locked up 30,000 people in the past month and a half – his crypto fans seemed not to notice or care. Bukele would alternately identify himself on Twitter as “CEO of El Salvador,” “the world’s coolest president,” and “the coolest dictator in the whole world.”

Bukele had gone all-in on Bitcoin, turning an entire country into a cryptocurrency laboratory. Despite polls showing a clear majority of the public opposing this, the Legislative Assembly, controlled by his allies, passed a law with nearly no debate naming Bitcoin legal tender, alongside the US dollar, which El Salvador adopted in 2001. Advised by Strike CEO Jack Mallers, Bukele’s government rolled out a digital crypto wallet in app form, called Chivo (Salvadoran slang for cool), which came preloaded with $30 of Bitcoin to encourage adoption.

Many who downloaded it found it confusing and buggy, or that their $30 had already been stolen by identity thieves. A study by economists at the University of Chicago, Penn State and Yale found that of those who managed to access it, most cashed out their $30 and didn’t use Chivo again. One of them, Chicago’s Fernando Álvarez, told the tech site Rest of World, “There is no experiment where a currency was introduced with such strong incentives and it still failed.”

As El Salvador’s government found out, the problem with cryptocurrency as legal tender is the aspirational but misleading premise of the word itself. A currency, as economists understand it, must fulfill three functions: It must be a relatively stable store of value, a commonly understood unit of account, and a widely accepted medium of exchange. Bitcoin fulfills none of these. It is, like other cryptocurrencies, a speculative asset masquerading as a currency – or to be more generous, an asset whose speculated value is based in part on the promise of one day becoming a commonly used currency. But until that happens, the popularity of cryptocurrencies rests on in their highly volatile values and the get-rich-quick dreams they conjure, which cuts against the very promise of stability and future everyday use.

The bubble burst last week, as the stablecoin Terra proved to be far less stable than advertised and crashed, precipitating a wider freefall in crypto markets which wiped out $400 billion in market capitalization. Bitcoin influencers, in their usual parlance, exhorted retail investors to “HODL” and sacrifice their losses in order to shore up billionaires’ assets, a transparent pump-and-dump playing out in real time on social media. Even Bukele tweeted “Buy the dip!” – something El Salvador’s Treasury soon did.

Bitcoin banners are seen outside of a small restaurant at El Zonte Beach in Chiltiupan, El Salvador June 8, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Jose Cabezas

For some individuals, the crash was a devastating loss of personal wealth. For a country, the results are devastating on a much larger scale. El Salvador is on the verge of defaulting on its debts, which amount to close to 100% of its gross domestic product. This is exacerbated by the loss of value of the country’s Bitcoin holdings, which Bukele bragged he would trade with public funds on his phone while in the bathroom. As of now, he has personally cost the Treasury about $40 million – an amount equal to its next foreign debt payment, due to bondholders in June. I once joked that Bukele would either be the world’s first head of state to run a multi-level marketing scam, or the first to fall for one. It appears possible he is both.

Although Bitcoin was sold to the Salvadoran public as a cheaper vehicle for remittances and banking for the unbanked, the fact that it never caught on for either purpose was never the main point. Deeply indebted due to decades of fiscal mismanagement, El Salvador’s government depends on foreign capital to operate. But its bonds have fallen to junk status. Bukele has burned bridges with traditional banks, the US Treasury, and the International Monetary Fund – which has put a much needed $1 billion loan to the country on indefinite hold – over corruption. This includes likely embezzlement of COVID relief funds – likely but not proven because Bukele shut down the corruption probe and fired the attorney general investigating it.

Even before the crash, El Salvador was a bad bet for foreign lenders. The Bitcoin gambit was in large part an attempt to circumvent the global financial system and appeal directly to the crypto community as a lender of last resort. So the Bukele government hyped ever-more-incredible promises of a Bitcoin City run on geothermal power, and unveiled a crypto-backed sovereign debt instrument called volcano bonds – announced, in true crypto fashion, at a Bitcoin conference event set to AC/DC. The bond was set at $1 billion – coincidentally the same amount of the denied IMF loan – and promised to pay out a 6.5% annual interest rate after a five-year lock-in period. The terms for these fantasy bonds seemed implausible for a country whose real bonds have been downgraded by ratings agencies to ever greater depths. They had no takers, and were never rolled out.

Despite driving the country to financial ruin, Bukele remains enormously popular with voters, enjoying the highest approval rating of any Latin American president. His entrepreneurial image was real – when I was in El Salvador doing research for my doctorate, he was still mayor of San Salvador, and I lived across the street from his Yamaha dealership. But his main business was public relations, and it reflects in his social media presence and the army of social-media trolls he commands to harass his enemies. When he met Donald Trump, they instantly vibed. “President Trump is very nice and cool, and I’m nice and cool too,” he told the press at the time. We both use Twitter a lot, so you know, we’ll get along.”

Bukele has not gotten along nearly as well with the Biden administration, or with Republicans not named Trump. Since being elected president in 2019, he has steadily chipped away at El Salvador’s fragile democracy, hard won after a brutal 12-year civil war. In addition to the attorney general, he purged the Supreme Court along with a third of the country’s judges, replacing them with loyalists who greenlit his re-election, which is prohibited under the Constitution. He has spied on journalists and political rivals using Pegasus spyware. His allies in the Legislative Assembly recently passed a press-censorship law making it illegal to report on news related to gangs—such as news that the government has made a pact with the principal gangs in the country, MS-13 and Barrio 18. This pact is denied by Bukele, who has prosecuted his predecessors for negotiating with gangs as well, but has been confirmed by former government officials and by the U.S. Justice Department and Treasury, which has slapped sanctions on the government officials who facilitated it. This raises an additional possibility for the real purpose of the Bitcoin gambit, which is money-laundering and sanctions evasion – a function other pariah states such as Venezuela have tried, unsuccessfully, to pursue. One of those officials sanctioned for corruption, Bukele’s chief of staff, was also the director of the parent company of the Chivo wallet.

It has belatedly dawned on some of Bukele’s crypto fans that maybe he wasn’t kidding about the cool dictator stuff. A number of investors in El Salvador interviewed in a Politico article, including defenders of the government, asked to remain anonymous, citing the increasingly authoritarian atmosphere and “fears that merely acknowledging issues with the rollout could run afoul of a prohibition on foreigners criticizing the government.” It was, in the end, a moment of clarity that they had built a crypto-libertarian paradise in a police state. This might be entertaining, except for the fact that those who suffer the consequences will be regular Salvadoran citizens who never supported the experiment in the first place.

This piece was originally published on Future Tense, a partnership between Slate magazine, Arizona State University, and New America.

TURKEY


Journalist unions’ joint statement slams bill stipulating prison for online disinformation

By Turkish Minute
- May 28, 2022

Seven Turkish journalist unions criticized a bill on Friday presented to parliament by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that paves the way for sanctions, including a prison sentence of up to three years, for social media posts that are found to have been produced for the purpose of fake news and disinformation.

The Turkish Journalists’ Association (TGC), Turkish Journalists Union (TGS), Contemporary Journalists’ Association (ÇGD) and the International Press Institute’s (IPI) Turkey Committee were among the unions that signed the joint statement released on Friday.

Warning that the bill “may pave the way for one of the most severe censorship and self-censorship mechanisms in the history of the republic,” the unions called on the government to immediately withdraw it.

They added that the bill seemed to have been drafted to increase “the oppression of journalism” rather than “the fight against disinformation.”

The journalists also condemned the ruling AKP for “not feeling the need to consult press organizations in Turkey” during the process of drafting the law.

“It’s a requirement of democracy for politicians of any party to establish dialogue with leading professional organizations and civil society representatives in the relevant field while preparing such regulations that directly concern the right of the society to obtain and receive information. We condemn the violation of this democratic principle,” they said.

The bill aims to add the offense, titled “Publicly Disseminating Misleading Information,” to Turkish Criminal Law No. 5237 as clause A of Article 217, which says, “Anyone who publicly disseminates false information regarding the internal and external security, public order and general health of the country, with the sole motive of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the public, in a way that is suitable for disturbing the public peace, is sentenced to imprisonment from one year to three years.”

The AKP government has been relentless in its crackdown on critical media outlets, particularly after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

As an overwhelming majority of the country’s mainstream media has come under government control over the last decade, Turks have taken to social media and smaller online news outlets for critical voices and independent news.

Turks are already heavily policed on social media, and many have been charged with insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or his ministers, or criticism related to foreign military incursions and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Main opposition leader slams Erdoğan over remarks claiming ‘no one is hungry’ in Turkey

By Turkish Minute
- May 28, 2022


Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has slammed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for saying “no one is hungry” in Turkey in response to criticism of the country’s economic crisis, during a visit to a family whose power was cut due to unpaid electricity bills, local media reported on Saturday.

“Now, some people come out and say ‘we are hungry.’ Don’t make things up. How is it that you are hungry? There is no one who’s hungry [in Turkey]!” Erdoğan said on Friday in a televised speech.

The president’s remarks come as millions are battling poverty in Turkey, which is currently in the midst of an economic crisis as consumer prices accelerated to an annual rate of 69.97 percent in April, up from 61.14 percent in March, according to official data.

Food and fuel prices have more than doubled in the last few months. An increasing number of Turks have complained on social media about rising electricity bills and falling into debt. Many have said they can’t even afford basic foods such as fruits and vegetables.

The CHP leader on Saturday visited construction worker Mustafa Atalay and his wife Hazal, whose electricity was cut due to unpaid utility bills, accusing Erdoğan of being “out of touch with reality.”

After chatting with the family, Kılıçdaroğlu spoke to reporters, saying those who claimed there was no one hungry in Turkey should come and see the Atalays.

“This isn’t a pleasant situation. … The mother can’t take good care of the children due to health problems. They’re also having food and electricity problems. … This drama … isn’t unique to Van. … Such dramas exist everywhere [in Turkey]. No one can accept such a situation in 21st century Turkey,” the CHP leader said.

Addressing Erdoğan, Kılıçdaroğlu added: “There is no hunger in the [presidential] palace, I know this very well. … If you want to face the reality of Turkey, then come, sit down with these people, have a look at their houses, talk to them, hold their children in your arms, [and] listen to their problems. You are sitting [in the palace], disconnected from life [and] reality.”

Over the past several years Turkey has been suffering from a deteriorating economy, with high inflation and unemployment as well as a poor human rights record. Erdoğan is criticized for mishandling the economy, emptying the state’s coffers and establishing one-man rule in the country where dissent is suppressed and opponents are jailed on politically motivated charges.

Turkey’s financial troubles have increased since the country was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a sudden surge in the number of suicides and closed businesses. A high cost of living has become the new normal in the country, where recent increases in food and utility prices are pushing up inflation, further crippling the purchasing power of citizens.

UK

Animal rights activists 'sprayed with manure' during protest at beef industry event

Police have been on the scene since 5am working to bring the demonstration to an end after one person was left needing hospital treatment.


By Rachel Russell, news reporter
Saturday 28 May 

Members of the Animal Justice Project sprayed coloured smoke flares as they stood on the roof of Darlington Farmers Auction Mart. 

Pic: Animal Justice Project/PA.

Animal rights activists have been "sprayed with manure" after being confronted by angry farmers during a protest at Britain's largest beef industry event.

The incident took place outside Darlington Farmers Auction Mart (DFAM) in County Durham earlier today as demonstrations resulted in one protester being taken to hospital.

Photos showed mask-clad activists from the Animal Justice Project (AJP) standing on the roof of the building holding banners and spraying coloured smoke flares.

A spokesperson for the group said campaigners were left "covered in excrement" after one event attendee allegedly used a sprayer to blast manure at them.

They said another activist was injured after farmers allegedly ploughed towards a group of protesters in a JCB digger.

The AJP said its protest was "peaceful" and "silent" and aimed to highlight "farmed animal suffering and environmental safety concerns".

Image:Pic: Animal Justice Project/PA

But an AJP spokesperson added: "We've been sprayed with cow poo by one farmer using a machine.

"It has been a peaceful protest and a silent protest and we are overwhelmed and outnumbered by hundreds of angry farmers.

"It's really violent and there was one farmer who went along and sprayed everyone's clothes. Shouting, swearing, spraying us with manure, ripped the banners down. It's absurd."

The National Beef Association (NBA) described the event as a celebration of the best of British beef which attracts at least 5,000 guests every year.

The group said the farming event "glorifies the exploitation and killing of animals" which is "fundamentally wrong and unjust".

Police have been on the scene since 5am working to bring the demonstration to an end, however activists said they intend to stay indefinitely.

'This is intimidation' (ROFLMAO)

Mark Dent, chair of DFAM, said earlier he believed the protesters were the source of "intimidation".

He said: "We respect people's right to protest, but the way they go about it doesn't help their cause.

"There is no respect for people's property or livelihood. I'm afraid then you lose your moral high ground... It's a tin roof and they're jumping up and down on it, and it's bending.

"They've got their faces covered. It's intimidation (and) threatening behaviour. I'm all for people protesting what they believe in, but it's the way they go about it - the face coverings, the intimidation."

He added: "If you have a pair of eyes you will see how important agriculture is around the world at the moment. Food is top of the agenda."

A spokesperson for the NBA claimed there was a "wonderful atmosphere" at the event and did not comment further on the protest.

Durham Police said: "Our officers are working to bring the protest to a safe end and to minimise the impact on the wider community."

Revealed: Afghan journalists facing death threats and beatings, despite UK pledge to save them

Group who worked with UK media to sue government over failure to relocate them to Britain

UK forces at work at Kabul airport during the chaotic evacuation last August. Photograph: Reuters

Michael Savage

Policy Editor

Sat 28 May 2022 

A group of Afghan journalists who worked closely with the UK media for years have revealed how they face beatings, death threats and months in hiding, and accuse the government of reneging on a pledge to bring them to Britain.

Having fought in vain for clearance to come to the UK since the return of Taliban rule last summer, the eight journalists are now taking legal action against the government. They have applied for a judicial review after waiting months for their applications to relocate to the UK to be processed. They report only receiving standard response emails from the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) programme.

Members of the group told the Observer they had worked with British media, reporting on operations against the Taliban, programmes to rebuild Afghanistan’s infrastructure, the rights of women and the fight against the drugs trade. They said that since the Taliban’s takeover, they had received warnings that they were being targeted.

In the chaos of last summer’s evacuation from Kabul, the government announced that it was issuing special visa waivers for Afghan journalists who had worked with UK media, and their families. The then foreign secretary Dominic Raab said at the time: “We must protect those brave Afghan journalists who have worked so courageously to shine a light on what is really going on in Afghanistan.” The government also said relocation cases could be expedited if there was an “imminent threat to life”.

One of the group, Abas*, worked with the UK media over many years, and had hoped to come to the UK months ago. But nine months after the Taliban stormed back to power, he remains trapped and at serious risk.

Having faced attempted kidnap and shootings, he now regularly moves location and lives separately from his family for their safety.

With tears rolling down his face, he told how he sees his wife and children only every few weeks, to get fresh clothes and money. “I’m in a kind of trauma,” he told the Observer. “There is a group of us that the UK government must help. I haven’t had a single night without concern at home with my family.”

Once, Abas was shot at while sitting in a garden. On another occasion, a car pulled up and men with covered faces got out and began to beat him. “They beat me around the head – my body was full of blood,” he said. “I don’t know how they didn’t drag me in the car – I think others helped me.”

He has also had messages threatening him for having worked with foreign media. “They said, ‘we already have a decree to kill you’. I think I’m on the target list of those people and maybe one day they will find me.”

“Unfortunately, we already are under very serious threats. We don’t want to wait until 2024 to get out. I have no sleep. Day by day, my sleep is reducing. Nowadays, it’s two hours, three hours – nothing else. Another journalist in the group, Bidar*, said he has effectively become a refugee as a result of his connections with overseas media. Family members have been attacked. He too believes he is on a Taliban hitlist.

“The Taliban and other extremists are openly talking against those who are affiliated to the UK media,” he said. “They say we are spies. The Taliban have sent me warnings. That’s why I tried many times to convince UK officials to help me relocate. The UK government promised that those who were affiliated with the UK media would be eligible. What happened that they forgot us and don’t hear our voices?”

The legal action comes just days after the foreign affairs select committee described Britain’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer as a “disaster”. At the time of the withdrawal, the Observer revealed that many pleas for help to the government went unread, including cases highlighted by senior MPs.

Erin Alcock, the Leigh Day lawyer representing the group, said: “A promise was made in August that Afghan journalists who worked for British media organisations, facing imminent threat, would be relocated to the UK. Not only has that promise not yet been fulfilled, but nine months on, our clients have had no indication of when they will even receive a response.”

It is understood that government officials have been unable to identify formal applications from some of the group. A spokesperson said: “We cannot comment on individual Arap applications … However, since the scheme began, we have relocated over 9,200 applicants and their dependents to the UK. This scheme remains open and … we are progressing applications as quickly as possible.”

*Names have been changed.

Norway and Finland have similar levels of gun ownership, as US but far less gun crime

As the independent non-profit US organisation the Children's Defense Fund has pointed out, gun violence is now the leading cause of US children's deaths

Representational image.

File picture

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Peter Squires   |   Brighton   |   Published 28.05.22

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In the wake of the most recent US mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 pupils and two teachers were killed by an 18-year-old armed with an assault rifle, a comparison considering how the US compares with other countries on children's deaths caused by guns is compelling.

As the independent non-profit US organisation the Children's Defense Fund has pointed out, gun violence is now the leading cause of US children's deaths.

It reported that there are nine fatal shootings of children per day, that's one killing every two hours and thirty six minutes.

A minority of these killings involve school or mass shootings, the majority are killings of individual children and link to routine crime and gang violence, and overwhelmingly result in the deaths of African-American and minority children.

The US stands as an extreme outlier among high income countries. The number of children killed by guns is 36.5 times higher in the US, compared to many other high income countries including Austria, Australia, Sweden, England and Wales, according to analysis recently published by the New England Journal of Medicine.

In recent years international research has also proven conclusively that greater levels of gun ownership are closely associated with higher rates of gun violence.

An audit by the Democrat-leaning policy and research organisation the Centre for American Progress of all 50 US states found a close correlation between the states with the toughest gun laws and states with the lowest gun crime rates.

Meanwhile, international research has compared national gun laws, rates of firearm ownership and gun violence rates.

Interestingly, European societies that come close to US rates of gun ownership, in terms of gun owners per 100 people, (but with hunting rifles and shotguns rather than handguns), such as Finland and Norway, are among the safest societies internationally with regards to gun violence.

Researchers talk about civilised and de-civilising gun cultures, cultures where gun ownership is associated with traditional values of respect and responsibility, and others where gun availability largely empowers the criminally minded and unstable, adding to the violence and chaos.

High levels of social cohesion, low crime rates and internationally high levels of trust and confidence in police and social institutions do appear to reduce levels of gun homicide.

The flipside to this finding, however, is that high gun ownership in countries including Finland, Sweden and Switzerland do have significantly higher rates of suicide using guns.

The UK and Japan, with some of the toughest gun laws in the world, always record the lowest rates of gun homicide, chiefly by virtue of the their virtual prohibition of handguns, the criminal weapon of choice.

By contrast, the death tolls in recent US mass shootings have been very much exacerbated by perpetrators using assault rifles, with their larger magazines and rapid fire capabilities.

Society as a factor

As a result of the new international focus in gun control research (there was a time when the only academic research on firearms took place in the US, and a large part of it funded, directly and indirectly, by the influential US lobbying group National Rifle Association) wider questions came under the spotlight.

Researchers started to focus less upon the gun as an independent variable and instead began to address contexts and the different cultures of gun use.

They also began to acknowledge, as criminologists have always known, that introducing new laws seldom changes anything on its own offenders break laws.

Gun researchers now focus increasingly upon wider gun control regimes which have a big part to play in increasing or reducing levels of gun violence.

These regimes include policing and criminal justice systems, systems of political accountability, welfare safety nets, comprehensive education provision and cultures of trust and confidence.

And as the diagram above suggests, although the US is seen as the most exceptional gun culture among affluent democratic nations, in terms of death rates it is dwarfed by many other poorer and more conflicted societies, such as South Africa, Jamaica and Honduras.

Attempts in the US to confront shootings, but without restricting gun ownership in recent years include scaling up surveillance especially in schools where pupils, parents and teachers form part of a network keeping a watching eye on colleagues and pupils.

They look for signs of trouble and are able to sound the alarm.

More ambitiously, the Violence Project has sought to compile evidence profiles, learning from what we already know about rampage killers and trying to predict where their behaviour, social media engagements and utterances might ring alarm bells.

However, the evidence is now indisputable that more guns in a given country translates directly into more gun violence.

It is significant that the immediate reaction to the Ulvade school massacre has tended to focus on narrow questions of school security and an apparent delay in police intervention, rather than the many underlying factors which make the US such a comparatively dangerous place for children.

The Conversation

Peter Squires,

Professor of Criminology & Public Policy, 

University of Brighton

PTI

Freedom and fear: The foundations of America's deadly gun culture

Agence France-Presse
May 28, 2022

American Revolutionary War reenactors in Boston: the right to own guns was seen by the founders of the United States in the 18th century as essential to overthrowing tyrants(AFP)


It was 1776, the American colonies had just declared their independence from England, and as war raged the founding fathers were deep in debate: should Americans have the right to own firearms as individuals, or just as members of local militia?

Days after 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered in a Texas town, the debate rages on as outsiders wonder why Americans are so wedded to the firearms that stoke such massacres with appalling frequency.

The answer, experts say, lies both in the traditions underpinning the country's winning its freedom from Britain, and most recently, a growing belief among consumers that they need guns for their personal safety.

Over the past two decades -- a period in which more than 200 million guns hit the US market -- the country has shifted from "Gun Culture 1.0," where guns were for sport and hunting, to "Gun Culture 2.0" where many Americans see them as essential to protect their homes and families.

That shift has been driven heavily by advertising by the nearly $20 billion gun industry that has tapped fears of crime and racial upheaval, according to Ryan Busse, a former industry executive.

Recent mass murders "are the byproduct of a gun industry business model designed to profit from increasing hatred, fear, and conspiracy," Busse wrote this week in the online magazine The Bulwark.

Guns and the new nation

For the men designing the new United States in the 1770s and 1780s, there was no question about gun ownership.

They said the monopoly on guns by the monarchies of Europe and their armies was the very source of oppression that the American colonists were fighting.

James Madison, the "father of the constitution," cited "the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."

But he and the other founders understood the issue was complex. The new states did not trust the nascent federal government, and wanted their own laws, and own arms.

They recognized people needed to hunt and protect themselves against wild animals and thieves. But some worried more private guns could just increase frontier lawlessness.

Were private guns essential to protect against tyranny? Couldn't local armed militia fulfil that role? Or would militia become a source of local oppression?

In 1791, a compromise was struck in what has become the most parsed phrase in the Constitution, the Second Amendment guaranteeing gun rights:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
1960s gun control

Over the following two centuries, guns became an essential part of American life and myth.

Gun Culture 1.0, as Wake Forest University professor David Yamane describes it, was about guns as critical tools for pioneers hunting game and fending off varmints -- as well as the genocidal conquest of native Americans and the control of slaves.

But by the early 20th century, the increasingly urbanized United States was awash with firearms and experiencing notable levels of gun crime not seen in other countries.

From 1900 to 1964, wrote the late historian Richard Hofstadter, the country recorded more than 265,000 gun homicides, 330,000 suicides, and 139,000 gun accidents.

In reaction to a surge in organized crime violence, in 1934 the federal government banned machine guns and required guns to be registered and taxed.

Individual states added their own controls, like bans on carrying guns in public, openly or concealed.

The public was for such controls: pollster Gallup says that in 1959, 60 percent of Americans supported a complete ban on personal handguns.

The assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, brought a push for strenuous regulation in 1968.

But gunmakers and the increasingly assertive National Rifle Association, citing the Second Amendment, prevented new legislation from doing more than implement an easily circumvented restriction on direct mail-order gun sales.

The holy Second amendment

Over the next two decades, the NRA built common cause with Republicans to insist that the Second Amendment was absolute in its protection of gun rights, and that any regulation was an attack on Americans' "freedom."

According to Matthew Lacombe, a Barnard College professor, achieving that involved the NRA creating and advertising a distinct gun-centric ideology and social identity for gun owners.

Gun owners banded together around that ideology, forming a powerful voting bloc, especially in rural areas that Republicans sought to seize from Democrats.

Jessica Dawson, a professor at the West Point military academy, said the NRA made common cause with the religious right, a group that believes in Christianity's primacy in American culture and the constitution.

Drawing "on the New Christian Right's belief in moral decay, distrust of the government, and belief in evil," the NRA leadership "began to use more religiously coded language to elevate the Second Amendment above the restrictions of a secular government," Dawson wrote.
Self-defense

Yet the shift of focus to the Second Amendment did not help gunmakers, who saw flat sales due to the steep decline by the 1990s in hunting and shooting sports.

That paved the way for Gun Culture 2.0 -- when the NRA and the gun industry began telling consumers that they needed personal firearms to protect themselves, according to Busse.

Gun marketing increasingly showed people under attack from rioters and thieves, and hyped the need for personal "tactical" equipment.

The timing paralleled Barack Obama becoming the first African American president and a rise in white nationalism.

"Fifteen years ago, at the behest of the NRA, the firearms industry took a dark turn when it started marketing increasingly aggressive and militaristic guns and tactical gear," Busse wrote.

Meanwhile, many states answered worries about a perceived rise in crime by allowing people to carry guns in public without permits.

In fact, violent crime has trended downward over the past two decades -- though gun-related murders have surged in recent years.

That, said Wake Forest's Yamane, was a key turning point for Gun Culture 2.0, giving a sharp boost to handgun sales, which people of all races bought, amid exaggerated fears of internecine violence.

Since 2009, sales have soared, topping more than 10 million a year since 2013, mainly AR-15-type assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols.

"The majority of gun owners today -- especially new gun owners -- point to self-defense as the primary reason for owning a gun," Yamane wrote.

In Texas, 18-year-olds can’t buy beer or cigarettes – but they are free to buy AR-15s

The massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, highlights disparities in law.

Kiah Collier and Jeremy Schwartz,

 ProPublica and The Texas Tribune

Representational image. | Jewel Samad / AFP

The fact that the gunman responsible for the May 24 massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was able to buy two AR-15s days after his 18th birthday highlights how much easier it is for Americans to purchase rifles than handguns.

Under federal law, Americans buying handguns from licensed dealers must be at least 21, which would have precluded Salvador Ramos from buying that type of weapon. That trumps Texas law, which only requires buyers of any type of firearm to be 18 or older.

Following the massacre at Robb Elementary School, which killed 19 children and two adults, a growing number of lawmakers in Texas and beyond are calling for the minimum age to purchase assault rifles to be raised to 21 years from 18 years. Doing so would require undoing nearly two centuries of more permissive regulations on so-called long guns.

“It is something that could happen at either the state or federal level, but I do not see movement on either front,” said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a criminal law professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Increasing minimum age

Only six states – Florida, Washington, Vermont, California, Illinois and Hawaii – have increased the minimum purchase age for long guns to 21, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The majority did so following the 2018 massacre in Parkland, Florida, where a then-19-year-old assailant killed 17 people at a high school.

Several states have since faced legal challenges.

The National Rifle Association sought to repeal the Florida law.

“The ban infringes the right of all 18-to-20-year-olds to purchase firearms for the exercise of their Second Amendment rights, even for self-defence in the home,” the National Rifle Association argued in a court filing, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “The ban does not just limit the right, it obliterates it.”

Government attorneys, however, argued that because “18-to-20-year-olds are uniquely likely to engage in impulsive, emotional and risky behaviours that offer immediate or short-term rewards, drawing the line for the legal purchase of firearms at 21 is a reasonable method of addressing the Legislature’s public safety concerns”.

A federal judge upheld the law last year – the National Rifle Association is appealing.

A US Court of Appeals recently ruled that California’s version of the law was unconstitutional, though it did uphold a provision that requires adults under 21 to obtain a hunting license before buying a rifle or shotgun.

After the shooting in Uvalde this week, lawmakers in New York and Utah also called on their states to raise the age limit for long gun purchases to 21. US Senator. Dianne Feinstein introduced federal legislation earlier this month – less than a week before the Uvalde shooting – that would raise the minimum age to purchase assault weapons to 21 from 18. The California Democrat said in a statement that it was in response to a shooting that killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket. That gunman also was 18 years old.

“It makes no sense that it is illegal for someone under 21 to buy a handgun or even a beer, yet can legally buy an assault weapon,” she said.

Lindsay Nichols, federal policy director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said that increasing the age requirement at the federal level may be more effective because federal authorities can inspect and discipline licensed firearm sellers.

“State authorities often do not have a system in place for enforcing the laws governing” licensed dealers, Nichols said.

Handguns vs rifles

In the hours after the shooting in Uvalde, there was some confusion about what types of firearms Ramos had used. Texas Governor Greg Abbott initially said that Ramos had a handgun and possibly a rifle. That prompted some to speculate that Ramos had been able to get hold of the weapons more easily because of recent changes to the gun laws in Texas, including a bill passed last year that allows Texans to carry handguns without a permit or training. But those early reports turned out to be inaccurate.

After it became clear that the weapon used was a rifle, Texas Democrats questioned why Ramos was able to purchase one at the age of 18.

“Why do we accept a government that allows an 18-year-old to buy an assault rifle, but not tobacco products?” state Representative Nicole Collier, a Fort Worth Democrat who chairs the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, said in a statement. “The hypocrisy of government is deafening. We can develop gun policy that does not infringe upon one’s constitutional right, while preserving and protecting life. That is called multitasking and we can do that.”

State Representative Jarvis Johnson, a Houston Democrat, called on Abbott to convene a special session of the Legislature so lawmakers could “pass real gun reforms”, including raising the minimum age to purchase long guns.

“Enough is enough,” he said.

Such a move would reverse a decades-old Texas system that treats handguns differently from long guns, which have long been exempted from state rules on open carry.

The disparate rules date back to the post-Civil War era, when the state – counter to its modern-day reputation – adopted some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.

“Despite its stereotype of being a state where cowboys promiscuously tote six-shooters, Texas is one of the few states that absolutely prohibits the bearing of pistols by private individuals,” wrote firearms attorney Stephen Halbrook in a 1989 Baylor Law Review article, six years before former Texas Governor George W Bush relaxed rules on handguns considerably.

Following spasms of violence that were then plaguing the young state in the 19th century, lawmakers “started specifically targeting weapons that they equated with crime”, said Texas historian Brennan Rivas, who is writing a book about the state’s early gun laws. “They equated bowie knives, daggers and pistols with interpersonal violence and crime.”

Muskets, rifles and shotguns, by comparison, were excluded because they were used for hunting or participating in a militia.

“They did not consider long guns to be deadly weapons,” Rivas said. “Those had valuable uses. Whereas these other weapons were kind of like a plague on polite society.”

Lawmakers of that time could not have envisioned that long guns would evolve from lumbering hunting rifles into AR-15s capable of firing dozens of rounds per minute, Rivas added.

But any tighter requirements appear unlikely to pass in Texas.

Just last year, following high-profile massacres in El Paso and in Midland and Odessa in 2019, lawmakers approved a variety of measures that loosened gun regulations. In addition to authorising the carrying of handguns in public without a permit or training, the laws ban the governor from limiting gun sales during an emergency and allow gun owners to bring their weapons into hotel rooms.

During a Wednesday press conference at Uvalde High School, Abbott repeated a claim he and other Republican state leaders have often made, that mental health issues are to blame for the streak of mass shootings, not lax gun regulations. Officials conceded that they were not aware that the gunman had any criminal or mental health issues.

“The ability of an 18-year-old to buy a long gun has been in place in the state of Texas for more than 60 years,” Abbott said. “And why is it that for the majority of those 60 years we did not have school shootings? And why is it that we do now?”

This article first appeared on ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

How The NRA Evolved From Backing A Ban On Machine Guns To Blocking Almost All Gun Restrictions Today

The NRA’s more than 150-year history spans three distinct eras.

(WHITE) People browse firearms in an exhibit hall at the NRA's annual convention on Saturday, May 5, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Loren ELLIOTT / AFP) (Photo credit should read LOREN ELLIOTT/AFP via Getty Images)
By Robert Spitzer
|
May 28, 2022 

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

The mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days apart, are stirring the now-familiar national debate over guns seen after the tragic 2012 and 2018 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida.

Inevitably, if also understandably, many Americans are blaming the National Rifle Association for thwarting stronger gun laws that might have prevented these two recent tragedies and many others. And despite the proximity in time and location to the Texas shooting, the NRA is proceeding with its plans to hold its annual convention in Houston on May 27-29, 2022. The featured speakers include former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican.

After spending decades researching and writing about how and why the NRA came to hold such sway over national gun policies, I’ve seen this narrative take unexpected turns in the last few years that raise new questions about the organization’s reputation for invincibility.

Three phases

The NRA’s more than 150-year history spans three distinct eras.

At first the group was mainly concerned with marksmanship. It later played a relatively constructive role regarding safety-minded gun ownership restrictions before turning into a rigid politicized force.

The NRA was formed in 1871 by two Civil War veterans from Northern states who had witnessed the typical soldier’s inability to handle guns.

The organization initially leaned on government support, which included subsidies for shooting matches and surplus weaponry. These freebies, which lasted until the 1970s, gave gun enthusiasts a powerful incentive to join the NRA.

The NRA played a role in fledgling political efforts to formulate state and national gun policy in the 1920s and 1930s after Prohibition-era liquor trafficking stoked gang warfare. It backed measures like requiring a permit to carry a gun and even a gun purchase waiting period.

And the NRA helped shape the National Firearms Act of 1934, with two of its leaders testifying before Congress at length regarding this landmark legislation. They supported, if grudgingly, its main provisions, such as restricting gangster weapons, which included a national registry for machine guns and sawed-off shotguns and taxing them heavily. But they opposed handgun registration, which was stripped out of the nation’s first significant national gun law.

Decades later, in the legislative battle held in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and amid rising concerns about crime, the NRA opposed another national registry provision that would have applied to all firearms. Congress ultimately stripped it from the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Throughout this period, however, the NRA remained primarily focused on marksmanship, hunting and other recreational activities, although it did continue to voice opposition to new gun laws, especially to its membership. https://www.youtube.com/embed/7460CZcGJRY?wmode=transparent&start=0 NPR’s Ron Elving recounts the NRA’s history.
A sharp right turn

By the mid-1970s, a dissident group within the NRA believed that the organization was losing the national debate over guns by being too defensive and not political enough. The dispute erupted at the NRA’s 1977 annual convention, where the dissidents deposed the old guard.

From this point forward, the NRA became ever more political and strident in its defense of so-called “gun rights,” which it increasingly defined as nearly absolute under the Second Amendment.

One sign of how much the NRA had changed: The Second Amendment right to bear arms never came up in the 166 pages of congressional testimony regarding the 1934 gun law. Today, the organization treats those words as its mantra, constantly citing them.

And until the mid-1970s, the NRA supported waiting periods for handgun purchases. Since then, however, it has opposed them. It fought vehemently against the ultimately successful enactment of a five-business-day waiting period and background checks for handgun purchases in 1993.

The NRA’s influence hit a zenith during George W. Bush’s gun-friendly presidency, which embraced the group’s positions. Among other things, his administration let the ban on assault weapons expire, and it supported the NRA’s top legislative priority: enactment in 2005 of special liability protections for the gun industry, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
Having a White House ally isn’t everything

Despite past successes, the NRA has suffered from a series of mostly self-inflicted blows that have precipitated an existential crisis for the organization.

Most significantly, an investigation by the New York Attorney General, filed in 2020, has revealed extensive allegations of rampant cronyism, corruption, sweetheart deals and fraud. Partly as a result of these revelations, NRA membership has apparently declined to roughly 4.5 million, down from a high of about 5 million.

Despite this trend, however, the grassroots gun community is no less committed to its agenda of opposition to new gun laws. Indeed, the Pew Research Center’s findings in 2017 suggested that about 14 million people identify with the group. By any measure, that’s a small minority out of nearly 260 million U.S. voters.

But support for gun rights has become a litmus test for Republican conservativism and is baked into a major political party’s agenda. This laserlike focus on gun issues continues to enhance the NRA’s influence even when the organization faces turmoil. This means that the protection and advancement of gun rights are propelled by the broader conservative movement, so that the NRA no longer needs to carry the ball by itself.

Like Bush, Trump maintained a cozy relationship with the NRA. It was among his 2016 presidential bid’s most enthusiastic backers, contributing US$31 million to his presidential campaign.

When Trump directed the Justice Department to draft a rule banning bump stocks, and indicated his belated support for improving background checks for gun purchases after the Parkland shooting, he was sticking with NRA-approved positions. He also supported arming teachers, another NRA proposal.

Only one sliver of light emerged between the Trump administration and the NRA: his apparent willingness to consider raising the minimum age to buy assault weapons from 18 to 21 – which has not happened. In 2022, a year after Trump left office, 18-year-olds, including the gunmen allegedly responsible for the mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, were able to legally purchase firearms.

In politics, victory usually belongs to whoever shows up. And by showing up, the NRA has managed to strangle every federal effort to restrict guns since the Newtown shooting.

Nevertheless, the NRA does not always win. At least 25 states had enacted their own new gun regulations within five years of that tragedy.
Supreme Court ruling’s repercussions

These latest mass shootings may stir gun safety supporters to mobilize public outrage and turn out voters favoring stricter firearm regulations during the 2022 midterm elections.

But there is a wild card: The Supreme Court will soon rule on New York State Rifle & Pistol Club v. Bruen, the most significant case regarding gun rights it has considered in years. It’s likely that the court will strike down a long-standing New York pistol permit law, broadening the right to carry guns in public across the United States.

Such a decision could galvanize gun safety supporters while also emboldening gun rights activists – making the debate about guns in America even more tumultuous.

Robert Spitzer is a Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the Political Science Department at State University of New York College at Cortland.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.