Good morning, Bulletin readers. Trump says he’s biding his time on finalizing the White House’s gun plan, while Democrats are trading barbs about how hard to push.
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WHAT TO KNOW TODAY
Trump says gun reform talks going “very slowly.” Speaking with Fox News, President Trump all but confirmed a CBS New report from Wednesday that the White House has no imminent plans to release its gun reform package. “No, we’re not moving on anything. We’re going very slowly in one way, because we want to make sure it’s right,” he said. Amid the lull, Democratic Congressional leaders tried to keep up the pressure on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “This is not even obstruction, it’s abandonment of your responsibility as a leader of the Senate of the United States,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
Some Democratic ire is also internal. The 2020 primary hopeful Beto O’Rourke defended his plan for a mandatory assault-weapon buyback (and associated red-meat rhetoric about seizing military-style rifles from noncompliant owners) by criticizing the incremental, moderate course charted by party leaders. “Ask Chuck Schumer what he’s been able to get done,” O’Rourke said to reporters at a campaign stop in Aurora, Colorado. “We still don’t have background checks. Didn’t have them when he was in the majority, either. So the game that he’s played, the politics that he’s pursued have given us absolutely nothing and have produced a situation where we lose nearly 40,000 of our fellow Americans every year.” Schumer has tried to distance the party from O’Rourke’s buyback plan, telling journalists he didn’t know of “any other Democrat” who supports it.
MSNBC to moderate Democratic forum on gun violence prevention. The 10 Democratic hopefuls who participated in last week’s debate will discuss gun violence in a live town hall in Las Vegas on October 2, a day after the two-year anniversary of the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting.
Colt is halting production of AR-15s for civilians. The Connecticut-based gun manufacturer announced Thursday its decision to pause production of the model and other rifles for the civilian market, citing “significant excess manufacturing capacity.” However, the company said it would still be manufacturing the rifles as a result of its “significant military and law enforcement contracts.”
A bipartisan group of Ohio mayors and police chiefs called on state lawmakers to pass gun reform. The leaders gathered at the Statehouse to urge lawmakers to pass Republican Governor Mike DeWine’s proposals, which include universal background checks and a red flag law. “This time is different,” the Democratic mayor of Columbus said. The GOP-dominated state Legislature has largely blocked any recent efforts to pass gun reforms.
Washington, D.C., issued its first extreme risk protection order. Eight months after the district enacted a red flag law, police seized a handgun and a rifle from a 44-year-old man after he displayed behavior that was “odd and somewhat out of the ordinary,” court documents revealed. The man had an open assault case and a past suicide attempt, officers noted.
Baltimore police win $3 million in federal grants to trace illegal weapons and bolster record keeping. The city said the money would help it better track the firearms and ammunition used in street crimes. $750,000 of the grant money will be used to create a crime gun intelligence center. There have been 246 fatal shootings in the city as of Wednesday, a 17 percent increase from this time last year.
The author of an anti-violence book was caught up in Amazon’s ban on gun-related ads. Rick Smith, the author of The End of Killing, says he received an Amazon notice that it was blocking ads for the book, which has a gun on its cover, in the wake of the El Paso and Dayton shootings. “The decision to block ads — and, let’s just say it, literally judge books by their covers — is a PR move,” Smith said.
ONE LAST THING
School shooting victims’ families are outraged by streetwear brand’s bullet-holed hoodies. For its 2020 spring collection, Bstroy produced sweatshirts bearing the names of schools that have suffered catastrophic mass shootings. “Under what scenario could somebody think this was a good idea?” a grieving Parkland parent tweeted, while the family of a Sandy Hook victim called it “absolutely horrific” and scolded the company for “making light of our pain and other’s pain for fashion.” Bstroy co-founder Dieter Grams defended the clothing in a statement: “We wanted to make a comment on gun violence and the type of gun violence that needs preventative attention and what its origins are, while also empowering the survivors of tragedy through storytelling in the clothes.”
