Good morning, Bulletin readers. The sixth (and fieriest) debate of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary came and went without a question about gun violence. Below, we get you caught up on other news of note.
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WHAT TO KNOW TODAY
“TWO DEBATES IN A ROW?” That was the reaction of the gun reform group Giffords, which decried the lack of any questions about gun violence from the moderators of last night’s Democratic debate in Los Angeles. The issue also was not broached during the November debate. The gun safety organization Brady sought to put the omission in context: “Almost 2.5 hours, and no discussion of a public health crisis that kills nearly 40,000 each year.”
On social media, only impeachment is generating more engagement than gun control. NewsWhip analyzed likes, comments, and shares for news stories about an array of issues. During the months since the El Paso and Dayton shootings, posts about guns yielded 166 million interactions, after “foreign policy” (which dominated in light of Ukraine’s role in the impeachment saga). Immigration was third, marking a notable reordering: Through July, Axios points out, immigration had garnered more the twice the amount of online interactions as guns.
A gunman shot three people, one fatally, at an elder care facility in Rhode Island. The perpetrator of the shooting, a resident of the complex, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. The victims were two workers at the facility, located in the beachside town of Westerly, and a fellow resident.
A gunmaker got $39 million in taxpayer money to relocate to rural Georgia.
To entice a Brazilian firearm manufacturer to set up a factory in the town Bainbridge, just north of the Florida line, “local governments pitched in $20 million for construction, $7.9 million of tax credits, $4.5 million of infrastructure work, $4.3 million in property-tax abatements and $3 million for equipment,” Bloomberg Business reports. The move will yield 300 jobs for the small town, the gunmaker said. The cost to taxpayers comes out to more than $130,000 per job.
The man arrested in connection with the Jersey City shooting is a weapons dealer, feds say. Prosecutors told a judge Wednesday that the suspect sells AR-15-style rifles and used a fake name and birthdate to register one of them because of a previous felony. Investigators tracked him down after finding his phone number in one of the assailants’ pockets; he remains in custody, charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Two attackers killed three people in the December 10 shooting at a Jewish grocery store.
A woman who fatally shot her abusive boyfriend in self-defense in 2018 was acquitted of manslaughter. Letoya Ramseure’s lawyer argued that she was justified under the state’s self-defense statute in protecting herself and her mother from her longtime boyfriend, who was under an active protection-from-abuse order. On Wednesday, a jury found her not guilty.
DATA POINT
Since the Parkland shooting, legislatures in 32 states and the District of Columbia have passed a total of 137 bills regulating gun access. — Newsweek
