Pros and Cons Of Red Flag Laws

The debate over red flag laws has gone from heated to intense over the course of the past week. While there are strong majorities in favor of the legislation, a vocal minority of Republicans oppose the idea, which has been endorsed by both President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. As with any debate, there are many misconceptions on both sides about the concept.

Let’s start by admitting that we have a problem. Going back at least as far as the Tucson shooting spree by Jared Lee Loughner in 2011, it has been evident that some people with histories of mental illness were skirting gun laws to buy weapons. Loughner bought his gun legally but lied about his mental health history on the paperwork. The background check did not include information about his mental health background that would have prevented him from buying a gun. While Loughner’s case brought national prominence to the problem, he was still preceded by Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korean Virginia Tech student with a long history of mental problems.

Since then, a number of high-profile massacres have been perpetrated by active shooters with similar backgrounds. James Holmes, who had made homicidal statements to a psychiatrist, legally purchased the guns that he used to shoot 82 people in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater. Adam Lanza, who shot 30 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School, showed “severe and deteriorating internalized mental health problems” per a report on the incident. The Washington Navy Yard contractor who shot 21 people, raised red flags at his employer, but the company did not report their concerns to the government and his access to secure areas was never revoked. A victim of the school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, in which 42 people were shot, had previously told her mother two weeks before the shooting spree that she was afraid that the shooter “was going to come and kill her.” This is not an exhaustive list.

I am a gun owner, a Life Member of the NRA, and a staunch pro-Second Amendment supporter. I have never been an advocate for gun control. However, it is painfully obvious that we have a serious problem with access to guns by mentally ill and obviously violent people. This problem is killing hundreds of people every year.

Admittedly, spree killers account for only a small percentage of homicides every year, but that doesn’t diminish the seriousness of the problem. The randomness of the attacks, paired with the high body counts, sparks fear in many Americans. My company is one of many that now have annual training on how to deal with active shooter threats (“run, hide, fight”). Parents are left wondering whether a deranged student or outsider is going to kill their children at school. No one can know whether a trip to the grocery store might turn into a firefight. The problem is reminiscent of the high frequency of terrorist attacks in Israel a few years ago.

And the problem is getting worse. FBI statistics show that active shooter attacks are growing in terms of both the number of annual incidents and the number of casualties.

The question is not whether we have a problem. The question is what to do about it. Possible answers range from nothing to a total national gun ban and confiscation. The most practical solutions lie somewhere in between with most Americans rejecting both extremes. The Israelis built a wall around their country but that wouldn’t prevent most American shootings.

Traditional gun control also does little to stop active shooters while primarily impacting law-abiding gun owners. In 2018, California, which has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, had four active shooter attacks, more than any other state per FBI statistics. Illinois, another gun control state had two, the same number as Texas, which has some of the most permissive gun laws in the country. Interestingly, even though active shooter attacks have been on the rise, overall rates of violent crime have been falling since 1993. This remained true even after the “assault weapons ban” expired in 2004.

Even if a gun ban was constitutional and practical, there are enough guns in private hands that shootings would be a problem for decades to come. A determined shooter could find a gun on the black market just as easily as they can find illegal drugs today. Any attempt at nationwide gun confiscation would be a nightmare that turned law-abiding gun owners into criminals and takes law enforcement resources away from more serious crimes.

If traditional gun control isn’t the answer, neither is doing nothing. As shooting sprees dominate the headlines and body counts rise, voters are becoming more insistent that the government take action to stop shootings that often seem to have been easily preventable in hindsight. If conservatives refuse to come up with a plan to do so, Democrats would be happy to oblige.

The right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental constitutional right. Constitutional rights are not absolute, however. The fact that gun laws already are on the books and have been upheld by the courts is proof of the fact that they are permissible.

Especially where constitutional rights are concerned, the law should tread lightly, however. Regulations and limitations to rights should be as minimal as possible and should affect as few people as possible. They should also be effective and not part of a “shotgun” approach.

To determine what laws would be most effective at preventing active shooter attacks, we should look at the motives of shooters. Statistics on motives are difficult to find but shootings seem to fall into several broad categories. These include terrorism (both Islamic and white supremacist), workplace (including schools) and domestic violence, and rampages by the mentally ill.

The FBI and counterterrorism agencies have made headway against homegrown Islamic terrorists by monitoring mosques and jihadist websites. They should do the same for sites frequented by neo-Nazis and white supremacists if they aren’t doing so already. This is unlikely to work as well against workplace and school violence although the Wall Street Journal reported today that the agency wants to “aggressively monitor social media for threats.” This also raises privacy concerns.

Improving background checks is a good option. At present, background checks for gun buyers, but little mental health information is included. Much health information is proprietary to health providers as well as protected by HIPAA laws. Background checks are also subject to errors. For example, the shooter in Sutherland Springs, Texas lied about his domestic violence history when he bought his gun and then the conviction failed to show up on his background check.

But what about those people who already have guns and represent a danger to themselves or others? People who feel threatened can get a temporary protective order, a restraining order, or an injunction against someone they believe to be dangerous. Current law, however, doesn’t do anything about weapons that these people have.

So, for example, if a man threatens his ex, she can get a TPO to keep him away. If he ignores the order, he still has a gun to kill her. Even worse, waiting periods in many states mean that the ex cannot buy a gun in time to defend herself.

Red flag laws, technically called Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs), attempt to solve this problem. David French has written several excellent pieces on red flag laws this week. In particular, he has debunked many of the claims by opponents of the laws and laid out several characteristics of a good law.

Per French, “A good red-flag law is going to require that the petitioner come forward with admissible evidence, require the petitioner to carry a burden of proof and provide advance notice of the hearing to provide the respondent with an opportunity to contest the claims against him. In emergency situations — where advance notice isn’t possible or prudent — the law should provide the owner with a prompt opportunity to contest the claims against him. And, at all times, the petitioners (those seeking the seizure order) must bear the burden of proof, and respondents should be granted the right of appeal.”

Red flag laws are on the books in several states, while others, such as South Carolina have laws that create databases of people who have been adjudicated to be mentally defective. The details of state laws vary, but at least fifteen states already have some form of red flag law.

Proponents of the laws, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is “a big supporter of protective order laws – but at the local, not federal level,” say that the laws “take guns out of the hands of people that are showing disturbing signs or dangerous signs.” USA Today reports that Graham wants to create a federal grant program to encourage states to pass the laws.

Opponents of red flag laws argue that the potential for abuse is too high and that punishing people for crimes not yet committed is unconstitutional. As we have noted, the use of TPOs and other court orders to prevent crimes that have not yet occurred has a long legal history in the US, but the risk of abuse by people on the other side who see any use of guns as crazy and illegitimate is a very real concern. Any law supported by conservatives should contain strong protections for gun owners to prevent removal of guns for false reasons. A speedy appeals process is also a must.

Opponents point to a tragedy in Maryland last year as an example of why red flag laws are bad. Police served a red flag order to a man who came to the door with his gun when officers arrived at 5 a.m. Police say the man initially put the gun down but then “became irate” and picked it back up. The officers tried to disarm him, but the man fired the gun. At that point, one of the officers shot and killed the gun owner. The protective order against the man was requested by a family member, but the reason is not known.

This case is a gray area. The man would not have died that morning if the red flag order had not been served, but his reaction lends credence to the family member’s claim that he was dangerous. If he hadn’t died that morning, it is not difficult to believe that a man who would pull a gun on two police officers would have killed someone else.

“If you look at this morning’s outcome, it’s tough for us to say ‘Well, what did we prevent?’” Chief Timothy Altomare told the Capital Gazette. “Because we don’t know what we prevented or could’ve prevented. What would’ve happened if we didn’t go there at 5 a.m.?”

Maryland’s law was signed by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan in 2018. Per the Baltimore Sun, it allows “certain family members to petition a court to forbid someone exhibiting dangerous behaviors — such as amassing weapons, making threats or planning violence — from possessing or buying guns. A judge generally decides on a short-term emergency petition and a longer-term petition, usually lasting no more than a year.”

Such a law would likely have been effective at preventing the Parkland school shooting. The shooter in the 2018 massacre had a long record of problems with police and schools, including violent and suicidal behavior. Nevertheless, he legally bought the gun that he used to kill 17 people.

Opponents also argue that red flag laws are part of a slippery slope to more gun regulations and bans. It is possible that the opposite is true, however. If red flag laws prove effective at reducing spree shootings, they may actually reduce the public clamor for more gun control. Even before the most recent spate of massacres, voters were strongly in favor of legislation to keep guns out the hands of homicidal individuals. A Washington Post poll from April found that 85 percent of voters, including 84 percent of Republicans, support a law that would “take guns away from people who have been found by a judge to be a danger to themselves or others.”

Ironically, many of the people who are staunchly opposed to red flag laws were quiet when the Trump Administration unilaterally banned bump stacks with a bureaucratic redefinition of the law. The bump stock ban is likely to have no discernible effect on crime and became law without congressional action. This is a much bigger Second Amendment threat than Congress acting to target a small percentage of gun owners with violent histories.

When it comes to spree killings, America has a problem. There is no one answer, but improving background to include information on people who have dangerous mental health problems and identifying people who are known to their friends and family to be dangerous seem to be good ideas. We may also need to revisit involuntary commitment laws.

These measures are popular with voters and have minimal effect on gun owners who do not exhibit threatening behavior. A law that specifically targets homicidal and threatening individuals may be the most narrowly defined gun control ever devised.

As with many of my conservative colleagues, I remain skeptical of the left’s intent and trustworthiness on the issue, but that is not an excuse for doing nothing in the face of a growing national concern. If conservatives write a narrow law and include adequate protections for gun owners, the threat to the Second Amendment after the law’s passage might well be lower than it is today.

All this week, I’ve put out a call on social media for alternatives. While there is definitely a place for things like expanded carry rights so that good guys with guns are more likely to be on the scene when a bad guy opens fire, so far no one has come up with a better and more realistic plan to prevent homicidal maniacs from opening fire in the first place. If you have such an alternative, I’d be glad to hear it.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Details Of Jeffrey Epstein Suicide

Accused pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell of an apparent suicide this morning. Sources told NBC News that Epstein hanged himself in his jail cell and was found at about 7:30 a.m. this morning.

Epstein was transported by FDNY-EMS ambulance from Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center to New York Downtown Hospital. A New York Post photo shows an unconscious Epstein being wheeled into the hospital on a stretcher. He was in cardiac arrest when he arrived. Epstein was 66.

Epstein was arrested in July on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy. He had pleaded not guilty and was being held without bail.

Epstein's death comes hours after a federal judge unsealed hundreds of pages of court documents that provide details of Epstein's alleged abuse of young girls. The documents contain embarrassing allegations against a number of famous and influential people such as Prince Andrew, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and former US Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine).

Epstein was also friends with both President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, who were themselves friends at the time. Records show that both Trump and Clinton flew on Epstein's private jet. The documents also allege that at least one of Epstein's women was recruited from Mar-a-Lago and that Epstein hosted a dinner for Clinton on his Caribbean Island. Clinton has denied ever going to the island. So far, no accusations have emerged that either president had sex with underage girls.

Epstein was also friends with both President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, who were themselves friends at the time. Records show that both Trump and Clinton flew on Epstein's private jet. The documents also allege that at least one of Epstein's women was recruited from Mar-a-Lago and that Epstein hosted a dinner for Clinton on his Caribbean Island. Clinton has denied ever going to the island. So far, no accusations have emerged that either president had sex with underage girls.

Epstein's death is certain to revive the decades-old conspiracy theory that the Clintons are behind the deaths of more than 100 people from Vince Foster to Seth Rich. Most of these accusations have been debunked and don't stand up to close scrutiny, relying on six-degrees-of-separation and twisted facts. So far, there are no reports of any evidence that Epstein's death is the result of foul play.

Still, there are unanswered questions. Epstein reportedly survived a previous suicide attempt on July 31. Inmates who try to kill themselves are often placed on suicide watch and implements that could be used to kill themselves are removed from their cells. There is currently no information on how Epstein was able to hang himself.

Even though numerous people had reason to wish Epstein dead, there is so far no evidence that anyone acted to fulfill those wishes. As a 66-year-old man looking at a 45-year sentence, Epstein could plausibly have wanted to avoid the humiliation of a public trial followed by spending the rest of his life behind bars.

UPDATE: NBC News is reporting via Twitter that Epstein was not on suicide watch at the time of this death.

https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1160206996173414402?s=20

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trade, Not Guns, Will Decide The Election

The battle over gun control is heating up after President Trump endorsed the idea of red flag laws in the wake of two mass shootings last weekend. Even though gun control inflames passions on both sides, another story that is being all but ignored is far more likely to determine the outcome of next year’s elections.

At the same time that Donald Trump was making his pitch for new gun regulations, China was launching new salvos in the trade war. On Monday, China allowed its currency to devalue and simultaneously announced that it was halt purchases of US agricultural products. China’s move confirms that a solution to the trade dispute with China remains far off despite previous claims by the Trump Administration that a deal was near.

President Trump has essentially been painted into a corner on trade. If Trump doesn’t give in and make a deal with China, there is the increasing chance of economic fallout from his trade policies. If he does make a deal, he looks weak to his base.

While the debate over the trade war isn’t as sexy as the gun control debate, it does have more far-reaching effects. While about 30 percent of Americans own a gun, virtually every American is affected by the economy. For a president whose Electoral College victory was based on about 100,000 votes in strategic states, even a small deterioration in support could be devastating.

One of the sectors of the economy hardest hit by the trade war is agriculture. The Chinese, who are no doubt acutely aware of this fact as well as the fact that rural white men form the core of Donald Trump’s base, specifically targeted farmers in their most recent trade moves. While some polling shows that support for President Trump is still at high levels among farmers, the tariff war may help to explain why Trump’s support is abnormally low in traditionally red farm states such as Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and Texas.

The Rust Belt states that swung into the Republican column in 2016 also seem to be swinging back the other way. This may be partly due to the trade war as well. Manufacturing jobs are still be added, as they have since 2010, but new job growth in the sector has slowed since the onset of the trade war in the spring of 2018.

While gun rights is a hot button issue, it may impact the election less than many would expect. Battle lines have been drawn on the Second Amendment for decades with most Second Amendment supporters aligned with Republicans. However, the red flag law proposed by Donald Trump has split the Republican Party. FiveThirtyEight recently noted that majorities of Republican voters support red flag laws as well as gun licensing and expanded background checks, but a large minority of Republican is staunchly opposed to any new gun laws. With almost two-thirds of voters in support of new gun controls in the wake of the recent spate of mass shootings, it is questionable whether the pro-gun platform of the GOP will attract many new voters unless Democrats overplay their hand.

On the other hand, the economy has long been rated as Donald Trump’s strongest point. In July, Fox News found that 52 percent approved of the president’s handling of the economy. It was the only area in which Trump received majority approval. If the trade wars sink the economy, Trump will have little to fall back on in his quest for a second term.

But there are signs that the Trump Administration has underestimated Chinese resolve. As China has resisted his demands, the president has upped the ante by increasing tariffs repeatedly in the hopes that China can be pressured into making a deal as Mexico did. The problem is not only that China is a much larger economy than Mexico but that China is much more stable than our south-of-the-border neighbor. Where the Mexican government is weak and at times barely seems to be hanging on to control of the country, the China is an authoritarian police state that is much less vulnerable to public opinion and anger.

Even after their moves from this week, there are several ways that the Chinese could rachet up the pain for American businesses before the election. In May, China threatened to cut off the supply of rare earths, minerals used in the construction of many smart devices and weapons, to the US. China also holds more than $1 trillion in US debt. A rare earths embargo would wreak havoc on US manufacturing while a Chinese decision to dump its US Treasuries would likely trigger a panic in bond markets around the world.

So far, President Trump is standing resolute. Speaking Wednesday in Dayton, the president said, “Somebody had to do this with China because they are taking hundreds of billions of dollars a year out of the United States and somebody had to make a stand."

Trump added, "And I think our country is doing very well."

Nevertheless, it looks as though the trade war may be a long one if the president doesn’t back down. More news from this week showed that Chinese exports actually increased in July despite the previous round of tariffs. China is also shifting its agriculture purchases to Russia while President Trump considers more bailouts for American farmers.

While China has been damaged by the trade war, so has the United States. Both countries may be heading for recessions due to the trade tiff, but the Chinese government has an advantage in that they don’t have to outlast the American economy, they only have to outlast Donald Trump.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Warning Bells For 2020

In modern turbine airplanes, when something goes wrong it triggers a chime in the cockpit and a flashing light to get the pilots’ attention, along with a message that describes the problem. Problems that are serious but that aren’t yet life-threatening present an amber caution light and single chime. If a problem is serious enough, triple-chime sounds and a red warning light flashes. The chimes continue and the lights flash until the pilot presses the button to cancel the alarm. Sometimes, when things get really bad, the messages are generated so fast that the chimes are going off continuously.

Over the last week leading up to the Resurgent Gathering in Atlanta, that has been the case for the Republican Party. Warning lights have been flashing, one after another, for days on end. Last week began with a discussion about President Trump’s tweets about Baltimore. The tweets were widely interpreted to have racial overtones and, whether that was the president’s intention or not, it put a predominantly white party in the awkward position of explaining to 38 million black Americans why Donald Trump is not a racist.

The president’s tweets were not problematic only for their effect on race relations. On August 2, Mr. Trump tweeted that Kim Jong Un “has a great and beautiful vision for his country” and called the North Korean dictator “a friend” despite North Korea’s launch of two short-range missiles. The president further tweeted that “these missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement” although he conceded “there may be a United Nations violation.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1157306452228366336?s=20

Outside of Twitter, last week also gave us the abortive John Ratcliffe nomination to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence. Ratcliffe is a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, but otherwise had scant qualifications for the top intelligence post except for the fact that he seemed to have caught Trump’s attention with his questioning of Robert Mueller. With public opposition to the nomination from Democrats and little, if any, support from Republicans, President Trump withdrew the nomination on Friday, less than a week after he had made it.

Yet another caution chime is the building wave of Republican retirements for 2020. On Thursday, Rep. Will Hurd, the sole black Republican in the House, announced his retirement. Hurd was a frequent critic of Donald Trump, including saying that Trump’s tweets were “in essence telling someone because you don’t look like them, that you are not American,” but said on ABC News that he plans “to support the Republican nominee.”

More than his differences with Donald Trump, Hurd may be worried about re-election. His 23^rd district in Texas, with a majority Hispanic population, is a swing district that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2018, Hurd won by less than 1,000 votes, a half percent margin.

Hurd isn’t the only Republican stepping down in 2020. Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.) and Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.), two of only 13 House Republican women are retiring next year. The announcement of Rep. Kenny Marchant brings the total of retiring Texas Republicans to four. The two women won their last elections by comfortable margins, but Marchant was re-elected by only three points.

Republicans are retiring for a variety of reasons, but many of those reasons can be traced back to the Trump Administration. Whether the Republicans are personally opposed to Trump or not, many can read the writing on the wall for 2020. In 2018, Republicans lost 60 percent of women and 78 percent of nonwhite voters. Recent polling suggests that 2020 may be worse among both women and minorities, driven largely by his racial tweets. The 2018 Republican losses were presaged by a similar wave of retirements.

The amber cautions turned to a red warning with the El Paso mass shooting. The murder’s manifesto mirrors President Trump’s rhetoric on immigration is only the most recent incident on a growing list of white supremacist and right-wing violence. While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump directly incited the attack, it is credible that his speeches and tweets contributed to the racially-charged political climate that apparently inspired the shooter. In a clear warning sign, a supporter even mentioned shooting illegal immigrants at a Trump rally in Florida back in May.

As I write this, the president is drawing criticism from both sides for his failure to quickly condemn white supremacy after the El Paso shooting. Despite calling the murders “an act of cowardice” and a “hateful act,” the president waited until today, two days later, to specifically condemn the ideology behind the attack.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1157868518823596032?s=20

Earlier today, President Trump did acknowledge the racist motive of the El Paso shooter, saying, “The shooter in El Paso posted a manifesto online, consumed by racist hate. In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.”

In an airplane, when these warning and caution chimes go off, the proper response is to “identify, cancel and call for the checklist.” The pilots identify the source of the problem by looking at the message that describes the condition that generated the alert. Then they press the master warning or caution button to cancel the chime and flashing light, acknowledging that they see the problem. Finally, the pilot addresses the problem by calling for the appropriate checklist or memory item for that issue. The problem in today’s GOP is that too many are ignoring the flashing lights and chimes that are warning them of problems.

Often, when there is a serious problem, the stack of alert messages on the screen gets long. A major problem can spark many associated problems in related systems. In many cases, the root cause of the problem is revealed in messages that are near the bottom of the stack since the warning computer posts messages in the order that they occur. An honest appraisal of the current state of the Republican shows that many problem indications can be traced back to President Trump.

Despite all of these things happening over the last week, there was almost no mention of them by the Republican speakers at the Resurgent Gathering. When elected Republicans spoke about the president, it was in glowing terms. One example was Georgia’s Rep. Doug Collins, who said, “The thing I say about this president is that this president is the same on the stage as he is off the stage.”

“He has big ideas that come all the time,” Collins continued. “His ways, at times, can offend people and grate on people. They’re not used to somebody who just comes out and, a lot of the time, just speaks truth. If you hit at him, he will hit you back. I think some people are understanding that now.”

There were hints that some Republicans see that there is a problem. A speaker from the Heritage For America commented, “Some people say the election will be a referendum on President Trump, but that’s defeatist talk.” Reading between the lines, if Donald Trump was a popular president, a referendum on his administration would be a good thing for Republicans and would not be seen as “defeatist.” Likewise, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, while praising the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, remarked that one of the easiest things that President Trump could do to lower taxation and help the economy would be to end the tariff war.

The most direct acknowledgment of the warning chimes was from the Washington Examiner’s David Drucker. Drucker pointed out that while some Republicans look past Trump’s behavior because of his policies, others are being driven toward the Democrats, noting their complaint that, “if one of his rallies is on tv that I can’t watch it with children in the room.” Far from the common assumption that President Trump is assured a landslide in 2020, Drucker said that the Trump campaign is working toward another Electoral College victory with a popular vote loss, but warned, “The election could go either way as of today.”

“As I like to tell Republicans,” he added, “there’s no telling what can happen if Democrats nominate someone who is likable, trustworthy, and not under FBI investigation.”

In airplanes, 12-step programs and politics, the first step is admitting that you have a problem. So far, most Republicans have been unwilling to take that step. Admitting that you have a problem doesn’t mean that the flight will end in a crash. I’ve experienced engine failures, hydraulic failures, and a multitude of other problems, but I’ve always returned to earth safely. Very often it isn’t the fact that you have a problem that leads to disaster but the fact that the problem is ignored.

There is no emergency checklist for dealing with the Republican 2020 problem, but there are several options. The most obvious one is for Republicans to rein in Donald Trump. This might also include taking his phone away or convincing him to let staffers prescreen his tweets. At the other end of the spectrum is replacing Trump with another candidate for 2020. Neither of these options would be easy.

The bottom line for Republicans is that, if they want to win in 2020, it will require more than just pointing at Democrats and yelling, “Socialist!” in a manner reminiscent of Donald Sutherland in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Republicans have 15 months in which to build a positive case for why voters should return them to power. It is also 15 months in which Donald Trump’s tweets and public comments will be threatening to undermine their argument. Ignoring that problem won’t make it go away.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Both Sides Should Look In The Mirror When It Comes To Political Violence

With two mass shootings within 24 hours, the rhetorical battle lines are once again being drawn. On the one side, liberals are blaming guns and President Trump’s rhetoric while many on the right are trying to shift the blame away from white supremacy and presidential tweets. The truth is that there is more than one cause for the murder spree and both sides share some responsibility for the charged political environment that may have contributed to the killings.

While the motive is not obvious for the Dayton murders, an online manifesto posted to the 8Chan message board prior to the El Paso attack appears to be genuine. The manifesto rails against Hispanic immigrants who the murderer blamed for many of America’s political and economic problems. Unlike many on the right, the author of the manifesto did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.

The racist motive for the murders presents problems for conservatives, many of whom don’t want to acknowledge that people on the right are not only capable of violence but commit domestic terror attacks on a fairly regular basis. Since the news of the manifesto broke yesterday, I have seen at least one right-wing social media user speculate that Antifa was behind the El Paso attack as a way to discredit the right. Based on what I’ve seen online in the past, this sort of reaction is not that rare.

The truth is that white supremacist violence is a growing problem. Domestic terrorist attacks by leftist groups were common in the 1970s. In the 1980s and 90s, these gave way to attacks by foreign Islamic radicals. After September 11, homegrown Islamic radicals launched a wave of attacks. Now, it seems that white supremacists are the up and coming source of violence.

In June, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “A majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”

Domestic terror attacks related to white supremacy from 2018 and 2019 alone include the murder of student Blaze Bernstein in California, a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, an arson attack at a California mosque, and another mass shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California. If we expand to include other right-wing attacks, we can add a vehicular attack on a New Jersey Planned Parenthood clinic and pipe bomb attacks by the so-called “MAGA bomber” to the list.     

Earlier this week, an FBI bulletin released by Yahoo News detailed concern about  “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” who might be inspired by such Deep State conspiracy theories such as QAnon. The Q conspiracy theory ties President Trump’s opponents to “a conspiracy involving ‘deep state’ actors and global elites allegedly engaged in an international child sex trafficking ring.” The report notes, “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures” could further incite domestic terrorists.

It’s clear that there is a problem on the right, but the flip side is that the left is all too willing to tar all conservatives with the extremist brush. As Erick Erickson pointed out on Twitter, liberals are quick to label anyone who supports border security as a racist. For many on the left, “common sense gun controls” for many Democrats would amount to near-total bans on privately-owned guns and ammunition. For every liberal who says, “I don’t want to take your guns,” there seems to be one who openly says, “yes, I do want to take your guns.”

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1158048421149847552?s=20

Liberals complain that conservatives won’t have a meaningful discussion or take action on the issue of gun violence, but liberals have shown themselves to be untrustworthy on the issue. The same policy prescriptions are trotted out after each attack. In many or most cases, the policies that the left advocates, such as waiting periods and high capacity magazine bans, would not have prevented the attack.

Even an outright ban on guns would have a minimal effect since there are an estimated 393 million guns in private hands in the United States. A large percentage of those guns would remain outstanding in the case of a gun ban and confiscation as law-abiding citizens suddenly became outlaws. It’s interesting to note that, despite the ratio of more than 120 guns per 100 Americans, the US violent crime rate has been falling since 1993. This has remained true even as the “assault weapons” ban expired and concealed and open carry laws were passed around the country.

A liberal orthodoxy that needs to be shattered is that gun control is equivalent to crime control. Mass shootings seem to occur almost randomly around the country. They have occurred in states with strict gun controls such as California and New York and they have occurred in permissive states such as Florida and Texas. They have even occurred in military and government facilities where personal weapons are prohibited.

Mass killings are also not limited to AR-15s and similar types of semi-automatic rifles. The murderers have used various combinations of rifles, shotguns, and pistols. In other cases, killers have also used weapons such as bombs made from pipes and pressure cookers, knives, machetes, nerve gas, swords, and even a baseball bat to commit mass murder.

One of the few types of gun control that might be effective is red flag laws. Since many murder sprees have been committed by people with long histories of mental illness, some states are passing laws that allow temporary confiscation of guns owned by people who are deemed to present a threat to themselves or others. However, the potential for abuse and the deficit of trust between gun owners and the left presents a problem here. Earlier this year, police killed a Maryland man who had committed no crime as they attempted to serve a red flag order.

Rather than guns being the problem, weapons are merely a symptom of a problem with the human heart. The violence problem is related to a number of evil thoughts and desires such as greed, racism, the desire for political power, or the belief that one is a holy warrior or an instrument of divine judgment.

It is a defect of one’s humanity to possess the desire to gun down innocent people in cold blood, but it doesn’t mean that the person is crazy. The murder plot might be a calculated desire to incite a race war, as Dylann Roof intended to do, or it might be a desire to defend one’s country against its enemies, as Cesar Sayoc’s attorneys claim. Maybe the shooter bought into a conspiracy theory like Pizzagate or QAnon or maybe they blame their own misfortunes on people who look or talk differently.  

Sometimes underlying prejudices can be ignited by claims from political leaders, which brings us back not only to Donald Trump but to opposition leaders as well. Yes, President Trump says many irresponsible things and, yes, he should tone down his rhetoric. The president has demonized immigrants as violent criminals, whipped up fear of migrant caravans prior to last year’s election, and railed against both Democrats and his own Justice Department as corrupt Deep State enemies of America. It isn’t hard to imagine that this sort of talk could inspire someone who is already on the brink of violence.

But it isn’t only Donald Trump’s rhetoric that is a problem. Claims that Trump is a stooge of Russian President Putin, that he is a fascist, that he is a white supremacist, and that he will refuse to leave the presidency after his term is up are all examples of things said by the left that could incite violence from Trump opponents. It should not be forgotten that it was only two years ago that a radicalized Bernie Sanders supporter nearly killed a handful of Republican senators as they played baseball.

The truth is that both sides are guilty of overheated rhetoric as they attempt to drive their respective bases to the polls. What often motivates voters is the fear that the other side will win and destroy the country rather than the hope that their own side can implement good ideas. Instilling fear requires a scapegoat, but when people, either individuals or an ethnic group, become the object of fear, that fear can lead to violence.

Currently, the national political climate seems to be a tinderbox around which warriors of the two parties are constantly dropping sparks and red hot coals. It’s a wonder that we haven’t experienced more political violence in recent times than we have. Both sides are more than willing to point the finger at the other when violent attacks occur, but if we really want to make America better, both sides need to look in the mirror.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Debates Exposed Schisms In Democratic Party

The most important takeaway from the second round of Democratic debates, other than the fact that Joe Biden performs better after a practice round, is that there is a deep division within the Democratic Party. Contrary to claims by many of the pundit class, the Democrats are not all in lockstep solidarity with the democratic-socialist left. Over the past two nights, several Democratic candidates sounded almost (but not quite) conservative.

In particular, there seems to be an ongoing struggle between different factions of the party with respect to two issues: immigration and health insurance. Several sharp exchanges in the debates related to whether healthcare reform plans should eliminate private medical insurance in favor of Medicare-for-all and whether illegal immigration should be decriminalized.

Joe Biden led off the second night of debates with an attack on Kamala Harris’ plan to replace private health insurance, saying, “There is no talk about the fact that the plan in 10 years will cost $3 trillion. You will lose your employer-based insurance. And in fact, you know, this is the single most important issue facing the public. And to be very blunt and to be very straightforward, you can't beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”

Sounding almost like a conservative, Biden continued, “The plan, no matter how you cut it, costs $3 trillion when it is, in fact, employed, number one. Ten years from now, after two terms of the senator being president, after her time. Secondly, it will require middle-class taxes to go up, not down. Thirdly, it will eliminate employer-based insurance. And fourthly, what happens in the meantime?”

Biden is on firmer ground here than Harris. The former vice president was deeply involved with Obamacare, the 2010 health care reform bill that was intensely unpopular until Republicans came close to replacing it in 2017. At that point, Obamacare suddenly gained more fans and maintains a 10-point advantage in polling.

On the other hand, the approval of Medicare-for-all fluctuates wildly in polling and is heavily dependent on the details. AP polling from January found that voters like the idea of Medicare-for-all but not the higher taxes and longer wait times that it could bring. More recently, FiveThirtyEight pointed out that more voters are on board with the idea of allowing people to buy into Medicare voluntarily than in eliminating private insurance and forcing everyone into the program.

This is underscored by the recent endorsement of Joe Biden by the International Association of Fire Fighters, who said in a statement that union members “do not support the concept of abandoning those plans for a government-run single-payer plan,” adding, “The elimination of employer-based insurance in favor of a Medicare-for-all or government-run single-payer proposal is a bad idea that punishes working families who have secured quality healthcare.”

In his opening statement on the first debate night, John Delaney, a former Maryland congressman, argued that the focus on Medicare-for-all could cost Democrats the election. “We can go down the road that Senator Sanders and Senator Warren want to take us with bad policies like Medicare for All, free everything and impossible promises that’ll turn off independent voters and get Trump reelected,” Delaney said. “That’s what happened with McGovern. That’s what happened with Mondale.”

Later that night, Delaney took on Sanders directly, saying, “His math is wrong” and warned that many hospitals across the country would close if they had to rely on Medicare reimbursement rates.

“Why can’t we just give everyone healthcare as a right and allow them to have choice?” Delaney asked. “I’m starting to think this is not about healthcare. This is an anti-private sector strategy.”

Amy Klobuchar voiced similar concerns about the Medicare-for-all plans of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. “I just don’t buy… that it’s somehow not moral to not have that public option,” she said.

The other big policy disagreement between the Democrats was over immigration. When former Obama Housing Secretary Julian Castro advocated decriminalizing illegal immigration, it was Joe Biden once again who resisted the urge to pile on the popular liberal talking point.

“I have guts enough to say his plan doesn't make sense,” Biden responded to Castro. “Here's the deal. The fact of the matter is that, in fact, when people cross the border illegally, it is illegal to do it unless they're seeking asylum. People should have to get in line. That's the problem. And the only reason this particular part of the law is being abused is because of Donald Trump. We should defeat Donald Trump and end this practice.”

There was one other issue where one Democrat sounded more conservative than present-day Republicans. At one point, John Delaney mounted a spirited defense of free trade, something rarely heard these days in either party.

“So listen, this is what I don’t understand,” Delaney postulated. “President Trump wants to build physical walls and beats up on immigrants. Most of the folks running for president want to build economic walls to free trade and beat up on President Obama.”

“I’m the only one running for president who actually supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” Delaney continued. “President Obama was right about that. We should be getting back in that. Senator Warren just issued a trade plan that would prevent the United States from trading with its allies. We can’t go and we can’t isolate ourselves from the world. We have to engage with fair, rules-based trade.”

At the end of the two nights, it was obvious that there are two different overlapping factions within the Democratic Party. One is the Obama faction represented by candidates like Biden, Delaney, Klobuchar. The other is the far-left faction of Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren. After attempting to keep one foot on both sides of the party in recent months, Joe Biden seems to have firmly embraced his position in the moderate lane.

As I’ve argued in the past, Biden is the dominant moderate candidate in the Democratic primary while numerous strong candidates are vying for the limited number of progressive votes. Barring unforeseen circumstances such as a gaffe of Trumpian proportions or a sudden health problem, this makes Biden likely to become the eventual nominee.

It also makes Biden likely to eventually become president. As he stakes down middle-of-the-road policy positions, he makes himself palatable to the moderate and independent voters who will decide the election, voters who have been all but ignored by Donald Trump for the past three years. As Biden attacks Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders, he is also inoculating himself from charges of socialism by Republicans and positioning himself for the general election.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Nomination Of Ratcliffe To DNI Is In Trouble Already

Another high-ranking official is departing the White House and there are already concerns about the congressman that President Trump has named to replace him. The current director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, has submitted his resignation, which will become effective on August 15. Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican known for his loyalty to President Trump and who was last seen criticizing Robert Mueller for his report’s take on President Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice, is the president’s pick for a replacement.

Dan Coats, a veteran of the US Army Corps of Engineers who served from 1966 through 1968, was an Indiana congressman throughout the 1980s. He was elected to the first of two stints in the Senate in 1988, filling the seat of Vice President Dan Quayle. Coats left the Senate in 1998 and was appointed ambassador to Germany by George W. Bush in 2001. He was re-elected to the Senate in 2011 where he served until Donald Trump appointed him DNI in 2017.

In his role as DNI, Coats has been at odds with the president several times. He has publicly criticized Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin and his handling of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Coats has also contradicted Trump’s claims that Putin was innocent of interfering in the 2016 presidential elections and defended the US intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s actions.

There are signs that Coats has been outside of Trump’s inner circle for a while. In July 2018, he appeared to be blindsided by news of Vladimir Putin’s upcoming White House visit when NBC’s Andrea Mitchell broke the story on national television. Rumors of Coats’ departure have been swirling for months.

In contrast to Coats’ long record, John Ratcliffe is a law professor who was the mayor of Heath, Texas prior to being appointed DOJ Chief of Anti-Terrorism and National Security for the Eastern District of Texas by George W. Bush in 2004. He subsequently served as the US Attorney for East Texas from 2007 through 2008. Afterward, he returned to a private law practice until he was elected to Congress in 2014.

As a congressman, Ratcliffe was chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection. In 2017, he was instrumental in the passage of the “Strengthening State and Local Cyber Crime Fighting Act of 2017,” which authorized the Secret Service to train and educate state and local law enforcement and judicial officials about cybercrime.

The hurdles to Ratcliffe’s confirmation will likely be in regard to both his inexperience in intelligence as well as his embrace of conspiracy theories regarding the Russia investigation. Indeed, Ratcliffe may have been catapulted to the top of the president’s list with his spirited attacks on Robert Mueller during the special counsel’s House testimony last week.

In the hearing, Ratcliffe attacked the Mueller report’s statement that President Trump could not be exonerated, saying, “So Americans need to know this, as they listen to the Democrats and socialists on the other side of the aisle, as they do dramatic readings from this report: that Volume 2 of this report was not authorized under the law to be written. It was written to a legal standard that does not exist at the Justice Department. And it was written in violation of every DOJ principle about extra-prosecutorial commentary.”

Politifact examined Ratcliffe’s claim and judged it to be false. Politifact points out that federal regulations state, “At the conclusion of the Special Counsel's work, he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination [emphasis mine] decisions reached by the Special Counsel.”

Ratcliffe has also repeated the debunked claim that the Steele dossier was the origin of the Russia investigation.  The Steele dossier was referenced in an October 2016 FISA warrant application for Trump associate Carter Page, but, by that point, the FBI investigation of Russian contacts with Trump campaign staffers had already been underway for several months, initiated by the news that George Papadopoulos had been telling contacts about a Russian offer of information on Hillary Clinton since May 2016.

Already, some Democrats are questioning whether Ratcliffe is qualified and suited for the chief intelligence post. There are questions about whether Ratcliffe is too political for the national security position and whether his allegiance to President Trump would allow him to present information objectively.

“I don't know this guy,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on MSNBC. “I think he's a television character that the president has watched on TV, and he wants to put somebody in this position who's going to agree with his political take on intelligence.”

  

“I'll certainly do my own evaluation, but it strikes me as a very inappropriate choice for the job in a moment when we are trying to lift intelligence out of the political soup,” Murphy said, adding that Ratcliffe had a history of acting as “one of the president's accomplices in trying to politicize intelligence.”

“The president doesn't want people to challenge him, and when you think about an intelligence director, you want independent advice,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) told CNN. “You want to have the best available intelligence to make decisions that are based on facts and reality. That is not something our current president wants.”

Republicans have not jumped to defend their colleague. Although many Republican officials have issued statements lauding Coats and his tenure as DNI, so far none have offered support for Ratcliffe’s nomination. To the contrary, the New York Times reported that Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) “cautioned the president's advisers that he considered Mr. Ratcliffe too political for the post, according to people familiar with the discussions.”

Blocking an appointment to the cabinet is notoriously difficult. FiveThirtyEight points out that only nine cabinet appointments have been voted down by the Senate throughout US history. The last time a Senate controlled by the president’s party nixed a nominee was in 1925. However, it is more common and recent for presidents to withdraw nominations for candidates who may lack sufficient support for confirmation.

It is too early to predict the outcome, but with Republicans only holding a three-vote majority in the Senate, few defections would be needed to sink Ratcliffe’s nomination. Ratcliffe’s most likely fate might be to have the president withdraw his nomination after several Republican senators voice their doubts about his qualifications.  

Originally published on The Resurgent