(NEW YORK) — Darien Richardson, a 25-year-old woman in Maine, was sleeping in her apartment when armed intruders burst in and shot her several times in January 2010.
Her boyfriend survived the incident, but after weeks in the hospital, she died the following month due to complications from her gunshot wounds, Portland police said.
Finding her assailant seemed possible when authorities discovered that the handgun used to shoot her was apparently recovered at the scene of another murder, according to her family and news reports. But they were not able to trace it to the person who shot Darien.
“A sad and unfortunate twist in this case is that a little more than a month after Darien and her boyfriend were shot, the same gun was used in a murder on Park Avenue here in Portland,” Portland Police Assistant Chief Vernon Malloch told the Bangor Daily News in 2012. “That case is solved. We recovered the firearm. We know that it’s the same gun that killed both people. Unfortunately, we don’t know where the gun came from.”
The person who pulled the trigger remains a mystery in part due to a major loophole in the nation’s gun background check system: a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) investigation traced the gun back to a private sale at a Maine gun show, where the first owner sold it to someone he didn’t know, without a background check and without any record of the sale, the Bangor Daily News reported authorities said.
Not only did the loophole make the crime harder to solve, but it may also have made it easier for the crime to be committed in the first place.
(NEW YORK) — Remains found in a Southern California desert have been identified as 30-year-old Lauren “El” Cho, a New Jersey woman who was missing for months, authorities said.
Her cause and manner of death are pending toxicology results, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday.
The remains were recovered on Oct. 9 during a search for Cho “in the rugged terrain of the open desert of Yucca Valley,” the sheriff’s department said. Cho was reported missing on June 28 “when she reportedly walked away” from the Yucca Valley home where she was staying, the sheriff’s department said.
The search for Cho was launched this summer and included planes searching the remote mountain terrain and canines scouring the area for evidence, the sheriff’s office said.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 743,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 67.4% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 29, 10:18 am
Montana, Idaho leading nation in death rates
In recent weeks, cases have been creeping up in Alaska, Alabama, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont and Washington, according to federal data.
The nation’s daily death average has dropped by about 36.3% in the last month, but it remains persistently high, around 1,150 new deaths reported each day.
Montana currently has the country’s highest death rate, followed by Idaho and West Virginia, according to federal data.
Oct 28, 12:44 pm
Florida files lawsuit against Biden administration over vaccine mandate for federal contractors
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, arguing that the vaccine mandate for federal contractors is “unconstitutional.”
“Florida companies, public and private, receive millions of dollars in federal contracts annually and will be negatively impacted by the unlawful requirements,” a statement from Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said.
DeSantis said in a statement, “The federal government is exceeding their power and it is important for us to take a stand because in Florida we believe these are choices based on individual circumstances.”
Oct 28, 11:37 am
Global cases, deaths on the rise for 1st time in 2 months
The global number of COVID-19 cases and deaths are now increasing for the first time in two months, largely driven by an ongoing rise in Europe that outweighs declines in other regions, W.H.O. Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday.
The highest case increases in the last two weeks were in the Czech Republic (up by 234%), Hungary (up by 200%) and Poland (up by 183%), according to the W.H.O.
The director-general attributed ongoing infections “in large part” to inequitable access to tests and vaccines.
“Eighty-times more tests, and 30 times more vaccines, have been administered in high-income countries than low-income countries,” Tedros said. “If the 6.8 billion vaccine doses administered globally so far had been distributed equitably, we would have reached our 40% target in every country by now.”
(MANCHESTER, Md.) — A recreational youth football game in Maryland that devolved into a brawl among at least 30 people has resulted in accusations of racism and charges against two white adults are accused of assaulting two Black minors from the opposing team.
The game between the Olney Bears, a team with predominantly Black and Hispanic children, and the North Carroll Colts, which predominantly was composed of white children, took place in Christmas Tree Park in Manchester, Maryland, on Sept. 25.
Police and North Carroll Rec Council officials say they have so far found no evidence that racism played a part in the scuffle.
Multiple parents who spoke with ABC News described a tense environment that was heightened because parents from both teams were on the same sideline.
Olney was winning when a heated disagreement over a referee’s call exacerbated tensions and referees called off the game early, according to police and multiple witnesses who added that the brawl broke out as coaches, parents and players walked off the field.
“[The game] disgustingly ended with approximately 30 persons in a melee, which is a very rare occurrence,” Manchester Police Chief John Hess told ABC News on Sunday. “The single officer on scene at the start was forced to use pepper spray to defuse the situation because his clear verbal commands were ignored, and the melee was escalating as he was waiting for multiple support units to arrive.”
NAACP calls on athletes not to sign with Texas teams over voting, abortion laws
Criminal charges and disciplinary action
According to court documents and police, Nicole Starr Ellis, 31 and Keith Gregory Lockner, 32, each were charged with second-degree assault against two 13-year-old Black players.
According to the District Court of Maryland for Carroll County, a trial is scheduled for Dec. 7. Joseph Ashley, an attorney representing Ellis, told ABC News on Wednesday that his client denies “all allegation of uttering racial epitaphs and of assaulting anyone.” Attorney Frank Turney, who’s representing Lockner, declined to comment to ABC News on Thursday.
According to court documents obtained by ABC News, a 13-year-old Olney player whose name was withheld to protect his identity, allegedly was punched by Lockner. Ellis is accused of assaulting KC Robinson, the son of Olney head coach Kirk Robinson.
The Carroll County Youth Football League to which both teams belong told ABC News that the executive board launched an investigation last month that’s so far led to the expulsion or suspension of several individuals associated with both teams.
“As additional details emerge the CCYFL will continue to evaluate and take further actions as necessary,” the executive board said in a statement to ABC News. “The League has a zero-tolerance policy for any physical altercations on its sidelines and unfortunately the decisions made by a few adults has impacted the season.”
The league would not disclose the names of those who faced disciplinary action, but Kirk Robinson confirmed that he was one of them.
According to Robinson, he initially was suspended for two games for using foul language during the game after he disagreed with a refereeing decision, but later he was banned for life from coaching in the league or attending games.
Robinson told ABC News he thinks that decision is unfair because he was defending his family.
“My job is to protect the kids that are on the field … and I’m paying the consequences for it,” he added. “You can’t tell me that any adult is going to be OK with — whether their child’s Black or white — being assaulted by another adult.”
Robinson’s wife, Amanda Robinson, told ABC News she witnessed the alleged assault against the first child.
LaTasha Robinson, KC Robinson’s mother, said that following confrontations involving Ellis, Lockner and parents of Olney players, there was pushing and shoving as they walked through the crowd. Amid the commotion, she said KC fell to the ground after he was allegedly assaulted by Ellis.
“He was upset, he was hurt,” LaTasha Robinson said. “You don’t just swing into a crowd and there’s kids there.”
Allegations of racism
Several individuals associated with the Olney team who were present at the game, including family members of the two 13-year-olds who were allegedly assaulted, claimed that their children were subjected to racial slurs by North Carroll players and parents.
Tamisha, the sister of the first child who was allegedly assaulted, told ABC News that her brother was crying so hard afterward that he “couldn’t even catch his breath.”
Tamisha said that her brother scored two touchdowns, and as tensions were getting high before the scuffle broke out, he and his teammates were being taunted throughout the game by individuals associated with North Carroll.
“I went over to him originally … and I just asked him if he was OK, and he said, ‘They’re calling me the N-word, they’re calling us the N-word, They’re taunting us.’ And I said, don’t worry about that, go to your coaches, just stay with them,” she said.
Hess told ABC News there is no evidence of racial slurs on various spectator videos obtained by police, but it’s unclear how much footage is out there and the criminal case is still open.
North Carroll Rec Council President Andy Kiler told ABC News on Sunday that the North Carroll Colts executive board took disciplinary action against several individuals, but “racist remarks have not been found, which includes an investigation by police that included video and conversations with those at the event.”
“NCRC takes all accusations of any type of discrimination very seriously, and we do not tolerate that type of behavior within our programs,” he added. “Our review has concluded unless new information is brought to our attention.”
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — New York City firefighters and other city workers protested outside the mayor’s residence Thursday, as a COVID-19 vaccination deadline quickly approaches.
Nearly all municipal employees, including police officers, sanitation workers and firefighters, have until 5 p.m. Friday to submit proof of receiving at least one dose of vaccine. Those who don’t get vaccinated will be placed on unpaid leave, starting Monday, for at least 30 days, and their future employment will be resolved in negotiations with individual labor unions. Uniformed correction officers have until Dec. 1 to show proof of vaccination.
The city’s firefighters’ unions organized Thursday’s anti-vaccine mandate rally, which filled the entire block in front of Gracie Mansion, home to Mayor Bill de Blasio. Municipal employees, including FDNY union members, and others gathered, some holding signs that said “My body my choice” and “Coercion is not consent.”
Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York President Andrew Ansbro previously told reporters that “a lot” of the union’s members were “still struggling with making this decision.” James McCarthy, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, has also argued that the deadline, announced on Oct. 20, is “not enough time to make a retirement decision if you are going to retire from this job.”
Ansbro has warned of a “catastrophic manpower shortage” if some 3,500 firefighters who are currently unvaccinated are unable to report to work. The FDNY said Wednesday that 65% of its members were vaccinated.
The mayor stood by his vaccine mandate Thursday, saying there are no plans to change the deadline.
“My job is to keep people safe, my employees, and 8.8 million people, and until we defeat COVID, people are not safe,” de Blasio said during a press briefing. “If we don’t stop COVID, New Yorkers will die. We must, must stop COVID and the way to do that is vaccination. And that must include our public employees.”
On potential shortages in the city’s fire, police and sanitation departments, de Blasio said that the agencies are “confident” about contingency plans, and that the city has anticipated that “a lot of the vaccinations would happen toward the end of the deadline.”
Overall, 86% of the city’s 300,000-plus workforce is vaccinated, de Blasio said. That includes school and hospital employees who faced earlier deadlines.
For outstanding city workers, that number drops to 76%, including 74% of police officers and 67% of sanitation workers, he said.
“We are very confident those numbers are going to go up a lot,” de Blasio said.
Legal challenges to pause the city’s vaccination mandate have so far been unsuccessful.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 740,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 67.3% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 28, 12:44 pm
Florida files lawsuit against Biden administration over vaccine mandate for federal contractors
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, arguing that the vaccine mandate for federal contractors is “unconstitutional.”
“Florida companies, public and private, receive millions of dollars in federal contracts annually and will be negatively impacted by the unlawful requirements,” a statement from Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said.
DeSantis said in a statement, “The federal government is exceeding their power and it is important for us to take a stand because in Florida we believe these are choices based on individual circumstances.”
Oct 28, 11:15 am
Global cases, deaths on the rise for 1st time in 2 months
The global number of COVID-19 cases and deaths are now increasing for the first time in two months, largely driven by an ongoing rise in Europe that outweighs declines in other regions, W.H.O. Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday.
The highest case increases in the last two weeks were in the Czech Republic (up by 234%), Hungary (up by 200%) and Poland (up by 183%), according to the W.H.O.
The director-general attributed ongoing infections “in large part” to inequitable access to tests and vaccines.
“Eighty-times more tests, and 30 times more vaccines, have been administered in high-income countries than low-income countries,” Tedros said. “If the 6.8 billion vaccine doses administered globally so far had been distributed equitably, we would have reached our 40% target in every country by now.”
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Oct 28, 10:11 am
5 states see hospital admissions jump by at least 15%
Hospital admissions have fallen by about 55% since late August, according to federal data.
But five states have seen at least a 15% increase in hospital admissions over the last two weeks: Alaska (21.7%), Colorado (15.9%), Maine (35.3%), New Hampshire (38.9%) and New Mexico (19.6%).
Alaska currently has the country’s highest infection rate, followed by Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Idaho.
The U.S. reported approximately 1,600 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday alone. Deaths are about 1.5 times higher in non-metropolitan areas than in metropolitan areas, according to federal data.
Oct 28, 9:38 am
Colorado ICU beds at lowest point of pandemic
Colorado’s number of ICU beds is at the lowest point of the pandemic following a dramatic spike in hospitalizations and the winding down of extra beds added in the last surge.
Colorado currently has 1,191 COVID-19 patients, according to state data, and 29% of hospitals anticipate an ICU bed shortage in the next week.
State health officials told ABC News that hospitals in El Paso County have turned away transfer requests over the lack of beds.
“We are continuing to move very much in the wrong direction,” Scott Bookman, the state’s COVID-19 chief, said at a briefing.
Oct 27, 6:43 pm
New York City braces for possible mandate-related reduction in fire, EMS service
New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Wednesday he’s preparing to make major operational changes next week as significant portion of the city’s firefighters and EMS personnel haven’t complied with the city’s vaccine mandate.
“We will use all means at our disposal, including mandatory overtime, mutual aid from other EMS providers, and significant changes to the schedules of our members,” he said in a statement.
The mandate for all New York City public employees will go into effect at the end of day Friday. The FDNY said that 65% of its members were vaccinated as of Wednesday.
An FDNY official told ABC News that by Monday fire and ambulance services could be reduced by as much as 20%.
FDNY leadership has held virtual meetings with uniformed staff explaining the vaccine mandate and imploring them to comply, and will continue doing so throughout the week, the official said.
Oct 27, 3:29 pm
CDC advisers to vote Nov. 2 on pediatric vaccines
The CDC’s independent advisors plan to discuss and hold a non-binding vote on the recommendations for the pediatric vaccine on Nov. 2.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will likely endorse those recommendations for 5 to 11-year-olds following the vote that day.
Vaccinations can start as soon as Walensky sends out final recommendations.
Meanwhile, the FDA’s decision to authorize the pediatric vaccine is expected in the coming days.
Oct 27, 10:22 am
Nearly two-thirds of Americans have had at least 1 vaccine dose
Nearly two-thirds of all Americans — 220 million people — have had at least one vaccine dose, according to federal data.
But 111 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated, including about 48 million children under the age of 12, who are not yet eligible to get the shot.
National metrics continue to fall, according to federal data. About 51,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, down from 104,000 patients at the end of August
Deaths are are trending down, though numbers remain quite high at over 1,100 fatalities each day.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Thursday announced it had reached settlements with the families of victims murdered by Dylann Roof in the 2015 Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting.
Families had sued the federal government in 2016 because Roof was able to purchase a gun to carry out the shooting, despite having a prior criminal history.
The civil case has since made its way through the court system, with a federal appeals court ruling that families could sue the government.
The shooting, which took place in June 2015 at the Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, killed nine African American worshippers.
“These settlements will resolve claims by 14 plaintiffs arising out of the shooting. Plaintiffs agreed to settle claims alleging that the FBI was negligent when it failed to prohibit the sale of a gun by a licensed firearms dealer to the shooter, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, who wanted to start a “race war” and specifically targeted the 200-year-old historically African-American congregation,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
“For those killed in the shooting, the settlements range from $6 million to $7.5 million per claimant. For the survivors, the settlements are for $5 million per claimant,” the DOJ statement said.
Roof, an avowed white supremacist, was sentenced to death, the first person to get the death penalty for a federal hate crime.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LOS ANGELES) — A California school safety officer has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old unarmed woman.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced the charge against former Long Beach Unified School safety officer Eddie Gonzalez, whose arraignment is scheduled for Friday at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, Long Beach Branch. The case remains under investigation by Long Beach police.
“We must hold accountable the people we have placed in positions of trust to protect us,” Gascón said in a statement. “That is especially true for the armed personnel we traditionally have relied upon to guard our children on their way to and from and at school.”
On Sept. 27, Gonzalez was patrolling an area near Millikan High School in Long Beach when he noticed a physical altercation between the 18-year-old, Manuela Rodriguez, and a teenage girl.
Rodriguez tried to leave the scene and hopped into the rear passenger seat of a nearby car when Gonzalez allegedly fired his handgun at the vehicle and hit Rodriguez.
She was taken to a hospital, where she died Oct. 5. Rodriguez is said to have suffered brain damage before being declared brain dead and taken off life support, according to her family’s attorneys.
“Not only did he commit a horrible crime, he destroyed an entire family,” attorney Luis Carrillo said at a press conference.
Gonzalez was fired the following day by the Long Beach Board of Education for violating the district’s use-of-force policy.
According to school officials, the policy states that officers “shall not fire at a fleeing person,” “shall not fire at a moving vehicle” and “shall not fire through a vehicle window unless circumstances clearly warrant the use of a firearm as a final means of defense.”
In a statement, district school board officials said: “We will continue to monitor the progress of the criminal case and will defer questions on investigatory matters to law enforcement. We acknowledge the impact of this tragedy and we again extend our sincerest condolences to everyone who has been impacted, especially the family, friends and loved ones of the shooting victim, Manuela Rodriguez.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 740,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 67.3% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 28, 10:11 am
5 states see hospital admissions jump by at least 15%
Hospital admissions have fallen by about 55% since late August, according to federal data.
But five states have seen at least a 15% increase in hospital admissions over the last two weeks: Alaska (21.7%), Colorado (15.9%), Maine (35.3%), New Hampshire (38.9%) and New Mexico (19.6%).
Alaska currently has the country’s highest infection rate, followed by Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Idaho.
The U.S. reported approximately 1,600 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday alone. Deaths are about 1.5 times higher in non-metropolitan areas than in metropolitan areas, according to federal data.
Oct 28, 9:38 am
Colorado ICU beds at lowest point of pandemic
Colorado’s number of ICU beds is at the lowest point of the pandemic following a dramatic spike in hospitalizations and the winding down of extra beds added in the last surge.
Colorado currently has 1,191 COVID-19 patients, according to state data, and 29% of hospitals anticipate an ICU bed shortage in the next week.
State health officials told ABC News that hospitals in El Paso County have turned away transfer requests over the lack of beds.
“We are continuing to move very much in the wrong direction,” Scott Bookman, the state’s COVID-19 chief, said at a briefing.
Oct 27, 6:43 pm
New York City braces for possible mandate-related reduction in fire, EMS service
New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Wednesday he’s preparing to make major operational changes next week as significant portion of the city’s firefighters and EMS personnel haven’t complied with the city’s vaccine mandate.
“We will use all means at our disposal, including mandatory overtime, mutual aid from other EMS providers, and significant changes to the schedules of our members,” he said in a statement.
The mandate for all New York City public employees will go into effect at the end of day Friday. The FDNY said that 65% of its members were vaccinated as of Wednesday.
An FDNY official told ABC News that by Monday fire and ambulance services could be reduced by as much as 20%.
FDNY leadership has held virtual meetings with uniformed staff explaining the vaccine mandate and imploring them to comply, and will continue doing so throughout the week, the official said.
Oct 27, 3:29 pm
CDC advisers to vote Nov. 2 on pediatric vaccines
The CDC’s independent advisors plan to discuss and hold a non-binding vote on the recommendations for the pediatric vaccine on Nov. 2.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will likely endorse those recommendations for 5 to 11-year-olds following the vote that day.
Vaccinations can start as soon as Walensky sends out final recommendations.
Meanwhile, the FDA’s decision to authorize the pediatric vaccine is expected in the coming days.
Oct 27, 10:22 am
Nearly two-thirds of Americans have had at least 1 vaccine dose
Nearly two-thirds of all Americans — 220 million people — have had at least one vaccine dose, according to federal data.
But 111 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated, including about 48 million children under the age of 12, who are not yet eligible to get the shot.
National metrics continue to fall, according to federal data. About 51,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, down from 104,000 patients at the end of August
Deaths are are trending down, though numbers remain quite high at over 1,100 fatalities each day.
This report is a part of “Rethinking Gun Violence,” an ABC News series examining the level of gun violence in the U.S. — and what can be done about it.
(NEW YORK) — In the bitter debate over gun control, battle lines are often drawn around the Second Amendment, with many in favor of gun rights pointing to it as the source of their constitutional authority to bear arms, and some in favor of tighter gun control disagreeing with that interpretation.
But if the purpose of the debate is to reduce the tragic human toll of gun violence, the focus on Second Amendment is often misplaced, according to many experts on guns and the Constitution.
They say the battle lines that actually matter have been drawn around state legislatures, which are setting the country’s landscape on guns through state laws — or sometimes, the lack thereof.
Joseph Blocher, professor of law and co-director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke Law School, described the patchwork of state laws that exists across the country as a “buffer zone” for the Second Amendment.
“Before you even get to the Constitution, there’s a huge array of other laws super protecting the right to keep and bear arms,” Blocher said. “This collection of laws is giving individuals lots of protection for gun-related activity that the Second Amendment would not necessarily require, and certainly, and in almost all of these instances, that no lower court has said the Second Amendment would require.”
Adam Winkler, a professor of law at the UCLA School of Law, also said the Second Amendment is losing its legal relevance in distinguishing lawful policies from unlawful ones as the gap between what he calls the “judicial Second Amendment” and the “aspirational Second Amendment” widens.
Winkler defines the “judicial Second Amendment” as how courts interpret the constitutional provision in their decisions, and the “aspirational Second Amendment” as how the amendment is used in political dialogue. The latter is “far more hostile to gun laws than the judicial one,” he said — and also more prevalent.
“The aspirational Second Amendment is overtaking the judicial Second Amendment in American law,” he wrote in the Indiana Law Journal in 2018, a sentiment he repeated in a recent interview with ABC News. “State law is embracing such a robust, anti-regulatory view of the right to keep and bear arms that the judicial Second Amendment, at least as currently construed, seems likely to have less and less to say about the shape of America’s gun laws.”
Winkler told ABC News the aspirational or “political” Second Amendment has become the basis for expanding gun rights in the last 40 years.
“In the judicial Second Amendment, gun rights advocates haven’t found that much protection,” Winkler said. “Where they found protection was by getting state legislatures, in the name of the Second Amendment, to legislate for permissive gun laws.”
The debate around the Second Amendment (and why some say it might be overrated)
The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads in full:
“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The role of the Second Amendment, like many constitutional rights, is to put limits on what regulations the federal government can pass, and scholars and lawyers have debated its scope since it was ratified in 1791.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision in 2008, much of the debate revolved around the meaning of a “well-regulated militia.” The Heller decision struck down a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., and established the right for individuals to have a gun for certain private purposes including self-defense in the home. The court expanded private gun ownership protection two years later in McDonald v. City of Chicago, determining that state and local governments are also bound to the Second Amendment.
“The Bill of Rights, by its terms, only applies to the federal government, but the Supreme Court, through a doctrine known as incorporation, has made almost all of its guarantees applicable against state and local governments as well. That’s what the question was in McDonald,” Blocher said. “But some states have chosen to go above and beyond what the court laid out.”
Notably, the court in Heller carved out limitations on that individual right and preserved a relatively broad range of possible gun regulation — such as allowing for their restriction in government buildings, schools and polling places — but in many instances, state legislatures have decided not to use the authority that the court has granted them.
“Most states have chosen not to use their full regulatory authority,” Blocher said. “If a state decides not to forbid people from having large-capacity magazines, for instance, that doesn’t necessarily result in a law. It can be the absence of a law that has the most impact.”
It goes back to that widening gap between the judicial Second Amendment as the courts interpret it and the aspirational Second Amendment as used in politics, according to Winkler and Blocher.
“There’s a difference between the Second Amendment as interpreted and applied by courts and the Second Amendment as it’s invoked in political discussions. And for many gun rights advocates, the political version of the Second Amendment is quite a bit more gun protective than the Second Amendment as the Supreme Court and lower courts have applied it,” he said.
Laws based on the ‘aspirational’ Second Amendment
There are a few laws many experts say bolster gun rights in ways the Second Amendment does not explicitly require.
In more than 40 states, preemption laws expressly limit cities from regulating guns — with some going so far as to impose punitive damages such as fines and lawsuits on officials who challenge the state’s rules. This means, even if a highly populated city had overwhelming support to pass a local ordinance regulating guns, a preemption law in the state would restrict local officials from taking any action.
After the National Rifle Association formed its own political action committee in 1977, it began targeting state legislatures with the preemption model and found it was a more effective way to bolster the rights of gun owners than going through Congress.
The effort picked up momentum when a challenge, on Second Amendment grounds, to a local ordinance in Illinois banning handgun ownership failed in 1982 — years ahead of the 2008 Heller decision. So, he said, the NRA raised the specter of Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove to lobby for preemption laws in order to lessen local governments’ abilities to regulate guns in the first place.
In 1979, two states in the U.S. had full preemption and five states had partial preemption laws. By 1989, 18 states had full preemption laws and three had partial, according to Kristin Goss in her book “Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America.”
“There’s been a concerted effort by gun rights organizations to enact gun-friendly legislation in the states. And they do so using the rhetoric of the Second Amendment, even though nothing about the Second Amendment necessarily requires the state to pass such legislation,” said Darrell Miller, another expert on gun law at Duke University School of Law.
While a densely populated area with a high crime rate may want to enact stricter gun policies not necessarily suited for other areas in a state, preemption laws restrict local governments from doing so.
For example, in Colorado, a preemption law had prevented cities and municipalities from passing gun regulation measures. Boulder tried to ban semi-automatic weapons in 2018 after a gunman with an AR-15-style rifle opened fire at a high school in Parkland, Florida, leaving 17 dead and surpassing the Columbine High School shooting as the deadliest high school shooting in American history.
But a state court struck down the ban on March 12 of this year — 10 days before a 21-year-old man with a semi-automatic Ruger AR-556 pistol killed 10 people at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder. The judge’s decision did not hang on the Second Amendment but rather a violation of Colorado’s preemption law.
Colorado in June became the first state to repeal its preemption law — a move gun-regulation activists such as those at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence have hailed as a reflection of what voters want. More than half of Americans support more gun regulation, according to data from recent surveys by Pew Research Center and Gallup.
There’s also the presence of “permitless carry regimes,” said Jake Charles, another gun law expert at Duke University, which is when legislatures interpret the Second Amendment as giving individuals the right to bear arms in public without a permit, an interpretation the Supreme Court has not made.
In all 50 states, it is legal to carry a concealed handgun in public, subject to varying restrictions depending on the state, but at least 20 do not require permits for either open or concealed carry of firearms, with Texas becoming the latest to enact what advocates call “constitutional carry.”
Permitless or “constitutional carry” is not something the Supreme Court’s reading of the Second Amendment currently calls for.
Experts say that could change.
In New York state, a person is currently required to prove a special need for self-protection outside the home to receive a permit to carry a concealed firearm. A challenge to the constitutionality of a “may-issue” permit law, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett, will be heard by the Supreme Court this fall — the court’s first major case on guns in a decade, coming as the makeup of the court swings right due to three appointments from former President Donald Trump.
“There are about half a dozen states which have laws similar to New York’s, so if the court strikes it down, we can expect to see challenges to those states’ laws in short order,” Blocher said.
The partisan debate continues
Allison Anderman, senior counsel at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, stressed that, in part because of the influence of state statutes, the Second Amendment should not be a barrier to gun regulation.
She also said that because the Second Amendment’s political definition is entrenched in the true, judicial one, the debate surrounding it gets muddied up and the passion is, perhaps, misplaced.
“It’s a rallying cry. It’s easy. It’s a sound bite,” she said. “But the Second Amendment gets thrown around politically in a way that’s not based in law.”
Blocher agreed and argued the Second Amendment debate is among the most partisan in the nation.
“The gun debate has gone far beyond judicial interpretations of the Second Amendment and these days has much more to do with personal, political and partisan identity,” he said.
