Enlarge this imageA row of rifles for sale is on display at a gun shop in Aurora, Colo., on July 20, 2012. The ma s shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., has prompted questions about the effectivene s of “red flag laws” pa sed in 19 states and the District of Columbia.Alex Brandon/APhide captiontoggle captionAlex Brandon/APA row of rifles for sale is on display at a gun shop in Aurora, Colo., on July 20, 2012. The ma s shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., has prompted questions about the effectivene s of “red flag laws” pa sed in 19 states and the District of Columbia.Alex Brandon/APThe ma s shooting in Buffalo, N.Y. last Saturday has renewed the debate over the minimum age for legally purchasing what some people Matt Olson Jersey such as President Biden, call “weapons of war.” An 18-year-old is accused of driving to a supermarket and targeting African Americans as he opened fire, killing 10 people. He’s charged with first-degree murder in a shooting authorities describe as racially-motivated domestic terrorism. Police say he used a semi-automatic rifle called the Bushmaster XM-15,which he bought legally at a licensed gun store, after pa sing a background check.In a statement investigators believe the 18-year-old wrote and posted online, he says he modified the rifle in ways that would make it illegal under New York’s definition of”a sault weapons.”National Officials say a gunman’s attack that killed 10 was a racially motivated hate crime New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed Wednesday to addre s domestic terrorism and gun violence by establishing a new state law enforcement unit focused on domestic terrorism, among other steps. But one question remains: Should an 18-year-old be allowed to buy a semi-automatic rifle? In the last couple of years, California, Florida and Washington Robbie Grossman Jersey state have responded to the string of ma s shootings by young men by raising the minimum age to buy certain kinds of rifles, such as the Bushmaster. Gun rights groups, meanwhile, have sued, calling this a violation of young adults’ Second Amendment rights.Last week, a panel of three federal judges in California agreed, overturning the higher minimum age approved by the state last year.”There’s a big fight brewing over these restrictions on guns for 18, 19, and 20-year-olds because the courts are in the midst of a great expansion of Second Amendment gun rights,” says Adam Winkler, a UCLA law profe sor who writes about gun policy. The author of the California law, state Sen. Anthony Portantino, says he hopes the state attorney general appeals the federal ruling. “It makes sense to appeal. This is a fight worth fighting, and again, look at what happened in Buffalo,” he says. “You have to be 25 to rent a car. You have to be 21 to drink. Why would we put a semi-automatic rifle in the hands of a teenager? Some people age 18-25 who own guns feel like it’s discrimination to limit age on gun ownership But to people in that age group who own guns, this feels like discrimination.”I would point Jurickson Profar Jersey out that drinking and driving a car aren’t constitutionally protected,” says Evan Jones, a gun enthusiast in Texas who just recently turned 22. “Eighteen to 21-year-olds, they have all the same rights and responsibilities as any other adult. And it’s not fair to single out and deprive them of one right,” he says.Historically, the courts have limited such rights. “The threshold test is what’s called ‘strict scrutiny,’ ” says Jeffrey Fagan, a law profe sor at Columbia University who specializes in gun laws. “It’s got to be a compelling governmental interest to limit the right.” For that, advocates of a higher minimum age point to brain science. “We know from lots of studies around motor vehicles and drinking and other common types of injuries that this age group is still developing its frontal lobe, impulse control, judgment,” says Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and academic dean at the School of Public Health at Brown University.Gun rights advocates, on the other hand, say brain science arguments don’t justify taking away the right to armed self-defense from a whole age group.Matt Larosiere is with the Firearms Policy Coalition, which led the challenge to California’s law. He says it’s bad enough that federal law bans adults under age 21 from buying handguns from licensed dealers; he says it’s worse when states bar that same age group from buying rifles and other long guns.National The Buffalo community honors victims of the Tops shooting and calls for big change “States pa s these 18-to-21 rifle bans, and it eliminates completely the ability of young adults of the mechanism of defending themselves,” he says. And, he argues that young adults may actually rely on that right more than older people. “There are plenty of young adults in America who are quite often lower-income, or otherwise disadvantaged, not just financially,” Larosiere says. “And those are the same people who are the most likely to be violently victimized, and the people most likely in need of an effective mechanism to protect themselves,”This legal tension has yet to be resolved. Just last year, a federal judge upheld Florida’s new, age-based law limiting gun sales but he also called this age question “a constitutional no man’s land.”We may get more clarity on this from a pending Supreme Court case about gun control in New York. That case also weighs individual rights against societal risk, and if the ruling is broad enough, legal experts say it could tell us how the new conservative majority might come down Ramon Laureano Jersey on the idea of limiting gun rights by age.
Enlarge this Garrett Richards Jersey imageAt least 10 people were killed Saturday in a ma s shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y.John Normile/Getty Imageshide captiontoggle captionJohn Normile/Getty ImagesAt least 10 people were killed Saturday in a ma s shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y.John Normile/Getty ImagesThe 18-year-old gunman accused of killing 10 at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., had undergone a mental health evaluation by New York state police after making a school shooting threat last year, authorities said. “The state police responded. They investigated. They interviewed the subject. And they felt at the time it was appropriate to have that individual brought in for a mental health evaluation,” said Buffalo police commi sioner Joseph Gramaglia at a pre s conference Sunday. Loading… The threat was made in June of last year in the area of the alleged shooter’s hometown of Conklin, N.Y., a small town near the state’s border with Pennsylvania.But the threat was a general one, not directed at any specific person or place, authorities said. After a day and a half in the hospital, the suspected shooter was released.Authorities would not say when the suspect acquired the three guns he brought to Buffalo, or whether he had done so before or after the mental health evaluation.In addition to the Bushmaster AR-15-style a sault rifle used in the shooting, police recovered a second rifle and a shotgun from his car. The suspect also used a high-capacity magazine, which is illegal in New York, meaning it was illegally purchased Shohei Ohtani Jersey or illegally transported acro s state lines, said Gov. Kathy Hochul.The shooting at the Tops supermarket in east Buffalo left 10 people dead and three others wounded. Eleven of the victims were Black. Officials say the attack was racially motivated, and it is being investigated as a hate crime and an act of terrorism. The suspect has already been charged with first-degree murder.”The evidence that we have uncovered so far makes no mistake that this is an absolute racist hate crime. It will be prosecuted as a hate crime. This is someone who has hate in their heart, Andrelton Simmons Jersey soul and mind,” Gramaglia said. Authorities say the suspect drove more than 200 miles from Conklin to east Buffalo specifically to target a predominantly Black part of the city. He arrived Friday to conduct “reconnai sance” on the grocery store, police said.Then, around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, he stepped out of his car wearing body armor and a helmet and began shooting with the Bushmaster rifle. National Why NPR isn’t using the word ‘manifesto’ Four of those killed were store employees, authorities said. That included Aaron Salter, a retired Buffalo police lieutenant working as a store security guard. Salter fired back, striking the shooter at least once but the bullet failed to penetrate the gunman’s body armor. The rest of the victims were customers.Buffalo police responded within two minutes, according to Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. “If not for their swift response and courageous actions, more lives probably would have been lost yesterday,” Brown said. Eventually, the shooter was confronted by Buffalo police and arrested after they persuaded him to drop his gun. “He put the gun underneath his chin, and our officers very courageously used every de-escalation tactic they could,” Gramaglia said.National Officials say a gunman’s attack that killed 10 was a racially motivated hate crime He had a “premeditated plan to come to a community that he perceived to be a Black community and kill as many Black people as he po Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Jersey sibly could,” Brown told NPR.A 180-page document shared online by someone using the same name as the alleged shooter was filled with racist and anti-immigrant views, including a racist conspiracy theory called the “great replacement” that holds that white Americans are supposedly at risk of being “replaced” by people of color.The shooting was livestreamed on the streaming platform Twitch, a spokeswoman for the company told NPR. The stream was taken offline le s than two minutes after the shooting began, Twitch said.