President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that rolls back a number of Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions that set minimum requirements for health plans.
The order will allow small businesses and groups of people to band together and buy insurance as an association. The association health plans (AHP) available to them do not have to meet the requirements of the ACA, such as protection for people with pre-existing conditions and essential health benefits.
In addition, the order expands the use of short-term plans that also have looser requirements and allows plans to be sold across state lines.
Dive Insight:
Broadly, the executive order loosens the requirements health plans must meet and shifts regulation away from federal levels. This could lower out-of-pocket costs for people who don’t use much care, but would likely result in major cost increases for people with pre-existing conditions.
The biggest concern with offering these plans is that it would lead payers to cherry pick young, healthy people who are less expensive for payers. But separating them from people who will need services creates an unbalanced risk pool. That can quickly lead to prohibitive out-of-pocket costs for people who have a pre-existing condition or who unexpectedly need high-cost care.
There are still several steps to be taken before the order could have a real impact. HHS and the Department of Labor have been instructed to write new regulations which will go through the regular notice and comment process. The specifics of those regulations will be important to how the order ultimately plays out. Also, the order will almost certainly see a legal challenge. Still, it signals that Trump’s White House is ready to find ways of undercutting the ACA despite the high-profile legislative failures earlier this year.
It’s far from the first sign, though. HHS has drastically cut back efforts to promote this year’s open enrollment period, which begins Nov. 1. The ACA’s overall advertising budget was slashed by 90%, community groups that receive federal funding to help people enroll have been devastated by cuts and HHS recently barred regional directors from participating in enrollment events.
Short-term plans are inexpensive for people who are healthy, but they can exclude people with pre-existing conditions. They have previously been allowed for a limited stretch, such as three months, but extending that time and allowing these plans to count toward the individual mandate will mean an unstable risk pool.
Allowing plans to be sold across state lines is a staple of conservative health policy, but there is little reason to believe it would actually lower costs. There are also many unanswered questions about how these plans would be relegated.
It tells the story of a former U.S. Navy officer who solved a tragic mystery and changed the way we understand our impact on the ocean. The film is narrated by Rachel McAdams and features Sting, in addition to the renowned ocean experts Dr. Sylvia Earle, Dr. Paul Spong, Dr. Christopher Clark, and Jean-Michel Cousteau.
Sonic Sea was produced by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Imaginary Forces in association with International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Diamond Docs.
Help bring awareness of the issue to classrooms across the country. Email allie@rocofilms.com to gift the film and its study guide to your alma mater or your children’s school.
I’m thrilled to tell you that NRDC’s (Natural Resource Defense Council) Sonic Sea just won Emmy awards for Outstanding Nature Documentary and Outstanding Music and Sound.
What a thrill — especially because these wins will help drive even more attention to the urgent plight of whales and other marine life that depend on sound for their survival.
This Special Report investigates Brookhaven Town Clerk, Donna Lent, who’s running for re-election on Nov. 7th. Get the facts before you vote.
Did You Know ….
Donna Lent was implicated in fraud and forgery of voter proxies and sign-in sheets by a NYS Supreme Court judge
These forged documents even included the name of her own husband, Gregory Lent!
READ THE FULL REPORT
The job of Town Clerk may not sound consequential, but don’t let the name fool you. It plays a pivotal role in the town’s operation. According to Brookhaven Town Clerk, Donna Lent—who’s running for re-election this November—the Town Clerk is “frequently considered the center of town government.”
The clerk “attends and keeps an accurate record of all meetings of the Town Board . . . authoring the only chronological and historical record of the operation of the town . . . issues licenses . . . receives and records documents such as land records, vital statistics, and requests for access to public documents.”
The Town Clerk must possess a record proving she can be entrusted with this responsibility. But a closer look at Lent’s background—all of which is public record but little known—raises serious questions whether she is worthy of the public’s trust. Brookhaven voters are entitled to the facts. Here’s what Background Check discovered about Donna Lent:
As Secretary of the Suffolk County Working Families Party (“SCWFP”), Donna Lent was implicated in the fraud and forgery of voter proxies and sign-in sheets by a NYS Supreme Court Justice.
Here’s What Happened. . . . .Fellow WFP members filed a lawsuit against Donna Lent and others, claiming fraudulent and forged voter proxies and meeting sign-in sheets were used to establish a quorum at the meeting where Donna Lent was elected Secretary. One egregious example of fraud was a sign-in sheet indicating that Donna Lent’s husband, Gregory Lent, had attended the meeting, but a proxy for his vote indicated that he was absent!
Several witnesses “flatly denied” ever signing the proxies submitted in their names by Lent and Pohanka. Following a recess, Lent and Pohanka returned to the courtroom and conceded that the proxies were invalid.
Court “Deeply Troubled“. . . . .As Secretary of the Suffolk County WFP Secretary, Lent was responsible for ensuring that the proxies and sign-in sheets were valid. But the Court found serious problems with those documents:
“Review of the 71 proxy documents reveals that . . . the majority of the [signatures on the proxies] . . . do not match . . . the signatures on the voter registration of the individuals who purportedly signed the proxies. Additionally, several proxies were submitted from individuals who are also reflected as present by the sign in sheet. (Gregory Lent, Sharon Ward). (Emphasis added.)
“Indeed, the Court has found that at least 29 signatures do not match registration cards and at least three have wrong election districts. The Court is troubled by these findings and has been made aware (from letters submitted by petitioner’s counsel regarding scheduling of witnesses at the hearing scheduled to commence May 11, 2005) that testimony is expected from a number of persons denying that they signed the proxy” respondents [Lent and Pohonka] said they signed.”
After hearing witness testimony, the Court expressed its profound concern:
“[T]he Court has reflected upon the serious impact such fraudulent activities…..have upon the fundamental rights of citizens to participate in the political process. The Court is deeply troubled by the circumstances of this case.”
Click here for Part 2 to learn how Donna Lent narrowly escaped an order of contempt by a NYS Supreme Court judge.
From: John Andrews
Wednesday, October 11, 2017 7:01 PM
Dear Long Island East CCLers (Citizens’ Climate Lobby),
Now that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency has gutted President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, it is a perfect opportunity to ask our representative in Congress, Lee Zeldin, to come out publicly in favor of the best alternative, namely carbon pricing.
I hope you will read the following, taken from an op-ed written by Mark Reynolds, Executive Director of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and then write Mr. Zeldin in your own words, asking him to speak out in favor of climate action.
He was an early joiner of the Climate Solutions Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he voted, along with 65 other Republicans and all the Democrats, against the nefarious Perry amendment that, had it passed, would have prevented the Defense Department from considering climate change in their planning. You might want to thank him for those actions and ask that he take the next important step now.
The easiest way to do this is to go to the Web site www.zeldin.house.gov/contact where you can compose a message and send it to him
In its zeal to undo the legacy of our 44th president, the Trump administration is now undoing the future of our children and grandchildren by repealing the Clean Power Plan, a policy designed to reduce the heat-trapping emissions that make our climate more and more inhospitable.
How inhospitable? We’ve gotten a frightening glimpse of an altered climate recently with disasters fueled by warmer temperatures:
Hurricane Harvey turned much of Houston into a lake after dumping 50 inches of rain. Damage estimates have ranged up to $150 billion.
After flattening the Keys, record-setting Hurricane Irma roared up Florida’s west coast, leaving most of the state without power and damage estimated to cost $100 billion.
Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, leaving most of the island’s residents without power or clean water. Recovery costs could easily reach $95 billion.
Out west, wildfires intensified by hot, dry weather have charred millions of acres, with the most recent fire in Santa Rosa killing at least 15 people.
It’s clear our unstable climate is putting bigger and bigger burdens on our economy. It’s also clear that the current White House is determined to remove regulations on the use of dirty fuels contributing to that unstable climate.
Those who cheer the EPA’s move should remember that President Obama initiated the Clean Power Plan in 2015 in the face of Congress’s inaction on climate change. Without effective legislation to combat climate change, a future president could just as easily go down the path of executive action and regulations again. The best answer here is for Congress to pass legislation putting the market to work on solving climate change.
The policy that finds favor across the political spectrum is a steadily-rising fee on carbon with revenue returned to households. This approach uses the power of the market to hold fossil fuels accountable for the damage they inflict on our society. A straightforward carbon fee will drive investment and consumer behavior toward low-carbon energy and energy efficiency, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. By returning revenue from the carbon fee equally to all households, we can shield individuals and families from the economic impact of rising energy costs associated with the fee.
A study from the well-respected Regional Economic Models, Inc., looked at a policy with a fee starting at $10 per ton of carbon dioxide that increases $10 per ton each year. In their models, all revenue was distributed evenly to every household. REMI found that after 20 years, CO2 emissions would be reduced 50 percent below 1990 levels. At the same time, 2.8 million jobs would be added because of the economic stimulus of returning revenue to consumers.
In other words, this policy is a win-win for both our environment and our economy.
Since our last update in late August, fourteen bills impacting the environment have come before the House of Representatives. Lee Zeldin took the anti-environment position on 12 out of 14 of these recent bills.
Among the bills that Zeldin voted for are bills that would, if enacted into law:
1. Slash the EPA’s budget by 23%, and eliminate the EPA’s Environmental Justice Program;
2. Undermine the Clean Water Rule and the National Ocean Policy;
3. Scuttle Methane Waste Prevention Rules affecting public lands and the oil and gas industry;
4. Loosen requirements for transferring public lands into private hands; and
5. Allow hydraulic fracking in the Pacific.
On the plus side, Zeldin voted against bills that would have cut funding for Amtrak and the Northeast Rail Corridor.
Overall, since the new session of Congress began in January 2017, Zeldin has voted AGAINST THE ENVIRONMENT on 30 out of 33 bills, or 90% of the time.
Full details on these recent votes can be found in the Files tab under “Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record” (updated this evening).
“Some unfavorable financial trends and an air of uncertainty for healthcare’s future has led to an environment not particularly friendly for major investment…as hospitals continue to struggle with fewer inpatient admissions, lower reimbursements and potential increases in uncompensated care, investors are growing wary”
“The current environment caused disappointing second quarters and lower earnings projections for major for-profit systems like HCA, Community Health Systems (CHS) and Tenet Healthcare…. The results led stock prices to tumble.”
The Financial Timesnotes that US hospital operators‘ stock prices are sliding down following a report that President Donald Trump will sign an executive order this week to withdraw some insurance requirements laid out under Obamacare. Tenet Healthcare, Community Health Systems, Surgery Partners, HCA Healthcare, DaVita shares tumbled losing up to 10% in stock prices.
I wonder whether Donald Trump and the rest of his cronies have already sold their healthcare stocks? And how about Lee Zeldin’s “concern” (?) about the hospitals in Suffolk county. It is the biggest sector of the local economy.
Every American is saddened and appalled by the massacre in Las Vegas. Yet while the public is overwhelmingly united in wanting Congress to act, you continue to try to divide us by belittling and misrepresenting the positions of gun violence prevention constituents and scaring pro-gun constituents by egregiously mischaracterizing the solutions being suggested.
Rep Zeldin, your overwrought claim to be ready to lay down your life to prevent something like Las Vegas from ever happening again would be a little more credible if you had the courage to support even one of the practical solutions that both gun owners and gun-violence prevention advocates support and that well-respected researchers have deemed effective.
In answer to your recent response to the Las Vegas shooting in the form of a condescending 10-point plan to the gun violence prevention community, our answer is this: We are not idiots. We are tired of being lectured to. We’re tired of platitudes and recycled talking points and no action. We are especially insulted by the tone of your snarky list of criticisms against us, which we feel compelled to answer:
1) Not one of the many respected gun-violence-prevention groups demeans gun owners or is threatening the second amendment or gun ownership. Gun owners and cops and veterans are volunteers and members of our Boards! Stop using the NRA’s caricature of who the advocates of stronger laws are, and what we want. Try actually reading and listening instead. Since Las Vegas, gun violence groups have never had so many gun owners say they’ve had enough and now want to work for stronger laws.
2) I’m sorry if you’re feelings are hurt because some advocates hold you personally responsible for the ongoing slaughter on our streets, or for not backing laws to keep guns away from terrorists or away from the severely mentally ill who are so impaired they can no longer handle their own affairs. But as the body count mounts, year after year, I suggest that it would be much more upsetting if citizens weren’t furious at Congressional inaction when their loved ones are being killed every day. And by the way, if you want to talk about abuse, your pro-gun allies intimidate and threaten us constantly – on social media, at peaceful vigils and educational rallies, and at our places of work. And did I mention that your guys are armed and most of us are not? Your allies have posted photos of the kids and homes of the women I work with, and I can’t imagine how many hours of close-up footage of us your video-toting Oathkeeper friends must have. It’s a nasty form of intimidation.
3) We get it that that Hillary is your favorite whipping post but let’s set her aside (she is not in office, you are) and actually talk about silencers. Let’s talk about all the law enforcement groups that oppose deregulating them because it will make their jobs harder, including the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA), the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association (HAPCOA), the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA), the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives (NAWLEE), the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), and the Police Foundation (PF), which together comprise the National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence.
4) We all agree that a lack of interest in facts is appalling. But in the heat of the moment after a terrifying massacre, police and government officials (and the media) are trying to communicate using the information available, then correcting it as more is known. What I find disturbing is not a mistake in the heat of the moment but afterwards, when you continue to refuse to consider any research or reports that don’t back up your pro-gun myopia. If you want truth, why don’t you vote to fun gun violence research? What are you afraid of?
5) Playing with semantics about the definition of an “assault weapon” is an effete and cowardly way to avoid the issue that weapons developed for use in war have no place on our streets. Other developed countries have no problem defining – and banning — assault-style weapons and do not have the kind of mass murders that we keep seeing over and over again. I have offered to introduce you to longtime gun shop owner and a blogger for stronger gun laws, Mike Weisser, who would be more than willing to enlighten you on the subject.
6) Accusing people who don’t want terrorists carrying guns of being emotional and frivolous is a characterization that’s beneath contempt. Americans do not lack interest in keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists. The vast majority of Americans support this measure – gun owners and reformers alike — and Congressional obstruction and your purposely unworkable bill, offered as a killer to the real proposal, is the flaw. Why does your concern for the accuracy of the Terror Watch list begin and end only when “no fly no buy” is mentioned. May I once again remind you that Americans make up only 0.5% of the total number in all the US Terror Watch Lists databases?
7) At a guess, people will stop tying you to the NRA when you stop taking their money, spouting their talking points, and offer one position that is at odds with their agenda of selling more and more guns and devices to the American public.
8) Misleading statistics? Yours are the ones out of date. In 2016 the numbers of gun fatalities soared to 36,000. Moreover, gun suicides are a major focus of many in the gun violence prevention community. We do not hide that fact. You maybe don’t care that there’s an epidemic of suicide among white rural males but we do. We think it’s a preventable, national tragedy. You maybe don’t care that there’s an epidemic of suicide among Veterans, especially those suffering from PTSD, but we do, and we – and the mental health community — are working hard to prevent that, even as you’ve voted to overwhelmingly cut back funding for mental health.
9) We work with the victims of gun violence every single day and their pain is often overwhelming to bear. We do not criticize anyone for sending prayers to them. But prayers are not enough, especially from our elected leaders, especially not now. The criticism is directed at you and other electeds who offer prayers, then do nothing.
10) By mentioning the creation of gun-free zones, I guess you’re referring to keeping guns out of schools and off college campuses, where the debate is most fierce right now. You’re right. Administrators, professors, students, campus police and parents have all strongly opposed guns on campuses whenever they’re introduced, but pro-gun politicians in several GOP states think they know better and have passed these measures anyway. Since the proposals are new, we can’t yet measure the result yet, but after the shooting Oct. 9th 2017, of a Texas Tech campus police officer, guns on campus looks like as bad an idea as everyone feared. I would point out that it is exceedingly ironic that the NRA forbids guns inside its convention hall and the US Congress and almost every legislature, including those controlled by the GOP, do not allow guns. Why exactly is that?
Finally, we are not the ones in an echo-chamber, Mr. Zeldin: We suggest you leave yours. Whenever you want to. We’re still waiting for an open town meeting.
Representative Lee Zeldin should be ashamed of himself. That’s what his constituents declared back in May at their “Shame on Zeldin” protest on his AHCA vote.
And now, in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shootings, others have joined that chorus.
A recent editorial in The Forward shames Lee Zeldin—one of two Jewish Republican members of Congress—for accepting money from the NRA and voting so consistently with gun interests to have earned an A rating from the NRA. (In fact, Zeldin has accepted more money from the NRA than any other New York representative).
The editorial’s author, Jane Eisen, urges us not to let Zeldin off the hook:
“Don’t be distracted. My calls and emails to Zeldin’s and Kustoff’s congressional offices were not returned as of this writing. Contact them yourself. Let them know that they should be ashamed of accepting even a dime of this bloodied money.” (Emphasis added).
While the Secretary of the Interior is jetting around on our dime, and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency is slow-dancing with his longtime steadies in the extraction industries, the environment is apparently going into business for itself. From the NYT:
While not all algae blooms are toxic, they can produce a type of cyanobacteria called microcystis. These bacteria in turn, can produce neurotoxins and hepatotoxins, such as microcystin and cyanopeptolin that can cause serious liver damage under certain conditions. Dangerous levels of cyanobacteria caused Toledo, Ohio, to shut down the drinking water supply of a half-million residents for three days in 2014. In total, almost 3 million people get drinking water from the central basin of Lake Erie. Officials have been testing the intake points in the lake where towns draw water and report that the current toxin levels are low.
I will make the Toby Ziegler Wager—all the money in my pockets against all the money in yours—that nobody of any influence in this administration is aware in the least of this situation, much less how it’s caused, much less all of the contributing factors, much less what in the hell to do about it. I am willing to give them the benefit if the doubt as to whether anyone of influence in this administration knows of the existence of Lake Erie, but that is because I am a fair man that way.
The blooms are expected to grow more harmful as global warming changes rainfall patterns. According to local experts, storms have become more intense in the region, carrying more nutrients from the farmland into the lake.
Another study from the Carnegie Institution for Science shows that extensive algae blooms will continue to grow throughout the continental United States and around the globe, especially in Southeast Asia.
The mayor of Toledo, Paula Hicks-Hudson, wrote a letter to President Trump on Sept. 26, calling on the federal government to declare Lake Erie impaired, which would allow for the lake’s nutrient loads to be regulated under the Clean Water Act.
“There is something very wrong with our country when our rivers and lakes turn green,” Ms. Hicks-Hudson wrote in her letter. “As I look out my office at a green river, I can tell you one thing: The status quo is not working.”
The amount of things of which this government chooses consciously to remain ignorant about has to be something like a record by now, but its total disregard for anything resembling an environmental policy is going to be its longest lasting and most destructive legacy, and we know that already, and they haven’t been in office for a year yet. Well, that and Neil Gorsuch, who’s kind of an algae bloom on the Supreme Court.
In the developed world, these levels of gun violence are a uniquely American problem. Here’s why.
America is an exceptional country when it comes to guns. It’s one of the few countries in which the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected. But America’s relationship with guns is unique in another crucial way: Among developed nations, the US is far and away the most violent — in large part due to the easy access many Americans have to firearms. These charts and maps show what that violence looks like compared with the rest of the world, why it happens, and why it’s such a tough problem to fix.
1) America has six times as many firearm homicides as Canada, and nearly 16 times as many as Germany
Javier Zarracina/Vox
This chart, compiled using United Nations data collected by Simon Rogers for the Guardian, shows that America far and away leads other developed countries when it comes to gun-related homicides. Why? Extensive reviews of the research by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center suggest the answer is pretty simple: The US is an outlier on gun violence because it has way more guns than other developed nations.
2) America has 4.4 percent of the world’s population, but almost half of the civilian-owned guns around the world
Javier Zarracina/Vox
3) There have been more than 1,500 mass shootings since Sandy Hook
In December 2012, a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children, six adults, and himself. Since then, there have been at least 1,518 mass shootings, with at least 1,715 people killed and 6,089 wounded.
The counts come via the Gun Violence Archive, which has hosted a database that tracks mass shootings since 2013. But since some shootings go unreported, the database is likely missing some, as well as the details of some of the events.
The tracker uses a fairly broad definition of “mass shooting”: It includes not just shootings in which four or more people were murdered, but shootings in which four or more people were shot at all (excluding the shooter).
Even under this broad definition, it’s worth noting that mass shootings make up a tiny portion of America’s firearm deaths, which totaled more than 33,000 in 2014.
4) On average, there is more than one mass shooting for each day in America
Whenever a mass shooting occurs, supporters of gun rights often argue that it’s inappropriate to bring up political debates about gun control in the aftermath of a tragedy. For example, former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a strong supporter of gun rights, criticized former President Barack Obama for “trying to score cheap political points” when Obama mentioned gun control after a mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.
But if this argument is followed to its logical end, then it will never be the right time to discuss mass shootings, as Christopher Ingraham pointed out at the Washington Post. Under the broader definition of mass shootings, America has nearly one mass shooting a day. So if lawmakers are forced to wait for a time when there isn’t a mass shooting to talk gun control, they could find themselves waiting for a very long time.
Using data from a study in Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mother Jones put together the chart above that shows states with more guns tend to have far more gun deaths. And it’s not just one study. “Within the United States, a wide array of empirical evidence indicates that more guns in a community leads to more homicide,” David Hemenway, the Harvard Injury Control Research Center’s director, wrote in Private Guns, Public Health.
When economist Richard Florida took a look at gun deaths and other social indicators, he found that higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness didn’t correlate with more gun deaths. But he did find one telling correlation: States with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths. (Read more at Florida’s “The Geography of Gun Deaths.”)
This is backed by other research: A 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews,found that new legal restrictions on owning and purchasing guns tended to be followed by a drop in gun violence — a strong indicator that restricting access to guns can save lives.
8) Still, gun homicides (like all homicides) have declined over the past couple decades
The good news is that all firearm homicides, like all homicides and crime, have declined over the past two decades. (Although that may have changed in 2015 and 2016, with a recent rise in murders nationwide.)
There’s still a lot of debate among criminal justice experts about why this crime drop is occurring — some of the most credible ideas include mass incarceration, more and better policing, and reduced lead exposure from gasoline. But one theory that researchers have widely debunked is the idea that more guns have deterred crime — in fact, the opposite may be true, based on research compiled by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Center.
Although America’s political debate about guns tends to focus on grisly mass shootings and murders, a majority of gun-related deaths in the US are suicides. As Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, this is actually one of the most compelling reasons for reducing access to guns — there is a lot of research that shows greater access to guns dramatically increases the risk of suicide.
10) The states with the most guns report the most suicides
11) Guns allow people to kill themselves much more easily
Estelle Caswell/Vox
Perhaps the reason access to guns so strongly contributes to suicides is that guns are much deadlier than alternatives like cutting and poison.
Jill Harkavy-Friedman, vice president of research for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, previously explained that this is why reducing access to guns can be so important to preventing suicides: Just stalling an attempt or making it less likely to result in death makes a huge difference.
“Time is really key to preventing suicide in a suicidal person,” Harkavy-Friedman said. “First, the crisis won’t last, so it will seem less dire and less hopeless with time. Second, it opens the opportunity for someone to help or for the suicidal person to reach out to someone to help. That’s why limiting access to lethal means is so powerful.”
She added, “[I]f we keep the method of suicide away from a person when they consider it, in that moment they will not switch to another method. It doesn’t mean they never will. But in that moment, their thinking is very inflexible and rigid. So it’s not like they say, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to work. I’m going to try something else.’ They generally can’t adjust their thinking, and they don’t switch methods.”
12) Programs that limit access to guns have decreased suicides
Estelle Caswell/Vox
When countries reduced access to guns, they saw a drop in the number of firearm suicides. The data above, taken from a study by Australian researchers, shows that suicides dropped dramatically after the Australian government set up a gun buyback program that reduced the number of firearms in the country by about one-fifth.
The Australian study found that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people correlated with up to a 50 percent drop in firearm homicides, and a 74 percent drop in gun suicides. As Dylan Matthews noted for Vox, the drop in homicides wasn’t statistically significant. But the drop in suicides most definitely was — and the results are striking.
Australia is far from alone in these types of results. A study from Israeli researchers found that suicides among Israeli soldiers dropped by 40 percent — particularly on weekends — when the military stopped letting soldiers take their guns home over the weekend.
This data and research have a clear message: States and countries can significantly reduce the number of suicides by restricting access to guns.
13) Since the shooting of Michael Brown, police have killed at least 2,900 people
Since police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014, police have killed at least 2,902 people as of May 2017.
Fatal Encounters, a nonprofit, has tracked these killings by collecting reports from the media, public, and law enforcement and verifying them through news reports. Some of the data is incomplete, with details about a victim’s race, age, and other factors sometimes missing. It also includes killings that were potentially legally justified, and is likely missing some killings entirely.
A huge majority of the 1,112 deaths on the map are from gunshots, which is hardly surprising given that guns are so deadly compared with other tools used by police. There are also noticeable numbers of fatalities from vehicle crashes, stun guns, and asphyxiations. In some cases, people died from stab wounds, medical emergencies, and what’s called “suicide by cop,” when people kill themselves by baiting a police officer into using deadly force.
14) In states with more guns, more police officers are also killed on duty
Given that states with more guns tend to have more homicides, it isn’t too surprising that, as a study in the American Journal of Public Health found, states with more guns also have more cops die in the line of duty.
Researchers looked at federal data for firearm ownership and homicides of police officers across the US over 15 years. They found that states with more gun ownership had more cops killed in homicides: Every 10 percent increase in firearm ownership correlated with 10 additional officers killed in homicides over the 15-year study period.
The findings could help explain why US police officers appear to kill more people than cops in other developed countries. For US police officers, the higher rates of guns and gun violence — even against them — in America mean they not only will encounter more guns and violence, but they can expect to encounter more guns and deadly violence, making them more likely to anticipate and perceive a threat and use deadly force as a result.
15) Support for gun ownership has sharply increased since the early ’90s
Over the past 20 years, Americans have clearly shifted from supporting gun control measures to greater support of “protecting the right of Americans to own guns,” according to Pew Research Center surveys. This shift has happened even as major mass shootings, such as the attacks on Columbine High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School, have received more press attention.
16) High-profile shootings don’t appear to lead to more support for gun control
Although mass shootings are often viewed as some of the worst acts of gun violence, they seem to have little effect on public opinion about gun rights, based on surveys from the Pew Research Center. That helps explain why Americans’ support for the right to own guns appears to be rising over the past 20 years even as more of these mass shootings make it to the news.
17) But specific gun control policies are fairly popular
Although Americans say they want to protect the right to bear arms, they’re very much supportive of many gun policy proposals — including some fairly contentious ideas, such as more background checks on private and gun show sales and banning semi-automatic and assault-style weapons, according to Pew Research Center surveys.
This type of contradiction isn’t exclusive to gun policy issues. For example, although most Americans in the past said they don’t like Obamacare, most of them also said they like the specific policies in the health-care law. Americans just don’t like some policy ideas until you get specific.
For people who believe the empirical evidence that more guns mean more violence, this contradiction is the source of a lot of frustration. Americans by and large support policies that reduce access to guns. But once these policies are proposed, they’re broadly spun by politicians and pundits into attempts to “take away your guns.” So nothing gets done, and preventable deaths keep occurring.
