Before we begin, bear in mind the following instances of gun violence. In the past few days, five people - including an eight year old boy - were shot and killed after they asked their neighbor to not discharge his AR-15 during nighttime; five people were shot, with one killed, while seated in a doctor’s office waiting room; four people were shot and killed in their apartment.
I began to write this on May 3, the 123rd day of 2023. According to the Gun Violence Archive, through the 123 days of 2023 there have been 191 mass shootings. During this same period, there have been 14,223 people killed by guns. An additional 11,320 were injured as a result of gun violence. And it’s not yet Memorial Day.
These statistics will hopefully place in stark relief the necessity for gun reform legislation, and place in context those who oppose these reforms.
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One of the reasons for the delay between Parts I and II (Read Part I if you haven’t yet) is that I had to rewatch several hours of Judiciary Committee witness testimony recorded on Capitol TV. As painful as some of it might have been, reviewing it was exponentially worse. Although I didn’t start off with a headache, by the time I was finished I had developed a real ripper of one.
Recall that there were several gun reform bills being considered, all of them as of May 3rd were being held for “further study.” Given the observable pulse of the Committee, the bills will eventually be voted onto the House floor where the will be passed by a comfortable majorities. My guess that average vote will be 60 in the affirmative and 15 opposed. And from there they will be transmitted to the state senate where anything could happen.
The choreography of these Committee hearings always interests me. Usually committees are populated by proponents and opponents of a given bill. Sponsors of proposed legislation, which may include members of the committee having jurisdiction over the subject matter of the legislation, “introduce” and explain the purpose of the bill. They then will take questions from other committee members who support or oppose the bill.
Then comes the public testimony, again in support or opposition of a bill. In the case of the instant gun reform legislation, multiple bills. The committee members ask questions of the individual or group giving testimony. This continues until all public testimony has been given, setting up the sometimes glacial process leading to the final disposition of the bill.
If a bill is voted out of committee and, in this case, onto the House floor, and there receives a majority of votes in favor, it will be sent onto the Senate where the same sequence occurs. And if approved by the Senate, it’s sent to the governor for his signature or veto.
As indicated in Part I, there are any number of ways any piece of legislation can get derailed. Leadership could have an agenda that could be upended by a given bill. Outside groups with outsized influence could exert pressure on legislators to vote a bill down.
Or, as happens every once in a while, in part because Rhode Island has a part time legislature scheduled to sit for six months each year, and because both chambers must vote to approve any bill that is sent to the governor, there’s a fair amount of negotiating and trading between the chambers. In the final days of the session, hundreds of bills will be voted up or down, often without a clear understanding of what’s being voted on. Lost in that process are “good” bills (depending on one’s perspective) while “bad” legislation (again perspective) is passed and sent to the governor.
If there is any certainty in this process it’s that nothing is certain until the gavel is dropped adjourning the chamber until the following January.
And once in a while, a bill’s prime sponsor might be out of favor with the chamber’s leader and sent to legislative Siberia. From there the sponsor’s bill has as much chance of passage as the proverbial snowball’s chance in…well, not Siberia.
Not exactly School House Rock’s version of “How A Bill Becomes A Law.” Or any episode of “The West Wing.”
There’s a lot to be learned from individual committee members as they approach legislation and testimony. For instance, one of the Vice Chairs of the Judiciary Committee was a proponent of the gun reform legislation, particularly a ban on assault style weapons. His chief opponent was the Republican minority leader who tried to poke holes in the Vice Chair’s assertions.
For example, when the Vice Chair cited polling data indicating broad public support for gun reform legislation, particularly assault weapons bans, safe storage laws, universal registration, and conceal carry legislation, the minority leader cited two state referenda voted on in the 2022 midterms. One that imposed restrictions on gun ownership was passed by about 1% (in Oregon), and another that enshrined gun rights (in Iowa) was passed overwhelmingly by the voters. The minority leader asserted that these results indicate that polls couldn’t be trusted.
The minority leader ignores the basic reality of our times, that elections reflect the will of the majority of those who bother to show up and vote. Too often a minority of those registered to vote comes out to vote. To use voting results to challenge scientific polling data, replicated by a series of polls over an expanse of time is just misplaced. And weak.
Of special interest to me were the public opponents who gave testimony at the hearing: Black Guns Matter and The Second Amendment Coalition. The first I’d never heard of, the second is the Rhode Island affiliate of the National Rifle Association.
Black Guns Matter
I had never heard of this group. Headed by Maj Toure, it was formed in Philadelphia in 2016. I Googled (interesting what we use as verbs these days) the organization to learn of its mission, organization, leadership, history and programs. Instead of any of this I was brought to a page selling shirts. On the other hand it does have a Wikipedia page describing its assertion that gun control is “racist” and that education in conflict resolution was more effective than gun control.
At the April 17 committee hearing, Mr. Toure argued that educating the black community of the laws regarding gun ownership would reduce crime in minority communities, the functional equivalent of a good guy with a gun. He said he had twice visited Providence to conduct trainings but didn’t disclose when and where he conducted these trainings.
As support for Toure’s assertion that all gun control was “racist,” he cited the book “Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms” by Nicholas Johnson, law professor at Fordham Law School. Clearly it is beyond dispute that unarmed blacks were at the mercy of armed whites, especially during the 1950s -1960s civil rights movement. But to assert, as Mr. Toure did in his testimony, that if law enforcement knew that more blacks were legally armed, there would be less instances of police violence, I think is wishful thinking.
Mr. Toure claimed to have “thousands” of members but said he didn’t have any membership lists. He also stated that his organization had been to all 50 states since 2016. This begged the question about how they were organized and how they were funded. I assumed that Black Guns Matter was a non-profit tax exempt organization. But when I searched in the IRS database, it was’t listed.
I then went to the Pennsylvania Department of State and discovered that Black Guns Matter was organized as a Limited Liability Company. Moreover, rather than having an actual address listed for its place of business, the LLC hired United States Corporation Agents, Inc., located in Lehigh County Pennsylvania to act as its resident agent, obviating any chance of discovering a business address for the company.
And this gave rise to the question, how does this company get its funding to continue all those countrywide trainings? Once again, Google provided the answer - crowd funding. Over the years Black Guns Matter had a GoFundMe page (with over $500,000 raised) and then in 2019 it opened a GiveSendGo account through which it’s raised an additional $180,000.
And quite by happenstance, I discovered that Amazon sells Black Guns Matter tee shirts, patches, and even a flag on its site. More swag, more ChaChing!
Look, having worked in social service agencies over the years, I’ve learned two things that are necessary to maintain credibility: transparency and accountability. Public agencies have to disclose a variety of information to maintain its their exempt status, let alone the public’s trust. Private companies don’t. I’ll let others decide how they view Black Guns Matter.
I was going to transition to the Second Amendment Coalition but such are my comments that I’ll make them in Part III. ———————————————
A post script: Today is May 6. At a shopping mall located in Allen Texas, based on early reports sixteen people were shot by a shooter dressed in tactical gear, nine killed (including the shooter) and seven wounded. Among other things, in Texas a person can open or conceal carry a firearm without a permit. There are no restrictions on long guns. There is no limit on how many guns can be carried by a person. There is no gun registration in Texas. There is no magazine restriction. There is no restriction on concealed carry on college campuses. Background checks are not required for the private sale of firearms.
But Mr. Toure, please detail once more the benefits accrued from more people being able to possess and carry firearms.
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