Good morning, Bulletin readers. An ultimatum from New Mexico’s attorney general; another lawsuit challenging Hawaii’s strict gun laws; and an expert weighs in on how a New York City gun law might fare when it’s up against the Supreme Court. Those stories and more in your Monday roundup.
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WHAT TO KNOW TODAY
NEW from THE TRACE: The variable ramifications of the Supreme Court’s upcoming gun case. The first gun case the Court has heard in nearly a decade concerns a very specific local regulation: New York City’s “premises permit,” which allows holders to keep guns in their homes and transport them, locked and unloaded, to one of the city’s seven shooting ranges. To understand its ramifications, Jennifer Mascia spoke with Second Amendment scholar Eric Ruben, who explains that the case’s impact will depend on how broad the justices’ ruling is. Read her full Q+A here.
More than two dozen New Mexico sheriffs say they oppose new gun restrictions. The state AG says tough luck. At least 26 counties have passed “Second Amendment sanctuary” resolutions in response to a new state law that will require background checks on all gun sales and transfers (with a few exceptions). In a letter sent to every state law enforcement department last week, Attorney General Hector Balderas wrote, “We do not have the freedom to pick and choose which state laws we enforce.” He warned that a police chief or sheriff who isn’t enforcing the law could be held liable if a prohibited person obtains a gun through a private sale and later commits a crime with it.
Lead contamination at a gun range where federal agents train got so bad that one officer had blood lead levels seven times the recommended maximum. Yet according to documents obtained by The Buffalo News, Customs and Border Protection only temporarily ceased its trainings at the upstate New York gun range. As recently as last year, high levels of lead were still found in parts of the facility, which has since undergone lead abatement. From the archives: Lead is a primary component of most ammunition, and environmental regulation of most gun ranges is lax. The result, according to multiple studies, is that employees and customers of gun ranges are at high risk of lead exposure.
Three people were killed in two shootings in West Memphis, Arkansas, overnight on Friday. Two men were fatally shot at a private club and another man was injured. Shortly thereafter, police responded to a call from a nearby home where a 23-year-old woman was killed while playing video games with her children. Police have put out warrants for two men in connection with the club shooting, but have not commented on potential suspects in the woman’s death.
A British-born Hawaii resident has filed his third lawsuit against the state’s gun regulations. At issue? Strict state laws that Andrew Roberts, who’s lived in Hawaii for 12 years, says prevent him from obtaining a gun license. Federal law allows “resident legal aliens,” as they are formally called, to purchase and own guns, but states can bar certain types of guns and regulate carrying guns in public spaces.
ONE LAST THING
“I am at my wit’s end. I can no longer function normally on a daily basis.” That’s what shooting survivor Morgan Egedahl wrote on a GoFundMe page to raise money for in-patient mental healthcare to treat the PTSD she says she developed after her best friend was killed in a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 2015. Egedahl herself was shot multiple times, and was hospitalized for weeks after the shooting.
The hundreds of thousands of people throughout the United States who are living with gunshot injuries often feel isolated — as The Trace’s Elizabeth Van Brocklin reported in a podcast series last year — both from each other and from the outside world: “It’s completely lonely when you’re in this and you don’t have contact with anyone else who’s been through it,” Egedahl said in an interview with The Advocate.
