Featured Story
T.Rex Arms, a family-run, Christian, firearms accessory company, is one of the most prominent actors in the gun influencer ecosphere, with more than 1.5 million YouTube subscribers. But alongside its videos offering product reviews and shooting tips is a wide range of political content, covering “every single one of the narratives that we’ve seen emerge out of the right-wing space,” as one extremism researcher put it, and “laying it out there that tyranny is coming and needs to be resisted with arms.” [Mother Jones]
Elections
In Vermont, electioneering and anti-intimidation laws prevent voters from wearing “a T-shirt with a candidate’s name on it inside a polling place,” said state Representative Angela Arsenault, but not from carrying guns into voting sites. “Those two things just don’t add up” in 2024, Arsenault told The Trace’s Chip Brownlee: “There is a very different gun culture that exists right now, one that has nothing to do with hunting and responsible gun ownership, and everything to do with violence and fear and power.”
Arsenault is co-sponsoring a bill to enact restrictions on guns in polling places, making Vermont one of a growing number of states to try to limit or outright ban people from toting firearms at polling sites and ballot drop boxes ahead of the 2024 presidential election. In his latest story, Brownlee explains which states already have prohibitions in place and why the trend is happening now.
What to Know Today
Every day, police in the U.S. rely on tactics that, unlike guns, are meant to subdue people without killing them, such as physical holds. But when misused, these tactics can still end in death — as they did for more than 1,000 people from 2012 through 2021. [Associated Press]
At least seven children between the ages of 12 and 17 were wounded in a shooting in downtown Indianapolis on Saturday. The event marked the third weekend in a row that police in the city responded to a mass shooting. [CNN]
In Nassau County, New York, a plan to deputize citizens with gun licenses to assist law enforcement during emergencies is generating controversy. The head of the county government, a Republican, did not seek legislative approval for the plan. [CBS New York]
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed 30 firearm safety bills last week, following a legislative session in which Democrats identified gun reform as a priority. Youngkin did sign two gun bills — one banning the sale or possession of auto sears, and another creating a felony for parents who fail to prevent a child deemed a credible threat from accessing a firearm — and proposed amendments for six others. [Courthouse News]
Archive
As Midterms Loom, Right Wingers Are Revving Up the Faithful With Talk of Religion and Guns: Extremism experts warn that a new crop of ideologues using voter fraud conspiracy theories and religious appeals are pushing their followers toward armed rebellion. (September 2022)
