school shootings

COMMENTARY

With expulsion of Tennessee Black lawmakers, Republicans lost Gen Z. Here’s how.

BY: - April 12, 2023

Following a school shooting in Nashville last month, hundreds of protesters gathered in the Tennessee capital demanding lawmakers act to address the out of control gun violence that once again unnecessarily took innocent lives. In response, the Tennessee’s Republican-controlled state House took the historic and extraordinary action of expelling two Black Democratic lawmakers for joining […]

22 Ohio school districts have staff members authorized to carry weapons on school grounds

BY: - March 31, 2023

Twenty-two Ohio school districts and one Christian school have staff members who are either authorized or in the training process to carry weapons on school grounds as of Wednesday, according to the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 99 — which grants local boards of education authority to decide […]

COMMENTARY

A grim theory on how we get gun safety laws

BY: - March 29, 2023

TENNESSEE — Nashville-based writers already have written movingly about the tragic gun crime at Covenant School, yet another school shooting — this one took the lives of three children and three adults. Let me add this perspective from only a modest distance away, my adopted home of Knoxville is less than a 3-hour drive east […]

3 kids, 3 adults killed in shooting at Nashville private elementary school

BY: - March 27, 2023

Story a staff report from States Newsroom’s Tennessee Lookout. Among the victims are three 9-year-old children: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney. The adult victims are Cynthia Peak, 61,  Mike Hill, 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60. Police said Peak was a substitute teacher, Hill a custodian and Koonce Covenant’s head of school. The shooter, […]

U.S. House panel advances assault weapons ban on party-line vote

BY: - July 22, 2022

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Judiciary Committee late Wednesday passed  legislation that would ban certain semi-automatic weapons, in a renewed push to ban the guns most commonly used in recent mass shootings. The party-line 25-18 vote followed recent mass shootings in which AR-15 style rifles were used — in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and […]

U.S. Senate moves forward on gun safety legislation

BY: - June 23, 2022

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate is poised to pass a bipartisan bill later this week that could become the most comprehensive federal gun safety legislation in years, including billions in new mental health funding. Senators on a procedural vote late Tuesday agreed 64-34 to start debate on the gun control bill, which would also have to be passed […]

Ohio lawmaker who wrote bill requiring gun training for teachers owns gun training business

BY: - June 20, 2022

The following article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.   The Republican lawmaker who drafted the training curriculum that schools would […]

Effects of gun violence on kids probed by U.S. Senate committee

BY: - June 16, 2022

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday examined the public health effect gun violence has on children. “Guns are killing our kids at a devastating rate,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chair of the committee, said in his opening statement. The hearing followed the May 24 mass school shooting in which 19 children and […]

COMMENTARY

Growing up with school shootings hardened my generation in ways you don’t understand

BY: - June 13, 2022

When the voices of 70 elementary school students flooded the speakers of Busch Stadium in St. Louis, I was haunted by the ghosts of my own childhood fears. Four days earlier, 19 children about the same age were murdered in their own classroom, along with two teachers, at Robb Elementary School in Texas. As the […]

U.S. Senate Republicans block bill requiring agencies monitor domestic terrorism

BY: - May 27, 2022

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a bill that would require federal agencies to monitor domestic terrorism incidents, including those potentially related to white supremacy. The failure of the Senate procedural vote showed again how difficult it is for Congress to agree on any response to U.S. gun violence. It followed a racist […]

Frustrated Democrats call for GOP help on federal gun laws after mass school shooting

BY: - May 26, 2022

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday implored Senate Republicans to work with Democrats to pass bipartisan gun control legislation, following a mass school shooting that took the lives of 19 children and two teachers in Texas. Tuesday’s massacre was the nation’s second-deadliest mass school shooting since another at Sandy Hook Elementary […]