Hossein Amirabdollahian, the foreign minister of Iran, criticized the Zionist regime as the primary source of insecurity and instability in the region. Amirabdollahian stated in a Monday meeting with the Secretary General of the Islamic Jihad movement, Ziad al-Nakhala, in Tehran, that the issue of Palestine is the central issue of the Islamic world.
Reiterating Iran’s support for the cause of Palestine and sacred al-Quds, as well as the Palestinian nation’s legitimate resistance against the Zionist occupiers, the foreign minister emphasized the importance of resistance group unity in the recent victory during the 5-day conflict in Gaza.
Amirabdollahian stated that the apartheid Zionist regime is the primary cause of insecurity and instability in the region.
He called on Muslim governments to take concerted and effective action to stop the Zionist regime’s inhumane atrocities against the oppressed Palestinian people and to defend the Islamic holy sites in al-Quds.
Nakhala assessed Palestinian and occupied territory events.
The leader of the PIJ also stated that the Palestinian resistance groups are fully prepared and united to act against the Zionist regime and are able to withstand any act of aggression by the Israeli regime in order to achieve significant victories with the aid of the Palestinian people.
Wednesday, in a meeting with Nakhala and his delegation in Tehran, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei stated, “The Zionist adversary is currently in a passive and reactive position. The current circumstance demonstrates that the Resistance organizations and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have identified the correct course of action and are proceeding prudently.”
In addition, the Leader commended the PIJ for “passing the test” during the recent attack on Gaza. He emphasized that the conditions for the Zionist regime are different than they were seventy years ago, and that the Zionist leaders are correct to be concerned that they may not live to see the 80th anniversary of the regime.
Last week, when Donald Trump asked his fans to protest his arrest, he didn’t get the big crowds he was hoping for. Those who did show up seemed to believe in some pretty crazy conspiracy theories.
The Good Liars, a pair of pranksters, found out why.
“After talking to a lot of these people, it was pretty clear that… they hadn’t read the charge. They weren’t reading stories about it, team member Jason Selvig said this weekend on MSNBC. “I think that a lot of them were actually getting their news about the Trump indictment from Donald Trump’s social media feed on Truth Social.”
So, instead of arguing against the accusations, they mostly repeated his “what about” claims about Hillary Clinton, President Joe Biden, and others.
He said, “It’s hard for them to change their minds about any of this when their source of news about the indictment is Donald Trump.”
Selvig talked to one person who thinks that John F. Kennedy is still alive:
The other half of The Good Liars, Davram Stiefler, found a Trump fan with whom he sort of agreed.
“The defense for the whole thing was that it would be too stupid to have the documents there, to keep them in a bathroom. Why would someone do this? It would be so stupid,” he said on MSNBC in a clip shared on Raw Story. “Of course, I think it was dumb, but I also think it’s true.”
Alberto Núñez Feijóo showed his geographical authority yesterday, Sunday, in Madrid’s Retiro Park, joined by all his party barons, those who govern and those who will govern in a few days, as an example of what may happen on 23 July in a general election.
Núñez Feijóo used the gathering to support the PP’s local council and autonomous community agreements. Those achieved between Vox and the PSOE to allow the Socialists to rule Vitoria and Barcelona.
“No more trenches, blocs, and gangs,” he said of the PP’s “state policy” and its goal. The PP feels it has shown that others may agree with everyone by voting for the Socialists to rule in Vitoria and Barcelona.
They say they won’t accept “moralising” from “those who have made Spain hostage to those who want to break territorial unity,” especially after the PSOE gave the mayor’s office in Santiago de Compostela, where the PP had won, “to a pro-sovereignty party,” the BNG.
“We have done our duty” by providing the mayoralty to the socialist candidate in Barcelona, Feijóo said. “It has been a state policy,” he says, but “the party of Sanchismo would never have supported us to give us the mayoralty of Barcelona, in the same situation”.
The PP has been able to “begin to break up the blocs,” according to Muñez Feijóo, who opposes bloc politics and wants “to a majority to break it up”. A majority to “renew the spirit of concord” and restore Spain to “truth and plurality”.
Western Muslims are leading a social movement that crosses religion and ethnicity, a wonderful development. Parents in the US and Canada have protested school boards that want to educate LGBTQ lifestyles to youngsters.
Muslim parents are organizing and protesting in all of these situations, making ripples on social media.
Parents should worry. A Maryland school system allows three-year-olds to read books about homosexuality and transgenderism. State-sponsored ideological brainwashing of babies who cannot construct entire words or think rationally.
Parents must teach their children morality. Parents and children have the right to reject views they disagree with.
Yet, allegedly secular institutions like public schools are increasingly requiring pupils to adopt and endorse LGBTQ ideology, often with the threat that they “do not belong” in their country, as one Edmonton, Canada, teacher told a Muslim student.
Muslims will not be coerced to believe anything against their beliefs
“Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam,” a declaration I helped write, has been signed by over 300 Islamic academics and preachers in North America. This paper provides the Islamic viewpoint on sexuality and gender ethics.
This declaration will empower Muslim parents, educators, students, and professionals to express their religious beliefs without legal repercussions. If they don’t support LGBTQ events, conventional, family-based moralists are typically labeled “homophobic” and prejudiced. Many face societal implications for such ideas.
Worse, youngsters must attend drag performances and other immoral events.
This declaration aims to show school boards and businesses why Muslims should be exempted from religiously incompatible activities.
The signatories are “committed to working with individuals of all religious and political affiliations to protect the constitutional right of faith communities to live according to their religious convictions and to uphold justice for all” in the non-partisan statement.
Despite demonstrators from Maryland to Ottawa insisting they are claiming moral autonomy rather than political loyalty, certain groups persist on making this a partisan issue.
Left-wing liberals—including some progressive Muslims—are angry and ashamed of anything less than complete LGBTQ acceptance. They believe we should offer reciprocity to other marginalized groups since we’ve been oppressed as Muslims, even though LGBTQ campaigners routinely ignore our spiritual problems.
Conservative media outlets have given Muslim parents a platform to air their grievances, which is supposed to prove that these protesters and all of us who oppose the LGBTQ agenda in schools are aligned with the far-right, including white supremacists. No way.
The increasing warmth of politically conservative organisations and media outlets toward Muslims is encouraging some in the community to hurry to join the political right after toying with the left. They err. Again.
North American Muslims should base their morals on their faith, not politics. A recent lesson can help us grasp why this distinction is so important.
North American Islam faced an existential crisis after 9/11. Muslims were demonized. Deported scholars. Airports harassed bearded Muslim men and hijabi ladies. Muslims altered their initial names and avoided masjids. In the first decade of this century, North American Muslims lived in dread, worry, and estrangement.
Many Muslims started using politics as an ideology
The North American political right openly hated Islam and Muslims, while the left was more receptive. Muslims joined liberal political parties in Canada and the US to survive politically and literally. Left-wing institutions provided Muslims the best chance of surviving conservative anti-Muslim forces.
But adopting the left meant accepting a full bundle of causes, some of which matched intellectually with Islamic norms (like fighting racism) and others that did not (like drug legalization).
For the first time in 14 centuries of learning, some progressive Muslims claimed that the Quran has been misinterpreted and supports alternative sexual practices and same-sex weddings.
To clarify, Islamic law distinguishes between a wicked conduct and a non-sinful aspiration. We should love and respect same-sex believers who follow Islamic law. They contrast with individuals who defy Islamic law and celebrate disobedience. Muslim leaders should avoid making religious claims.
“Believer is not bitten from the same hole twice,” says Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Muslims who are properly upset about moral rot in our society due to inclusion should be careful not to swing from extreme to extreme.
We are neither left nor right. Our ideology is based on our unbreakable faith, credo, and the everlasting words of God and His ultimate Messenger. As a “Middle Nation,” we are moral role models, as the Quran states (2:143).
Rishi Sunak mocked trans women while speaking to Conservative MPs earlier this month, according to leaked recordings.
The Sunday PinkNews video purportedly shows the prime minister speaking to the 1922 committee’s backbench Tory MPs.
In May, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey supported the trans community. Sunak can be heard criticizing him.
LBC host Nick Ferrari questioned Davey if women may have penises. Davey said that the law recognizes trans women, thus “quite clearly” they can.
“There’s a small number of people who, actually, they have a tough time,” said the Lib Dem leader. They’re harassed, discriminated against, and have actual, significant mental health difficulties. I think we need to discuss this with more maturity and compassion.”
Sunak spoke to the 1922 members on June 5, omitting the plea for compassion.
He may be heard adding, “You have noticed that Ed Davey has been very busy.” You’ve probably seen that he’s been attempting to prove ladies have penises, like me.
I was reflecting, and you all know I’m a big advocate of everyone studying maths to 18.
“But biology to 18 is also important!”
Nic Keaney, PinkNews’ managing editor, tweeted the clip:
Sunak’s remarks incited popular indignation once they were released.
“The veneer of freedom of speech publicly is one thing but to make jokes in private, it’s another thing altogether,” said the individual who supplied PinkNews the clip.
“You wouldn’t make jokes about other marginalized people the way he did about trans people.”
“Quite a few” younger individuals in the crowd appeared “visibly uncomfortable” amid the laughs, they said.
Sunak has criticized the trans community before. He told ConservativeHome in April that “100% of women do not have penises.”
This may have been a response to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s comment that “for 99.9% of women, it is completely biological, and of course, they haven’t got a penis.”
The prime minister also plans to legally prohibit transgender people from single-sex places by changing the Equality Act’s definition of sex.
Earlier this year, he invoked a Section 35 injunction to stop Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Act. This made it simpler for trans people to acquire legal recognition without a medical diagnosis.
“No community should be the butt of a joke,” Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelley said Sunak should apologize. It’s terrible that the prime minister mocked trans persons in parliament.
“This is a far cry from his pledge to govern with compassion and would be unacceptable in any modern workplace.” The PM should apologize.”
George Soros is giving his $25 billion holdings, including his Open Society Foundations, to his son Alexander.
I explore how nationalists, populists, and antisemites used Soros as a scapegoat and bogeyman.
His legacy as a major benefactor to higher education, human rights, and the liberalization of Europe’s former communist countries has been tarnished by baseless conspiracy theories.
Soros, a Hungarian Jew, survived the Holocaust. He studied at the London School of Economics while working part-time in low-wage occupations after World War II. He got a U.S. citizen five years after immigrating in 1956.
Soros became a successful investor and hedge fund manager in the 1970s. By the 1990s, he had earned a fortune and become a leading banker.
Philanthropy and political freedom garnered him the greatest attention.
Wealthy giving
In the 1980s, Soros supported various Eastern European political and social organizations that attempted to overthrow communism. His encouragement helped many people fight injustice and promote human rights, recognizing the potential of grassroots movements and individuals.
He gave generously to education.
Soros began philanthropy in 1979 by funding Black students in apartheid South Africa. He funded Hungarian liberal thinkers’ trips to Western institutions in the 1980s to promote ideas in Communist Hungary.
He contributed $250 million to Budapest’s Central European University in 2001, the continent’s largest higher education endowment.
Soros created Open Society Foundations in 1993. Karl Popper’s 1945 book “The Open Society and Its Enemies” inspired this multinational grant-making network’s name. Popper believed that open societies allowed people to express themselves and test their ideas, whereas closed civilizations stagnated.
Soros’ charity supports tolerant societies with responsible governments that enable everyone to campaign, protest, donate, and run for office.
Soros’ foundations fund human rights organizations in over 100 countries. It targets public health crises and low economic growth in low-income nations.
As of 2023, Soros is among Bloomberg’s 500 richest individuals with a net worth above $7 billion. Without giving $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations since 1984, his fortune would have been much higher.
Anti-Semitic conspiracies
Conservatives who oppose progressive groups like America Votes and Demand Justice are furious at the Open Society Foundations’ backing.
Many conspiracy theories revolve around Soros’ riches and power. He’s vilified as a dark puppet master orchestrating world events for his own purposes. Hateful, antisemitic charges commonly target his Jewish origin.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused Soros of supporting a “Islamic takeover of Europe” with Syrian refugees in 2015.
After the 2018 murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico accused Soros for press freedom demonstrations..
In 2015, the far-right party All-Polish Youth burned an effigy of Soros dressed as a Hasidic Jew holding an EU flag, even though the philanthropist was raised by a secular family and has never supported Jewish causes.
In a book chapter about nationalism and populism, I emphasized that U.S. conspiracy theories had plagued Soros for years. Soros was accused of buying the 2018 midterm elections by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California. Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, accused Soros of plotting a socialist takeover of the U.S. in 2018.
Trump erroneously claimed that Soros was funding protests against Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation that year.
Extremists act on these erroneous theories: A far-right terrorist planned to assault the progressive San Francisco-based Tides Foundation in 2010. The guy was sentenced to 401 years in jail after a police gunfight interrupted his scheme. The radical wrongly claimed Soros utilized Tides “for all kinds of nefarious activities.”
Another fanatic mailed a pipe bomb to Soros’ New York City suburb house in 2018. The perpetrator received a 20-year sentence despite no injuries.
The 2022 supermarket killer used anti-Soros conspiracy beliefs to excuse his murder of 10 Black Americans.
Complex legacy
Not all Soros criticism is antisemitic.
I admire Soros’ advocacy for freedom and empowerment of vulnerable populations, but I also question his money and how he got it.
The Soros family money, like all billionaires, perpetuates income inequality and concentrated political power. I think this massive power undermines democracy.
George Soros has supported democracy via charity gifts. However, his political donations to former U.S. President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and President Joe Biden have made him a divisive figure.
Megadonors of any political persuasion may affect the agenda and corrupt democracy.
In his first interview as head of Open Society Foundations, 37-year-old Alex Soros told The Wall Street Journal that he is “more political” than his father and would likely donate to political campaigns that promote voting and abortion rights.
Soros’ son’s plan to end the family’s philanthropy’s demonization is unclear.
Every Body, a new documentary, calls the previous year of American politics “hypocrisy,” citing the surge of anti-LGBTQ legislation, school censorship, and reproductive rights rollbacks.
The call-to-action film, released in June by Focus Features and NBC News Studios, urges pro-autonomy activists to prioritize the unspoken, voyeuristic, and abusive treatment of intersex people.
Every Body follows three vocal intersex advocates: producer, screenwriter, and actor River Gallo; writer and political strategist Alicia Roth Weigel; and PhD candidate, activist, and co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project Sean Saifa Wall.
Director Julie Cohen (known for the Oscar-nominated documentary RBG) and producers such intersex Shana Knizhnik lead their voices.
The film’s personal experiences, present situations, and historical teachings illustrate the intersex community’s complexity.
Medical and social abuse over decades
Roth Weigel’s narrative begins with her family’s concealment and its effect on her dating life, then transitions into her political boldness and lobbying against Texas politicians as a political ingénue.
Gallo balances the oppressions of immigrant families in their native state of New Jersey with their goal to generate revolutionary work as one of Hollywood’s few out intersex stars and the demands of being both activist and artist.
“As intersex people, we’re used to being objectified, to being a body and having doctors be spectators that look at our body—this experiment,” Gallo told Mashable. “It’s brilliant,” I said. Actors are watched. Being a playwright and filmmaker lets me reclaim that view.”
Wall confronts medical voyeurism, the 1990s emergence of intersex community activism, and the idea of a “Intersex Utopia” while sharing his personal suffering and self-discovery.
A fourth plot, about David Reimer, who was forced socialized as a girl after a medical error, appears and disappears. Reimer’s narrative is meant to warn against normalizing genital surgery and medically invasive operations on intersex youngsters.
Needle drops, montages of school images, yearbook scans, and covers of Go-Go’s “Our Lips Are Sealed” transition these sequences.
Dr. John Money, a notorious “sexologist” and one of the film’s unstated adversaries, appears in historical video. “The result is not, by any means, as dire as one expects,” Money tells a captive audience after explaining genital procedures Roth Weigel labeled involuntary castration. The video also criticizes pediatric urologist Dr. Dix Poppas’ intersex treatments.
People gasped during an early New York City viewing. Sometimes they laughed aloud. They gasped again as black-and-white images reappeared.
Cohen says she does this purposely to represent some of the many intersex experiences that comprise a kaleidoscope of medical and social realities. The film balances suffering, introspection, and intersex pleasure, dancing, art, and music. Cohen inserts pronouns for each actor and crew member during an end-credits dance sequence to symbolize binary-breaking empowerment.
The League of Women Voters of Ohio and Marion County’s police union opposed a state issue that would overhaul Ohio’s constitution amendment process.
Ohio Issue 1, if passed in an Aug. 8 special election, would require “that any proposed amendment to the Constitution of the State of Ohio receive the approval of at least 60 percent of eligible voters voting on the proposed amendment.” Constitutional amendments in Ohio require a simple majority (50.01%).
The amendment requires “that any initiative petition filed on or after Jan. 1, 2024 with the Secretary of State proposing to amend the Constitution of the State of Ohio be signed by at least five percent of the eligible voters of each county in the state.”
The language still disappoints us. “It’s still not what we want,” Miller remarked. The Ballot Board must write impartial wording. We still think this language fails.”
Miller added that many Ohioans don’t know how to modify the state Constitution. It’s not on the ballot.
“They won’t understand that right now simple majority can pass a constitutional amendment and (Issue 1) is changing it to 60% (voter approval needed),” Miller said. Ohioans need background to judge if they like the topic. That’s disappointing.”
Issue 1: pro or con?
All Marion County Ohio General Assembly members support Issue 1. Sen. Bill Reineke, R-Tiffin, supported Senate Joint Resolution 2, which sought the amendment, and Senate Bill 92, which authorized and funded the August special election.
“The Constitution is not a policy document. “Amending it should be harder than statute,” Reineke remarked. “In the interest of good governance, the threshold for changing our founding document should be 60%.”
In May, R-Marysville Rep. Tracy Richardson supported the proposal on the House floor.
“Ohioans need a strong framework, a supreme law that is immune to political agendas. “Our vote on this resolution sends a message that changing our constitution is so important that it should have the commitment and support of 60% rather than 50% plus one of our electorate,” added Richardson. I’ll add that our constituents will vote on this move in August.
“I supported putting it on the ballot five years ago, last November, this May, and now I support giving Ohio voters the choice at the ballot in August,” McClain stated. “Our state constitution is a foundational document, not a policy battlefield. The Ohio Constitution has been revised 172 times, compared to 27 times in 234 years for the U.S.
Republican leaders Gov. Mike DeWine, Senate President Matt Huffman, House Speaker Jason Stephens, and Sec. of State Frank LaRose support the proposal.
Former attorneys general Richard Cordray and Lee Fisher and former governors John Kasich, Bob Taft, and Ted Strickland have opposed Issue 1. Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor opposes the proposal.
“Peter the Great mentioned a Russian window on Europe. The Princeton Athens Center hosted social movements and post-communist politics expert Mark Beissinger on May 29.
This conversation covers the Ukraine war, peace possibilities, and their impact on the international order.
Over a year ago, few expected the Russian invasion to be opposed with such dedication and organization.
Princeton political science professor claims the Russians were so convinced they could attack and conquer Kyiv in three days that victory parades in the Ukrainian capital had been prepared. Parade costumes.
russians-so-confident-theyd-seize-kyiv-they-had-packed-their-parade-uniforms0Last week’s Ukrainian southeast counteroffensive was supposed to transform the situation. Poor start. Beissinger believes the Kremlin demolished Nova Kakhovka Dam on Tuesday, stopping the counteroffensive.
Floods and flooding are preventing Ukrainian forces from crossing the Dnipro River
The professor predicted humanitarian, environmental, and nuclear disasters. The disaster “creates an extremely volatile and dangerous situation at the neighboring Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant” and kills numerous. According to reports, Beissinger predicted a nuclear catastrophe if the reservoir fails.
Beissinger warned us not to disregard President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s aces despite the counteroffensive’s turbulence and Ukraine’s five-to-one numerical disadvantage against Russia.
“Thanks to US and European support, Ukraine has achieved a clear technological advantage, with modern anti-missile defense systems shielding civilians, German-made Leopard tanks piercing Russian lines, and satellite-controlled high-precision missiles targeting the enemy’s supply lines.”
“Ukrainian troops are determined, and know what they are fighting for, while the average Russian is confused and demoralized,” Beissinger claims Russian soldiers are treated like cannon fodder, reducing morale. The expert recommended caution since Ukraine’s Soviet-era planes are still inferior to Russia’s fleet.
Beissinger said that Zelenskyy’s paramilitary Russian organizations’ small-scale drone operations in Russia may change Ukraine. “This war has produced uneven effects on both sides, with millions of Ukrainians forcibly fleeing their homes and entire cities being erased from the map, and Russia remaining grossly unaffected,” he continued.
“Cause psychological discomfort and make the war felt in Russia” is their purpose.
Despite their symbolic importance, Beissinger urged Ukraine against allowing too many of these invasions for fear of Russian retribution or allies’ disapproval of aggression.
Beissinger was asked about Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin’s forecast of “a new revolution” in Russia if the war fails. “There are definitely cracks in the Putin regime, and a lot of bickering is already under way between potential successors,” the Princeton professor said, citing Prigozhin’s inflammatory rhetoric against Russia’s defense minister Sergei Shoigu as further evidence of intense factionalism in the highest ranks.
He dismissed Western hopes of a Putin resignation. “He holds the state machinery together; if he were to be ousted, a war of all against all would ensue within the elite, which nobody is prepared for.”
Even if Russia loses, Professor Beissinger dismissed a widespread uprising against the regime. He said unsuccessful wars might provide the opposition “a political opportunity” to challenge the weaker and delegitimized administration.
He noted that Russia will likely maintain the alternative view of post-war intensified coercion. “I expect Putin to follow Saddam Hussein, who violently suppressed Kurdish and Arab revolts after his defeat in the war against Iran and survived.”
Ukraine’s post-war reality is fluid, unlike Russia’s. Major rebuilding is needed. Putin waving the nuclear wand renders Ukraine unsure. Beissinger fears social fragmentation most.
Unfortunately, increased cohesion will fade with the Russian threat. Since any peace settlement would compel Ukraine to compromise, I foresee further conflicts to split society and complicate post-war realities.
Tara Donnelly thought of the tragedy that brought her to the gun control summit Friday morning, where Gov. Ned Lamont told the packed crowd that the nation needs laws requiring safe firearm storage.
A jewelry-store thief killed Donnelly’s parents in 2005.
In the two decades since, she has joined a campaign for stronger gun laws, which on Friday celebrated one year since the passing of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which backers called a long-overdue response to America’s weapons.
Donnelly stated that gun violence successes are bittersweet for survivors. We’re grateful. It cost.”
On Friday, the celebration was a premeditated time to make a statement at the start of another lengthy presidential campaign and show the nation that a gun safety movement is alive and changing.
“I believe we’ve reached a tipping point in this nation, I really do, swear to God,” President Joe Biden told the excited gathering of over 700. “People in this room are the big reason why we reached that tipping point.”
“We are not finished,” Biden declared.
Trevon Bosley of Chicago, one of several young people who introduced Biden, said the issue has compelled his generation to grow up fast and become active.
“This crisis has forced youth to put down toys and pick up bull horns,” he remarked. “It has forced youth to put down fun and innocence and pick up desperation and survival and, most importantly, to put down their childhood and pick up a nation.”
Act now
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who organized Friday’s day-long event that brought some of the most emotionally wounded by gun violence, acknowledged previous failings and vowed change.
Post-Sandy Hook. The current anti-gun violence campaign had several setbacks. We kept going in Washington despite losing votes. We kept organizing, so by last summer we had more volunteers, activists, resources, and were stronger than the gun lobby,” he said.
“And so, I believe this in our bones, I believe that last summer represented a paradigm shift in the politics surrounding this issue,” Murphy concluded. I think the next decade is ours. Today we will discuss the bipartisan Safer Communities Act and how to execute it, but until no child fears for their life in school or on the way to school, our job is not done.
However, many Americans disagree with the boisterous audience in West Hartford Friday since significant parts of the country oppose gun control.
Recent court judgments and strong gun sales suggest that momentum is still against gun control.
“When people are asking why are they buying so many firearms, it comes down to a very simple reason — people are concerned for their personal safety and their safety in their homes,” said Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesman Mark Oliva, who did not attend Friday’s gun safety summit.
Oliva said that meaningful weapons legislation is unlikely to pass during Biden’s tenure since Congress is still bitterly split between Republicans and Democrats.
Hope and despair
For every wave of applause to applaud summit accomplishments, including Biden’s keynote address, there was genuine anguish.
“It was very overwhelming today in a sense that it brought back a lot of memories, some of pain and some of anger,” said New Haven community outreach coordinator Sean Reeves, who claimed he was both a “perpetrator” and victim of gun violence after losing his 16-year-old son to a shooting in 2011.
Reeves said he hoped state and federal laws will soon focus more on avoiding community gun violence in Black and brown areas rather than major massacres.
“It took us this long to get here and it’s going to take us 100 years to erase what’s been done to us for over 400 years,” Reeves added.
Ana Grace’s mother, Nelba Marquez-Greene, told the crowd she almost didn’t attend the summit.
“My identity is reduced to three words: Sandy Hook mom, and it’s why I almost didn’t come,” she remarked, leading the crowd in a moment of quiet. “Survivors deserve so much more than exploitation and superhero capes.”
On Friday, Moms Demand Action, CT Against Gun Violence, March for Our Lives, and the Brady Campaign’s red, orange, blue, and purple t-shirts packed the room. “A small showing of this movement’s collective power” packed the auditorium hours before the president’s arrival, Murphy said.
Mayors like New Haven’s Justin Elicker are grappling with a proliferation of weapons from states with lax gun laws and, increasingly, from internet sales. Connecticut’s latest gun safety law expansion is a success.
Elicker said New Haven police had confiscated 130 illicit guns so far this year, up roughly 30% from previous year.
I think there’s optimism and discouragement because of the great success at the national and state levels.
Elicker said. On the other hand, Supreme Court judgements are undoing a lot of work and are profoundly discouraging.
After decades of Congressional gridlock, advocates on Friday credited Biden and the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers who supported the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act with saving lives through new policies like enhanced background checks, a crackdown on illegal gun dealers, and closing the “boyfriend loophole” that allowed some convicted abusers to access guns.
While other components of the law, such as millions of dollars in financing to urge states to pass “Red Flag” laws, have had mixed success, supporters like Donnelly noted that little advances have further empowered them.
“We’ve been told it takes time,” Donnelly added. “I think the time is now, we’re done waiting, losing our children, losing our parents. We’re done.”
