Category Archives: Second Amendment

People protesting police brutality were punched, shoved, and had their signs stolen out of their hands in a small Ohio town on Sunday after motorcycle gangs, counterprotesters, and other armed groups crashed a Black Lives Matter event, videos from the scene show.

What was initially slated to be a protest of about 20 to 25 people in Bethel, Ohio, ballooned to about 800 as more than 250 motorcycles blocked the area demonstrators had planned to take, police said. Video shows people clashing, often in screaming matches and then bikers and other counterprotesters turned to violence, one woman told BuzzFeed News.

On Monday, the Bethel Police Department said the event was "manageable" for its force of six officers for the most part, but after counterprotesters began to move toward the protest, there were 10 "incidents."

Protests against police brutality have erupted across the country in the past two weeks after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis police custody and Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in by Louisville police.

Although most of the protests have taken place in the streets of the country's largest cities, small towns across the country have also seen demonstrations against police brutality.

In Bethel, a town of about 2,700 residents, a group of local residents formed a group called Bethel's Solidarity with Black Lives Demonstration, and contacted police on June 11 about their plans for Sunday's protest.

Police said the group promoted the event on Facebook and, soon, they were expecting about 100 people.

Other groups opposed to the event, however, began to organize counterprotests in return, according to a statement from the police department, including "motorcycle gangs, back the blue groups, and second amendment advocates."

"The Bethel Police Department had all six of its officers on duty and stationed around the demonstration area," the statement read.

Alicia Gee, a 36-year-old substitute teacher and an organizer of the protest, told the Cincinnati Enquirer she planned the event in solidarity with the Black community. The day before, she had been marking the street with chalk so the smaller group she expected could protest while social distancing.

On Sunday, however, she said she received a call just two hours before the event telling her a motorcycle gang was lining both sides of the street and people were armed.

"I was really scared because they were carrying guns and they were so aggressive," Andrew Dennis told the Cincinnati Enquirer. "They were grabbing me and grabbing my mom and they just seemed to have no respect for the law."

Videos posted by Dennis on Facebook show counterprotesters snatching signs from demonstrators on the street.

Other videos from the protest show men carrying rifles, wearing camouflage gear, and carrying US flags.

One man can be seen holding a handgun with one hand, a rifle with the other, while arguing with protesters.

In another video, a protester is seen being sucker-punched from behind by a man wearing a Confederate flag.

Two uniformed police offices can be seen just a short distance away when the man is punched.

"Sir, I just got punched in the back of the head," the protester tells one of the officers.

It's unclear what the officer initially tells the man in reply. The officer makes no effort to detain or move toward the man who threw the punch and, at one point, tells the protester, "We can take a report from you."

Officials with the Bethel Police Department did not immediately return BuzzFeed News requests for comment. When someone answered the phone for the department's officer-in-charge line, they said "Call 911" and hung up.

In their statement, police said the 10 incidents being investigated include the protester who was punched in the head.

In another video, a protester is surrounded by men in black leather vests on the way to the protest, who tell her, "Get outta here."

"There's a crowd of a thousand people going to be here in a minute," another man carrying an American flag tells her. "I would go. You're gonna get hurt. You're gonna get hurt. I would get in your car. I warned you."

The woman, 23-year-old Destiny Beckworth, told BuzzFeed News she grew up in Bethel and lives only a few minutes away. She drove to the protest with her 18-year-old sister but, after the confrontation, they decided to go home.

"That was pretty scary, and I usually don't get scared in those situations," she told BuzzFeed News. "I knew that if we got over [to the protest], it was going to be the same thing."

She said peaceful protesters first told her the event was becoming unsafe when she was looking for a place to park. When she was walking out of the car, she was immediately confronted by the men telling her to leave.

Her phone falls to the ground as the confrontation becomes physical, and when the video returns, the men are seen walking away, dropping her now-ripped sign to the ground.

After the man took her sign, she and her sister got back in the car and tried to drive way.

The two were again confronted by counterprotesters who saw the Black Lives Matter sign on her windshield.

"I was about to go and this lady saw the sign in front of my car," she said. "She starts waving other people to crowd my car."

A group of people banged on her car, kicked her door, broke her mirror and screamed at her and her sister before letting her drive away, which Beckworth also captured on video.

"My sister started having an anxiety attack because she's never been in something like this," she said.

Beckworth said she filed a police report about the man who took her sign.

"I never knew how bad it was," she said. "I was definitely taken by shock."

In the statement, the Bethel Police Department asked anyone that could identify suspects or victims in the incidents to contact them.

Jun. 16, 2020, at 14:24 PM

Correction: Destiny Beckworth's name was misspelled in a previous version of this post.

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Bikers And Second Amendment Groups Crashed A Black Lives Matter Protest In A Small Town And Violence Broke Out - BuzzFeed News

The NRA Foundation will be running their 2020 Fathers Day Online Auction, featuring 50 firearms, through June 22. The money raised through it will benefit a number of programs and is crucial in the fight this November, as freedom will be on the ballot.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, for example, has made no secret of his desire to lead a crusade against the Second Amendment and events like this allow the NRA to continue its fight against anti-gun politicians seeking to curtail your constitutional rights.

Your participation helps The NRA Foundation protect our Second Amendment freedoms with activities that promote safe and responsible firearms ownership, and invest in the next generation of Americas leaders. And thats what this is all about, right? Protecting the future of freedom so our children and grandchildren can have the same rights we enjoy, and keep the shooting sports alive and well, said Sarah Engeset, director of volunteer fundraising.

The 2020 Fathers Day Online Auction features an impressive array of firearms, including the Smith & Wesson M&P9 Shield EZ, the 2020 Colt Python, the Mossberg 590 Shockwave and many more. Second Amendment-supporting participants who bid on these firearms know their money is going toward the fight to protect their rights to keep and bear arms, especially with the threat that is looming on the ballot in November.

For decades, the NRA Foundation has served the needs of freedom-loving Americans across the country. To participate in the auction, visit NRAFDAD.givesmart.com or text NRAFDAD to 76278 to register. To learn more about the programs, services, events and more offered by the NRA Foundation, please visit NRAFoundation.org.

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NRA Foundation Auctions Firearms for Father's Day - America's 1st Freedom

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up Rogers v. Grewal, a case dealing with a restrictiveNew Jersey law that prohibits the carrying of a firearm unless a "justifiable need" to do so can be demonstrated. The decision punts on the next logical question in Second Amendment jurisprudence, following the District of Columbia v. Heller decision of 2008: How restrictive can gun laws become before they start abridging a constitutional right?

The case involves a New Jersey man who applied for a permit to carry a firearm. Because he serviced ATMs in high-crime areas, he felt he needed a gun for self-defense. His application was not found to meet the state's requirements, and he was denied.

The New Jersey law in question requires that private citizens requesting carry permits "specify in detail the urgent necessity for self-protection, as evidenced by specific threats or previous attacks, which demonstrate a special danger to the applicant's life that cannot be avoided by means other than by issuance of a permit to carry a handgun."

Inother words, to prove your need for self-defense, you pretty much need to be attacked first. Good luck; we hope you survive. If you can prove that someone has specifically threatened to attack you, then maybe. Otherwise, your desire to stop potential attacks, even likely ones, is not sufficient grounds for a permit.

The court ruled in Heller that theSecond Amendment guarantees a right to self-defense within the home, among a few other things. The logical next step is to ask how it guarantees self-defense outside one's home. Had it taken the case, the court could have offered clarity on the constitutionality of "good reason" provisions, which are codified in states with various levels of restriction. Moreover, the court could have debated the merits of treating self-defense as a mode of reaction versus as a mode of prevention, which is itself a profoundly compelling question.

Justice Clarence Thomas took the unusual step of filing a dissent from the court's denial of the Rogers petition. In it, he laments how the court has treated Second Amendment cases in recent years, offering criticisms by analogy. "This Court would almost certainly review the constitutionality of a law requiring citizens to establish a justifiable need before exercising their free speech rights," he writes."And it seems highly unlikely that the Court would allow a State to enforce a law requiring a woman to provide a justifiable need before seeking an abortion."

It's unclear why the court passed up this case when there are so many remaining loose ends in this area of jurisprudence. Perhaps the justices want a narrower question. Perhaps they are comfortable with letting lower courts develop more case law. Either way, the court has to recognize the restrictiveness of certain "good cause" provisions and deal with them. By passing up Rogers, the Supreme Court has declined an opportunity to instruct lower courts on the extent to which the Second Amendment protects the right to self-defense.

As Thomas points out, the lower courts want to be directed. They have said as much. "On the question of Hellers applicability outside the home environment, we think it prudent to await direction from the Court itself," Judge Paul Niemeyer wrote for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2011 case, which Thomas cites in his dissent. More cases will surely come, but the court missed an opportunity to offer that direction.

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When it comes to guns, the justices duck - Washington Examiner

With no police officers, CHAZ was established. Over the weekend, Black Lives Matter activists renamed the area Capitol Hill Organized Protest, arguing that the area was not actually aspiring to autonomy or secession. But by then, the demands of the CHAZ had ballooned far beyond addressing systemic racism in policing: In an open letter published on June 10, the activists listed several reforms they hoped the city would undertake, including degentrification initiatives, free college programs and investment in community mental health services.

Conservative reaction to Seattles autonomous zone has a particularly Trump-era undertone to it, Ross said.

Rather than letting local and state officials deal with the protesters, Trump doubled down on vilifying a group that had nothing to do with the organization of the protests not just dog whistling, but calling out his protesters or Second Amendment people to basically get out into the streets and get into the vigilante mode.

The broad support for the racial justice protests indicates the issue will not recede anytime soon, putting pressure on lawmakers of both parties to enact police reform. But while Trump has made some concessions to the movements demands, signing an executive order on Tuesday offering incentives for police departments to adopt some reforms, activists say his offerings have fallen woefully short of what is needed.

Trump has also found political utility in ranting about certain proposals from Black Lives Matter activists, including defunding or abolishing the police, and constantly reiterating his ever-present claim that antifa terrorists are floating among the protesters. And though CHAZ itself has not been a base camp for a leftist insurrection, its existence is based on rejecting existing governing and policing structures. Trump has reacted to that with calls for LAW & ORDER.

They've already walked away from the founding consensus, McCabe said. They're already at the point where they can have an autonomous Seattle zone.

The MAGA sphere has also latched onto the fact that visibly armed members of progressive gun groups are patrolling CHAZ, confirming their belief that the zone is, purposefully or not, incepting an anti-government plot. Far-right groups, Ross said, have used the presence of armed individuals as a pretext to travel to the area under the auspices of protecting civil society, not to protest against CHAZ.

The whole working purpose of the militia in the far right, is they kind of form this sort of porous membrane through which people travel in and out of the extreme right based on whether or not they're open racists, he noted. If you're going somewhere to stop the looting and to protect protesters from antifa outsiders, then you've got a narrative. You've got something clear that you can explain to people that doesn't make you sound like you're just there because you hate anti-racists.

Ultimately, CHAZ may amount to a weekslong encampment in the middle of Seattle, maintained by rather enthusiastic activists, that eventually fades.

To the extent they've avoided violence, that's admirable. But even just trying to take it over is silly, said Scott Walter, president of the conservative-libertarian think tank Capital Research Center, pointing out that the zone still relied on city services such as trash pickup.

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How 6 blocks in Seattle became a microcosm of the culture wars - POLITICO

Hugo Buchanan

Rallies across our lands have been held lately, protesting the stay at home directives of mayors and governors, due to this Coronavirus that can force ones lungs into a collapsing state, to a point that inhaling the breath of life is no longer possible. This is a terrible way to test ones ability to survive, and ventilators may not help in some cases, as has been reported.

Naturally, people that have not been affected by this terrible virus are getting restless, and wish to get back to work, go shopping, to the beaches, restaurants, etc; Whatever everyday life has entailed.Naturally also is the fact that many Americans are of the millions of minimum wage workers, where both husband and wife are paid minimum wage. They live paycheck to paycheck, with not even a savings account. These are the people that desperately are in need of stimulus checks.

Sorry, folks, the above mentioned souls could not join you for your rallies. They were in these long auto lines, waiting for a turn to get one box of survival food to take beck home to feed hungry children. This is leading us up to the main point of this letter, which was the disgusting scenes shown by our news media, showing people attending these rallies with their assault rifles. Now we need an amendment to our Second Amendment to stop people like you from stretching the Second Amendment beyond its definition.

Perhaps you could benefit from an old Johnny Cash song titled Dont Take Your Guns To Town.

HugoBuchanan is a resident of Lady Lake.

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Amendment to our Second Amendment - Villages-News

Matt York/AP/Shutterstock

It wouldnt be a truly American Reopening if it didnt include some unfortunate exercises of Second Amendment freedoms. How could we ever Transition to Greatness without adding to the price we pay in blood for those freedoms? From AzCentral:

So we sleep for a few hours only to awaken to more celebration in honor of our well-regulated militias, this one at a naval base in Texas. From the Corpus Christi Caller-Times:

The tree of liberty is in full bloom.

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It Wouldn't Be an American Reopening Without an Unfortunate Exercise of Second Amendment Freedom - Esquire

We live in a country where the right to buy a gun is more sacrosanct than the right of a black person to not be shot and killed by someone with a gun.

On Feb. 23, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man was out jogging in a Georgia neighborhood when he was chased down, shot, and killed by Gregory and Travis McMichael, a white father and his son. Despite having a video of the killing and knowing the identities of the two suspects, it took Georgia authorities more than two months to arrest the McMichaels, which finally occurred on May 7.

Also in the past month, a group of gun shop owners, would-be gun owners, and gun rights advocates filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal District Court challenging an order signed by Governor Charles D. Baker '79 that mandated non-essential businesses, including gun shops, remain closed during the pandemic. On May 7, less than one month later and the same day the McMichaels were finally arrested United States District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock issued an order allowing gun shops to reopen because, even in an emergency, we dont surrender our constitutional rights. Judge Woodlock found that the plaintiffs Second Amendment right to bear arms deserve[s] respect and vindication.

It took a federal judge in Massachusetts less time to uphold the right to buy a gun than it took officials in Georgia to arrest two white men who were captured on video shooting and killing a black man. Maybe this says something about the differences between our federal and state judicial systems, between our civil and criminal law institutions. Maybe it says something about the differences between Massachusetts and Georgia, between north and deep south. Undoubtedly, it says something about who we are and what we value.

The Constitution sets the parameters for the relationship between the people and their government. It does not really govern the way ordinary citizens interact with each other. Judge Woodlocks decision rests on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed, meaning the government cannot interfere with a persons right to buy, own, or carry a gun. Apparently, government officials in Georgia also didnt want to intervene when two white men used their guns to kill a black man for no reason the case has now been overseen by four different prosecutors.

The Declaration of Independence, on the other hand, does not create rights. Rather, it was written to inspire colonists who felt increasingly oppressed by the British government. The words are aspirational and, unlike the Constitution, do not carry the force of law. Still, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the first draft, wanted his words to be an expression of the American mind. The preamble states, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. What may have been self-evident in the 1770s are only half-truths today.

No matter how one feels about the Second Amendment, we should take comfort that, at least in this one instance in Massachusetts, our judicial system worked the way it should: a group of people who believed their constitutionally-protected rights were violated filed a lawsuit, a judge heard them, and their rights were protected.

But Second Amendment rights only go so far. The Second Amendment grants the right to own a gun; it is not a license to kill. The murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia should shock our collective conscience not only for its brazenness but because it proves, yet again, that our system of justice does not work for everyone. It should not take hashtags and marches over two months to prompt government officials to arrest two men for murder, particularly when the crime was captured on video.

The Constitution protects the rights of Gregory and Travis McMichael to own guns. Yet for Ahmaud Arbery and countless black people across the country, the Declaration of Independences recognition of our inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness apparently doesnt apply.

The time for us to get our priorities straight as a country is long overdue.

Jennifer A. Serafyn is a graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Zuckerman Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership.

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America's Two Kinds of Justice | Opinion - Harvard Crimson

Kevin Wagner, The Civics Project Published 12:26 p.m. ET May 22, 2020

Question: Why do courts need to interpret the U.S. Constitution? Why dont they just follow what it says?

Answer: Some provisions of the U.S. Constitution are very clear. For example, Section 1 of Article Two of the Constitution requires that the president must be at least 35 years old.

However, the Constitution has provisions that are much less clear. For example, the 8th Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. What is cruel, and how unusual does it need to be?

The Second Amendment provides that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. But, few would argue this means we cannot keep felons from owning assault-style rifles. Many of the most important provisions of the Bill of Rights use broad language like unreasonable search and seizure and due process of law. We rely on courts to give these phrases meaning.

Further, even in the case where the provision is relatively clear, the world around us is changing. The Constitution doesnt change much, but the society it governs changes a great deal. So how do you apply the Constitution when the language is expansive or to situations that were not even imagined when the document was written?

Judges use different methods to settle these conflicts. They look at the meaning of the words, the intentions of the framers, and precedent. You have probably heard buzzwords like Strict Construction, Original Meaning, Living Constitution, or Textualism. Those are just some of the strategies that judges use to discern the meaning of the Constitution.

Kevin Wagner(Photo: Palm Beach Post)

Some argue that the Constitution should only be interpreted based solely on the text. Others argue we should look to the original intent of the drafters. Yet, others contend that judges should be more pragmatic, and the Constitution must be interpreted in light of our current society and not just based on what was known years or even centuries ago.

The cynical would claim that these strategies are just defenses for judges to reach the conclusions that they would have reached anyway. Historically, the U.S. Supreme Court has been the most popular of our federal branches of government, largely because it has been seen as outside regular partisan battles. Its role is purportedly to neutrally interpret the law. Current Chief Justice John Roberts has tried to reinforce that view by asserting that judges are not defined by the president who appointed them. Yet, increasingly people see the court as partisan. And that is unfortunate.

As Congress and the president are unable to reach compromises and legislate, many issues are being decided in the courts. As a result, judges play a greater role in the U.S. than in other constitutional republics with more detailed constitutions that specify individual rights and government powers. Our political fights become legal fights. Issues such as abortion, immigration and health care are currently being litigated.

I suspect the deciding issue for many voters in this years election will be which candidate is more likely to appoint judges and justices who will issue decisions which will align with their values.

Kevin Wagner is a noted constitutional scholar, and political science professor at Florida Atlantic University. The answers provided do not represent the views of the university.

The professor wants to hear from you. Keep in mind that no question is too basic; but it can be too partisan. So if you have a question about how American government and politics works, send us an email at rchristie@pbpost.com.

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Like it or not, much of the Constitution subject to interpretation| The Civics Project - Florida Today

Virginia Republicans have not won a statewide election in more than a decade.

In a June primary, three GOP hopefuls, all rookies in Virginia politics, are seeking a chance to break that drought by defeating Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in November. There's a big, added challenge for candidates without statewide name recognition - campaigning amid COVID-19, which has killed more than 1,000 Virginians, according to state data.

The candidates have exchanged living room meetings with prospective voters for Zoom sessions, in-person events for live Q&As on Facebook and door knocking for phone calls in their bid to unseat Warner,a former governor who was first elected to the Senate in 2008.

Not since Bob McDonnell was elected to the executive mansion in 2009, leading a GOP sweep for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, has a Republican carried the state. Thats the same year that Sen. John Warner, the last Republican to represent Virginia in the U.S. Senate, completed his 30-year tenure.

"We have three incredible candidates to take on Mark Warner this year," Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Jack Wilson said recently. "Any one of them would be better than our current hyper-partisan, Virginia-last senator."

Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, narrowly edged Republican Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, in the 2014 mid-term election. This year Warner has bigger advantages in name recognition and fundraising, as well as a presidential year voter turnout that ordinarily benefits Democrats in Virginia. Democrats have made gains in Virginia in each election since President Donald Trump's election in 2016.

Appearing on the primary ballot to decide his challenger will be Nottoway County civics teacher Alissa Baldwin of Victoria in Lunenberg County, American University professor Daniel Gade of Alexandria, and Army reservist Thomas Speciale, a Woodbridge resident.

A fourth candidate, former Georgetown University basketball player Omari Faulkner, did not qualify after not garnering enough signatures, despite his successful lawsuit against the state Elections Department to lower the signature threshold from 10,000 to 3,500 because of COVID-19.

Gade has raised more than five times as much money ($488,499) as Speciale ($80,346) and Baldwin ($7,812) combined, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

Thats still far below what Warner has raised, with the incumbent bringing in a little more than $9 million so far, according to VPAP.

Gov. Ralph Northam pushed the date of the primary from June 9 to June 23 because of COVID-19. State and local officials have encouraged voters to cast absentee ballots to prevent large crowds, which remain banned under the governors stay-at-home order, at the polls.

With about a month until the primary, heres a look at the three Republicans looking to end the GOP's statewide dry spell.

Civics teacher looks to restore We the People

Alissa Baldwin never envisioned becoming a teacher.

She wanted to be a lawyer since the second grade, aligning her dreams and actions with what she felt would result in acceptance to law school. During her senior year at the University of Richmond, however, she got rejected.

I was very intentional so everything would build me up for pre-law and serving others through supporting the judicial branch of government and the legal system, she said. To have that kind of setback became an opportunity to rise above an obstacle. It set me on a very different path.

Baldwin stayed in the Richmond region, working as a paralegal and law firm administrator before getting burned out from work. Unsure of what to do next, she got an unsolicited job offer from Lunenburg County Public Schools in Southside Virginia where she grew up.

She accepted the job to teach history at Central High School, with her first day of work coming on the first day of school.

I issued (the students) a textbook and then I issued myself a textbook, Baldwin said.

Sixteen years later, Baldwin, 41, remains in the classroom, now teaching middle school civics in nearby Nottoway County. She gives her students a pocket Constitution at the end of the school year, highlighting her favorite words in the founding document's preamble: We the People.

Those words have inspired her run for U.S. Senate.

Weve lost sight of that with having so many career politicians, she said. For me, entering this race is about a return to our roots. Our Constitution of then is still our great Constitution of today.

Baldwin, who was born in Prince William County before her parents moved the family to southern Virginia, said she hopes to expand school choice, limit access to abortions and make health care more affordable, among other issues.

Im the person to bring us forward because I am so different, she said. Im not focused as much on the party as I am the principles we believe in.

If elected, Baldwin would be the first female U.S. senator from Virginia.

Army veteran sees bid as extension of service

As Daniel Gade bled out in 2005 after being wounded in combat for the second time, a call went out in the mess hall of the U.S. Navy ship where he was being treated: If anyone had A-positive blood, they needed it.

Gades injuries, the result of an explosion in Iraq as Gade rode in a Humvee, had already exhausted the medical units blood supply. Without hesitation, 25 sailors and Marines answered the call and donated.

I have the blood of heroes in my veins, says Gade, whose right leg was amputated. That blood saved my life.

The people who saved my life taught me and hopefully everybody else an important lesson that day, which is that, when we have a hard problem to solve, like one of our friends is bleeding to death, we ought to come together to solve the problem, even if we have things that divide us.

Gade wants to unify the Republican Party and he sees his run as an extension of his more than two decades of military service.

As a soldier for 25 years, I was supporting and defending the Constitution. Thats the oath a soldier takes, Gade said. The oath that a senator takes is the same oath. I feel as though our political class, not just Mark Warner, but many, many others, have failed in their oath to support and defend the Constitution and its time to return to a system in which the Constitution is respected.

The 45-year-old grew up in North Dakota before attending the United States Military Academy at West Point. His military service earned him two Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star.

Even after the second combat injury, Gade declined to be discharged from the military. Instead he served in the Bush and Trump administrations, focusing on helping veterans get jobs. In 2017 he retired from the Army and now teaches at American University, living in Alexandria with his wife and three children.

Gade said key issues for his campaign are limiting the size of government, maintaining a strong national defense and protecting individual rights, including the Second Amendment.

Gade, who has received the endorsement of several state senators, said that if he is elected his first bill would be the Stop Insider Trading (SIT) Act. The bill would require members of Congress to put their investments in a blind trust and forbid them from using for personal benefit information they receive because theyre in Congress.

Theyre supposed to be there serving and instead they begin to act like hogs at a trough, he said. Its got to stop.

The issue has gained more prominence in recent months after several members of Congress, including Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., sold stocks before the coronavirus epidemic spread in the U.S.

Army reservist hopes to fight gun control

Thomas Speciale remembers driving to work in June 2016, the day after a gunman in Orlando, Fla., killed 49 people and wounded 53 others inside a gay nightclub. He listened as Democrats called for more gun control and felt a grip of fear and that they were right.

That didnt last long.

Then I remembered that thats a lie, he said. We do not have a gun violence problem. We have a mental health problem.

Speciale, who runs a small gun safety training company, attended Januarys mass rally in Richmond in support of gun rights. He was one of the 16,000 people who stayed outside Capitol Square, where an estimated 6,000 more had gathered, because he didnt want to give up his ability to carry a gun. (Gov. Ralph Northam banned guns inside Capitol Square during the rally, citing safety threats.)

As a candidate Speciale has vowed to work to abolish and remove current gun laws, upset over what he describes as a socialist agenda to disenfranchise people from their liberty.

Our Constitution is being dismantled right before our very eyes, he said. If you take away guns, theres no way to stop the government from controlling your life because the Second Amendment protects our liberty.

He also wants to reform the immigration and criminal justice systems, and promote school choice.

Speciale, 51, entered the military in 1987, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfathers. The Illinois State University alumnus is a chief warrant officer in the Army Reserves. He's married and has three children and one step-son. His oldest son serves in the U.S. Navy.

He hopes to parlay the activism around gun rights and gun control Democrats passed seven of the eight gun control measures Northam proposed this session into a primary victory and an upset election over Warner.

For me its been a lifelong fight to protect our country and to protect our allies abroad and those who love liberty and freedom from tyranny and oppression, he said.

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Meet the Republicans looking to unseat Sen. Mark Warner - Richmond.com

In both An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz digs into the roots of violence buried deep within the countrys history. From the election of Donald Trump to the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, American violence has been on unprecedented display. The pandemic has likewise exposed some of the nations starkest disparities, not only in justice and health-related issues, but also along racial and class divides. Now, as states consider relaxing stay-at-home orders in response to the economic crisis health restrictions have led to, the country is witnessing the armed occupation of state capitals, emotionally charged protests and the outright denunciation of science and research.

Dunbar-Ortiz helps put these contemporary events in a historical context. The United States was founded as a capitalist state and an empire on conquered land, with capital in the form of slaves, she writes in Loaded, as she traces violence from the nations founding to today. The capitalist firearms industry was among the first successful corporations. Gun proliferation and gun violence today are among its legacies. This legacy helps explain American gun culture and the conspicuous display of firearms at the COVID-19 reopen protests.

High Country News recently spoke with Dunbar-Ortiz about what these events have to say about the nations propensity for violence, tolerance of white supremacy and the push for profits over the health of the populace. The following conversation has been edited for length.

High Country News: Do you think the armed protest at the Michigan Statehouse was allowed to happen because the perpetrators were white and by extension not considered a threat to those in authority?

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz:Its complicated. No one can imagine an all-armed Black group coming to the Statehouse at all, for anything. They would be killed, massacred. Or lets say Asians, or Native Americans or Latinos. Of course, its white privilege. But what I think is that its not that (those in power) dont see it, its (that) they actually fear the power of these people. Politicians are not stupid, and they know in their hearts when the president of the United States gives practically an order, certainly permission, for these types of people to act, then thats power. Even here in California, theyve come to Sacramento twice. They had an armed protest at City Hall in San Francisco. And you really saw our governor here stepping back and saying, Well, yeah, maybe some of the smaller counties, it may not apply to them. Its really scary, because it works.

HCN: This notion that certain segments of the population should die for the economy is striking. How is the acceptance of mass casualties whether of Indigenous peoples, children in school shootings, or the elderly and immunocompromised during a pandemic part of the American psyche?

RDO: U.S. capitalism has always had to have surplus labor half of the people unemployed in order to keep wages down. But with technology and the end of industrialized mass labor, theyre no longer needed by the system. With mechanized agriculture, theyre not needed as agrarian workers. Back in the 80s, it was almost uncontroversial when Earth First!, the most radical of the environmental movements, the most militant, came up with this anti-immigration thing at the border because of overpopulation the idea that the border should be tightened, taking that reactionary stance for the environment rather than reviewing how capitalism works and attacking the kings of capital.

The practice of eliminating people is baked into the countrys founding, Constitution and military, so of course it worms its way into everyones mind that it is OK to just eliminate a whole group of people, so more white farmers can have land. At the core of the country, its always there as a possibility, not just for people who have bad immune systems or are old or who are homeless. This idea to just get rid of them. Herd immunity it shouldnt be used that way to cull out the older people and those who are at risk, and that will be a good thing. But you know, of course, for Native people and Latinos and most African Americans, most people really revere their elders as sources of knowledge and teaching. I realize, though, that that has changed a lot, because I think these arguments that a lot of the scientists were giving on the national level, and the governors, that you have to do these things to protect your grandparents. I dont think that really counts for anything when people are so broken down and (culturally) separated from their family.

HCN: When you look back over time, from the founding of the United States to today, do you see variations in that reliance on violence or death, or does it just take new forms?

But instead of organizing against that system of capitalism, they are easily redirected because of white supremacy to attack the immigrants coming in and taking their jobs. Of course, these are jobs they wont do anyway.

RDO: The advent of capitalism came with the looting of the Americas, that accumulation of wealth, and then the founding of capitalist states, and with the Industrial Revolution which, in the United States, was based on slavery. When slaves freed themselves, Reconstruction didnt work, and they continued to be necessary agrarian labor. Capitalist states kept importing immigrants to keep surplus labor.

They really worried, after World War II, when so many young men were killed from every country in Europe. In Western Europe, they were absolutely frantic, because the workers could demand such high wages. They could bargain. Thats why, in Germany and France and Britain, they have such good unions, free health-care systems. They won all of that because there was no surplus labor. And then those countries started importing Turkish labor, Kurdish labor, African labor, to create surplus labor. Thats how capitalism works: Its only real profits come from what the wages are for workers.

With the technological shift from industrial production although its still going on; its just exported to China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, where theyre still working factories in the United States surplus labor is no longer needed for profits. So much of it is finance or specialized or highly technical that the unemployed of every class, especially the white and unemployed, are the most worried. But instead of organizing against that system of capitalism, they are easily redirected because of white supremacy to attack the immigrants coming in and taking their jobs. Of course, these are jobs they wont do anyway. Theyre not going to work in meatpacking plants and the fields of California. But the system is so good at diverting their attention to people of color as the enemy to get rid of them, and everything will be all right.

HCN: That seems like it would inevitably lead to more conflict.

RDO: That is a problem, and its a permanent problem, even with the overthrow of capitalism. What do people do who are so work-oriented? I know we used to have dreams, when I was a young activist, of a world without so much work, where we could work two hours a day and still get wages. This would be the kind of socialism that works for peoples good and not for profits, so people find a lot of things to do when theyre not on the job, or spending most of their lives in jobs that they dont like. Theres a necessity to have things to do. They feel that purpose, but mainly its that you have to have that in order to eat, survive or feed your family, not because you love the work.

Graham Lee Brewer is an associate editor atHigh Country Newsand a member of the Cherokee Nation.Emailhimat [emailprotected]or submit aletter to the editor.

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