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It’s another Monday morning in America. In one of six mass shootings over the weekend, according to the Gun Violence Archive, at least eight people were killed and seven others were injured Saturday at a crowded outdoor mall in Allen, Texas, a Dallas suburb that’s home to almost 107,000 people. Law enforcement killed the shooter, Allen’s police chief announced at a news conference.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other state leaders visited Allen on Sunday for a vigil in honor of the victims. During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Abbott was presented with the results of a recent poll showing that most Americans are in favor of gun restrictions, yet he downplayed the role of the assault-style rifle the gunman used in the shooting, instead calling for improving mental health care. According to psychologists, mental illness is not a reliable predictor of violence.
Mallgoers described the terror of the shooting to The Texas Tribune: “You could hear the shots: bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam,” said Helen Bennett, who was shopping with her daughter to celebrate her birthday when a store manager pulled them and a dozen other customers into a locked back room. “I thought, ‘Will they ever stop?’” As they hid for two hours, the other shoppers sang her “Happy Birthday.”
“We’ll be traumatized for quite some time,” Bennett told the Tribune. “It’s hard to even talk about. I know we have to get over it.”
What to Know Today
ICYMI: Congressional Democrats have reintroduced legislation to focus federal efforts on reducing the proliferation of illegal machine gun conversion devices, also known as auto sears. [The Trace]
America is on record pace for mass killings: The country is averaging about one mass killing per week in 2023, all perpetrated with guns. The deaths represent a fraction of the total number of people who have been killed this year. [Associated Press]
Black mothers trapped in neighborhoods that they feel are unsafe are “the canaries in the coal mine” for measuring the mental and physical tolls of living with systemic racism and gun violence in America. [The Conversation]
The Second Amendment Foundation, a small but influential gun rights group, is under investigation by the Washington state Attorney General’s Office for a series of unusual financial transactions with private entities owned by or linked to Alan Gottlieb, the nonprofit’s founder and top executive. [The Wall Street Journal]
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right extremist group were found guilty of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the Capitol insurrection. But the convictions are unlikely to stem rising hate-fueled violence. [NPR]
Police officers declined multiple times to arrest Dora Howell’s ex-boyfriend for violating her orders of protection against him. Months after her lawsuit in New York’s highest court, in which she alleged that the city failed to protect her, and failed to yield any accountability for the officers’ actions, she was found dead in a basement with a bullet wound to her chest. [Gothamist]
Kimberly Mata-Rubio’s daughter was killed in the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. What has her life looked like since then? [Texas Monthly]
Archive
Bruen Takes Gun Law Back to a Time Before ‘Domestic Violence’: The Supreme Court introduced a historical test that is upending gun laws across the country. One policy to fall: a firearms ban for subjects of restraining orders. (February 2023)
