SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Brandon Wexler shows a customer one of the weapons that she was picking up at the end of the three-day waiting period at the K&W Gunworks store on the day that U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, DC announced his executive action on guns on January 5, 2016 in Delray Beach, Florida.
It's too easy to possess a gun and therefore too easy to maim, kill, and make this nation a more dangerous and less ideal place to live.
It is not news that’s the United States suffers from way too much gun violence. This sad fact is common knowledge around the world. When the American problem of gun violence is brought to the attention of our leaders, they announce their sadness over the situation and then conclude that nothing can be done about it. I disagree.
First, a quick review of the problem. Although the last few years have seen a slight reduction in violent crime, the United States still has more gun violence by far than any other developed country. Our rate of gun violence is seven times that of Canada and 340 times the rate of the United Kingdom! To be sure other develop countries have poverty and inequality, racism and patriarchy, violent entertainment, and mental illness just like the United States; but they do not have the high rates of suicide and homicide by gun that we do.
The proposals described do not challenge the individual right to own a firearm, they simply organize and regulate it.
What is this so? Clearly, it is the presence of guns. The United States has about 330 million people and it has nearly 400 million guns. Guns are present in around 45% of American homes. And, it should go without saying, these firearms are dangerous, very dangerous. In the USA there are around 240 million car owners and, sadly, every year there are about 43,000 deaths from car accidents; at the same time, there are nearly 82 million gun owners and over 45,000 guns deaths. Guns cause nearly 50,000 deaths every year. They produced nearly 27,000 suicides and 21,000 homicides in 2022; this was 75% of all homicides and 54% of all suicides. Every day in our country, over 300 people are shot and over 100 of these people die (40% murders, 60% suicides).
So, yes, it is a huge problem in our country. But it is soluble problem.
Current comparisons between states with strong gun ownership regulations and those with less stringent laws point toward a solution. Gun deaths are higher in states with lots of gun owners and lower in states with fewer. And gun deaths are highest in states that have created a right to concealed carry of a weapon. Gun deaths decline when gun control regulations are instituted in a state, and they become more frequent after a state reduces regulations or creates new gun ownership rights. And, as already mentioned, countries with strong gun control laws have much lower rates of gun violence than the United States.
A sad reminder of these facts recently occurred in the Czech Republic where an armed man shot and killed 14 people in Prague. This tragic event occurred only a short while after the country loosened its gun regulations. It must be noted that the Czech Republic is the only EU member that claims a constitutional right to bear arms.
I would like to suggest a simple two-part solution for gun violence in the United States.
First, we must make it more difficult to own guns.
Taxes and national pricing regulations could be used to increase the cost of guns. Regulations could be enacted that charge tariffs to gun manufacturers and retailers based on the real costs of guns to society. Estimates are that gun violence costs our country over $500 billion dollars a year, including costs to victims, cost to police, courts, and the criminal justice system, lost wages and spending, losses to quality of life, etc. And much of these costs are born by government agencies and thus are paid for by all taxpayers. These costs could inform a tariff added to the price of guns manufactured and/sold in the United States.
Second, we could treat guns more like cars; that is make it a bit cumbersome and difficult to own and operate one. We could enact a registration system for guns that would require folks to possess a gun owner’s license before they could purchase or own a gun. To get such a license, people would have to be a certain age (30?), pay a substantial annual fee, and pass an annual gun training course and exam. Of course, the course and exam would also change a substantial fee to participants, and buying the resultant permit would also be costly. In addition, owners could be required to answer a tedious and complicated gun ownership application and present their gun and ammunition to the “Department of Firearms Ownership,” DFO, for inspection. DFO offices could be very understaffed, very bureaucratic, and very difficult to visit and use. In addition, there would be substantial fines assigned to people who violate any of these rules and, of course, their guns and ammunition would be confiscated.
In other words, let's make buying and owning a gun very expensive, bureaucratic, and time-consuming process in the United States. And, as an added benefit, the taxes and fees collected in the gun owner licensing and registration process could be used to cover some of the costs created by gun violence and could be directed to public health education programs concerned with the problem of gun violence.
Secondly, we must get rid of many of the existing guns in our communities.
The funds collected from gun manufacturers and owners could help solve the oft-heard question, “What about people who already own guns?” At the same time that we are making it more difficult and more costly to own a gun, the government could sponsor frequent “gun buyback” events where current gun owners are offered, with no questions asked, top dollar for their guns (which the government would then destroy). Experience here in the United States and other countries shows that these events are politically popular and buyback programs in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and elsewhere demonstrate that they can lead to a reduction in gun violence. The most effective program would be one operated by a public agency other than the police due to the fact that trust in law enforcement is low in many communities. And, of course, the amount paid for a buyback must be large enough to motivate owners to sell. Certainly, it is true that by themselves gun buybacks may have only a small effect in reducing violent crime, but recent experience in Australia indicates that when combined with increased government regulation of gun ownership they do help reduce gun violence. If owning a gun is difficult and expensive and the government offers to buy it from you for a good price, many people will take that offer.
Finally, let's take a brief look at the elephant in the room, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Most legal scholars agree that the Constitution does not grant individuals a completely unregulated right to own a gun. Regulations such as fees, licensing, and registration are clearly constitutional. This position has been validated by Supreme Court justices from Scalia to Stevens. The proposals described do not challenge the individual right to own a firearm, they simply organize and regulate it.
In the United States of America, you have to pay fees, pass tests, undergo inspections, and earn a license to own and operate a car, operate a small business, build a building, serve food or liquor, sell cannabis, practice law, medicine, accounting or architecture, or do many other things. Shouldn’t the same kind of rules apply to owning a firearm?
Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy, justice, and a free press are escalating — putting everything we stand for at risk. We believe a better world is possible, but we can’t get there without your support. Common Dreams stands apart. We answer only to you — our readers, activists, and changemakers — not to billionaires or corporations. Our independence allows us to cover the vital stories that others won’t, spotlighting movements for peace, equality, and human rights. Right now, our work faces unprecedented challenges. Misinformation is spreading, journalists are under attack, and financial pressures are mounting. As a reader-supported, nonprofit newsroom, your support is crucial to keep this journalism alive. Whatever you can give — $10, $25, or $100 — helps us stay strong and responsive when the world needs us most. Together, we’ll continue to build the independent, courageous journalism our movement relies on. Thank you for being part of this community. |
It is not news that’s the United States suffers from way too much gun violence. This sad fact is common knowledge around the world. When the American problem of gun violence is brought to the attention of our leaders, they announce their sadness over the situation and then conclude that nothing can be done about it. I disagree.
First, a quick review of the problem. Although the last few years have seen a slight reduction in violent crime, the United States still has more gun violence by far than any other developed country. Our rate of gun violence is seven times that of Canada and 340 times the rate of the United Kingdom! To be sure other develop countries have poverty and inequality, racism and patriarchy, violent entertainment, and mental illness just like the United States; but they do not have the high rates of suicide and homicide by gun that we do.
The proposals described do not challenge the individual right to own a firearm, they simply organize and regulate it.
What is this so? Clearly, it is the presence of guns. The United States has about 330 million people and it has nearly 400 million guns. Guns are present in around 45% of American homes. And, it should go without saying, these firearms are dangerous, very dangerous. In the USA there are around 240 million car owners and, sadly, every year there are about 43,000 deaths from car accidents; at the same time, there are nearly 82 million gun owners and over 45,000 guns deaths. Guns cause nearly 50,000 deaths every year. They produced nearly 27,000 suicides and 21,000 homicides in 2022; this was 75% of all homicides and 54% of all suicides. Every day in our country, over 300 people are shot and over 100 of these people die (40% murders, 60% suicides).
So, yes, it is a huge problem in our country. But it is soluble problem.
Current comparisons between states with strong gun ownership regulations and those with less stringent laws point toward a solution. Gun deaths are higher in states with lots of gun owners and lower in states with fewer. And gun deaths are highest in states that have created a right to concealed carry of a weapon. Gun deaths decline when gun control regulations are instituted in a state, and they become more frequent after a state reduces regulations or creates new gun ownership rights. And, as already mentioned, countries with strong gun control laws have much lower rates of gun violence than the United States.
A sad reminder of these facts recently occurred in the Czech Republic where an armed man shot and killed 14 people in Prague. This tragic event occurred only a short while after the country loosened its gun regulations. It must be noted that the Czech Republic is the only EU member that claims a constitutional right to bear arms.
I would like to suggest a simple two-part solution for gun violence in the United States.
First, we must make it more difficult to own guns.
Taxes and national pricing regulations could be used to increase the cost of guns. Regulations could be enacted that charge tariffs to gun manufacturers and retailers based on the real costs of guns to society. Estimates are that gun violence costs our country over $500 billion dollars a year, including costs to victims, cost to police, courts, and the criminal justice system, lost wages and spending, losses to quality of life, etc. And much of these costs are born by government agencies and thus are paid for by all taxpayers. These costs could inform a tariff added to the price of guns manufactured and/sold in the United States.
Second, we could treat guns more like cars; that is make it a bit cumbersome and difficult to own and operate one. We could enact a registration system for guns that would require folks to possess a gun owner’s license before they could purchase or own a gun. To get such a license, people would have to be a certain age (30?), pay a substantial annual fee, and pass an annual gun training course and exam. Of course, the course and exam would also change a substantial fee to participants, and buying the resultant permit would also be costly. In addition, owners could be required to answer a tedious and complicated gun ownership application and present their gun and ammunition to the “Department of Firearms Ownership,” DFO, for inspection. DFO offices could be very understaffed, very bureaucratic, and very difficult to visit and use. In addition, there would be substantial fines assigned to people who violate any of these rules and, of course, their guns and ammunition would be confiscated.
In other words, let's make buying and owning a gun very expensive, bureaucratic, and time-consuming process in the United States. And, as an added benefit, the taxes and fees collected in the gun owner licensing and registration process could be used to cover some of the costs created by gun violence and could be directed to public health education programs concerned with the problem of gun violence.
Secondly, we must get rid of many of the existing guns in our communities.
The funds collected from gun manufacturers and owners could help solve the oft-heard question, “What about people who already own guns?” At the same time that we are making it more difficult and more costly to own a gun, the government could sponsor frequent “gun buyback” events where current gun owners are offered, with no questions asked, top dollar for their guns (which the government would then destroy). Experience here in the United States and other countries shows that these events are politically popular and buyback programs in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and elsewhere demonstrate that they can lead to a reduction in gun violence. The most effective program would be one operated by a public agency other than the police due to the fact that trust in law enforcement is low in many communities. And, of course, the amount paid for a buyback must be large enough to motivate owners to sell. Certainly, it is true that by themselves gun buybacks may have only a small effect in reducing violent crime, but recent experience in Australia indicates that when combined with increased government regulation of gun ownership they do help reduce gun violence. If owning a gun is difficult and expensive and the government offers to buy it from you for a good price, many people will take that offer.
Finally, let's take a brief look at the elephant in the room, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Most legal scholars agree that the Constitution does not grant individuals a completely unregulated right to own a gun. Regulations such as fees, licensing, and registration are clearly constitutional. This position has been validated by Supreme Court justices from Scalia to Stevens. The proposals described do not challenge the individual right to own a firearm, they simply organize and regulate it.
In the United States of America, you have to pay fees, pass tests, undergo inspections, and earn a license to own and operate a car, operate a small business, build a building, serve food or liquor, sell cannabis, practice law, medicine, accounting or architecture, or do many other things. Shouldn’t the same kind of rules apply to owning a firearm?
It is not news that’s the United States suffers from way too much gun violence. This sad fact is common knowledge around the world. When the American problem of gun violence is brought to the attention of our leaders, they announce their sadness over the situation and then conclude that nothing can be done about it. I disagree.
First, a quick review of the problem. Although the last few years have seen a slight reduction in violent crime, the United States still has more gun violence by far than any other developed country. Our rate of gun violence is seven times that of Canada and 340 times the rate of the United Kingdom! To be sure other develop countries have poverty and inequality, racism and patriarchy, violent entertainment, and mental illness just like the United States; but they do not have the high rates of suicide and homicide by gun that we do.
The proposals described do not challenge the individual right to own a firearm, they simply organize and regulate it.
What is this so? Clearly, it is the presence of guns. The United States has about 330 million people and it has nearly 400 million guns. Guns are present in around 45% of American homes. And, it should go without saying, these firearms are dangerous, very dangerous. In the USA there are around 240 million car owners and, sadly, every year there are about 43,000 deaths from car accidents; at the same time, there are nearly 82 million gun owners and over 45,000 guns deaths. Guns cause nearly 50,000 deaths every year. They produced nearly 27,000 suicides and 21,000 homicides in 2022; this was 75% of all homicides and 54% of all suicides. Every day in our country, over 300 people are shot and over 100 of these people die (40% murders, 60% suicides).
So, yes, it is a huge problem in our country. But it is soluble problem.
Current comparisons between states with strong gun ownership regulations and those with less stringent laws point toward a solution. Gun deaths are higher in states with lots of gun owners and lower in states with fewer. And gun deaths are highest in states that have created a right to concealed carry of a weapon. Gun deaths decline when gun control regulations are instituted in a state, and they become more frequent after a state reduces regulations or creates new gun ownership rights. And, as already mentioned, countries with strong gun control laws have much lower rates of gun violence than the United States.
A sad reminder of these facts recently occurred in the Czech Republic where an armed man shot and killed 14 people in Prague. This tragic event occurred only a short while after the country loosened its gun regulations. It must be noted that the Czech Republic is the only EU member that claims a constitutional right to bear arms.
I would like to suggest a simple two-part solution for gun violence in the United States.
First, we must make it more difficult to own guns.
Taxes and national pricing regulations could be used to increase the cost of guns. Regulations could be enacted that charge tariffs to gun manufacturers and retailers based on the real costs of guns to society. Estimates are that gun violence costs our country over $500 billion dollars a year, including costs to victims, cost to police, courts, and the criminal justice system, lost wages and spending, losses to quality of life, etc. And much of these costs are born by government agencies and thus are paid for by all taxpayers. These costs could inform a tariff added to the price of guns manufactured and/sold in the United States.
Second, we could treat guns more like cars; that is make it a bit cumbersome and difficult to own and operate one. We could enact a registration system for guns that would require folks to possess a gun owner’s license before they could purchase or own a gun. To get such a license, people would have to be a certain age (30?), pay a substantial annual fee, and pass an annual gun training course and exam. Of course, the course and exam would also change a substantial fee to participants, and buying the resultant permit would also be costly. In addition, owners could be required to answer a tedious and complicated gun ownership application and present their gun and ammunition to the “Department of Firearms Ownership,” DFO, for inspection. DFO offices could be very understaffed, very bureaucratic, and very difficult to visit and use. In addition, there would be substantial fines assigned to people who violate any of these rules and, of course, their guns and ammunition would be confiscated.
In other words, let's make buying and owning a gun very expensive, bureaucratic, and time-consuming process in the United States. And, as an added benefit, the taxes and fees collected in the gun owner licensing and registration process could be used to cover some of the costs created by gun violence and could be directed to public health education programs concerned with the problem of gun violence.
Secondly, we must get rid of many of the existing guns in our communities.
The funds collected from gun manufacturers and owners could help solve the oft-heard question, “What about people who already own guns?” At the same time that we are making it more difficult and more costly to own a gun, the government could sponsor frequent “gun buyback” events where current gun owners are offered, with no questions asked, top dollar for their guns (which the government would then destroy). Experience here in the United States and other countries shows that these events are politically popular and buyback programs in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and elsewhere demonstrate that they can lead to a reduction in gun violence. The most effective program would be one operated by a public agency other than the police due to the fact that trust in law enforcement is low in many communities. And, of course, the amount paid for a buyback must be large enough to motivate owners to sell. Certainly, it is true that by themselves gun buybacks may have only a small effect in reducing violent crime, but recent experience in Australia indicates that when combined with increased government regulation of gun ownership they do help reduce gun violence. If owning a gun is difficult and expensive and the government offers to buy it from you for a good price, many people will take that offer.
Finally, let's take a brief look at the elephant in the room, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Most legal scholars agree that the Constitution does not grant individuals a completely unregulated right to own a gun. Regulations such as fees, licensing, and registration are clearly constitutional. This position has been validated by Supreme Court justices from Scalia to Stevens. The proposals described do not challenge the individual right to own a firearm, they simply organize and regulate it.
In the United States of America, you have to pay fees, pass tests, undergo inspections, and earn a license to own and operate a car, operate a small business, build a building, serve food or liquor, sell cannabis, practice law, medicine, accounting or architecture, or do many other things. Shouldn’t the same kind of rules apply to owning a firearm?
One critic accused the president of "testing the limits of his power, hoping to intimidate other cities into submission to his every vengeful whim."
The Trump administration's military occupation of Washington, D.C. is expected to expand, a White House official said Wednesday, with President Donald Trump also saying he will ask Congress to approve a "long-term" extension of federal control over local police in the nation's capital.
The unnamed Trump official told CNN that a "significantly higher" number of National Guard troops are expected on the ground in Washington later Wednesday to support law enforcement patrols in the city.
"The National Guard is not arresting people," the official said, adding that troops are tasked with creating "a safe environment" for the hundreds of federal officers and agents from over a dozen agencies who are fanning out across the city over the strong objection of local officials.
Trump dubiously declared a public safety emergency Monday in order to take control of Washington police under Section 740 of the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act. The president said Wednesday that he would ask the Republican-controlled Congress to authorize an extension of his federal takeover of local police beyond the 30 days allowed under Section 740.
"Already they're saying, 'He's a dictator,'" Trump said of his critics during remarks at the Kennedy Center in Washington. "The place is going to hell. We've got to stop it. So instead of saying, 'He's a dictator,' they should say, 'We're going to join him and make Washington safe.'"
According to official statistics, violent crime in Washington is down 26% from a year ago, when it was at its second-lowest level since 1966,
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) have both expressed support for Trump's actions. However, any legislation authorizing an extension of federal control over local police would face an uphill battle in the Senate, where Democratic lawmakers can employ procedural rules to block the majority's effort.
Trump also said any congressional authorization could open the door to targeting other cities in his crosshairs, including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Oakland. Official statistics show violent crime trending downward in all of those cities—with some registering historically low levels.
While some critics have called Trump's actions in Washington a distraction from his administration's mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, others say his occupation of the nation's capital is a test case to see what he can get away with in other cities.
Kat Abughazaleh, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Illinois, said Monday that the president's D.C. takeover "is another telltale sign of his authoritarian ambitions."
Some opponents also said Trump's actions are intended to intimidate Democrat-controlled cities, pointing to his June order to deploy thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to protests against his administration's mass deportation campaign.
Testifying Wednesday at a San Francisco trial to determine whether Trump violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878—which generally prohibits use of the military for domestic law enforcement—by sending troops to Los Angeles, California Deputy Attorney General Meghan Strong argued that the president wanted to "strike fear into the hearts of Californians."
Roosevelt University political science professor and Newsweek contributor David Faris wrote Wednesday that "deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C. is an unconscionable abuse of federal power and another worrisome signpost on our road to autocracy."
"Using the military to bring big, blue cities to heel, exactly as 'alarmists' predicted during the 2024 campaign, isn't about a crisis in D.C.—violent crime is actually at a 30-year low," he added. "President Trump is, once again, testing the limits of his power, hoping to intimidate other cities into submission to his every vengeful whim by making the once unimaginable—an American tyrant ordering a military occupation of our own capital—a terrifying reality."
"Underneath shiny motherhood medals and promises of baby bonuses is a movement intent on elevating white supremacist ideology and forcing women out of the workplace," said one advocate.
The Trump administration's push for Americans to have more children has been well documented, from Vice President JD Vance's insults aimed at "childless cat ladies" to officials' meetings with "pronatalist" advocates who want to boost U.S. birth rates, which have been declining since 2007.
But a report released by the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) on Wednesday details how the methods the White House have reportedly considered to convince Americans to procreate moremay be described by the far right as "pro-family," but are actually being pushed by a eugenicist, misogynist movement that has little interest in making it any easier to raise a family in the United States.
The proposals include bestowing a "National Medal of Motherhood" on women who have more than six children, giving a $5,000 "baby bonus" to new parents, and prioritizing federal projects in areas with high birth rates.
"Underneath shiny motherhood medals and promises of baby bonuses is a movement intent on elevating white supremacist ideology and forcing women out of the workplace," said Emily Martin, chief program officer of the National Women's Law Center.
The report describes how "Silicon Valley tech elites" and traditional conservatives who oppose abortion rights and even a woman's right to work outside the home have converged to push for "preserving the traditional family structure while encouraging women to have a lot of children."
With pronatalists often referring to "declining genetic quality" in the U.S. and promoting the idea that Americans must produce "good quality children," in the words of evolutionary psychologist Diana Fleischman, the pronatalist movement "is built on racist, sexist, and anti-immigrant ideologies."
If conservatives are concerned about population loss in the U.S., the report points out, they would "make it easier for immigrants to come to the United States to live and work. More immigrants mean more workers, which would address some of the economic concerns raised by declining birth rates."
But pronatalists "only want to see certain populations increase (i.e., white people), and there are many immigrants who don't fit into that narrow qualification."
The report, titled "Baby Bonuses and Motherhood Medals: Why We Shouldn't Trust the Pronatalist Movement," describes how President Donald Trump has enlisted a "pronatalist army" that's been instrumental both in pushing a virulently anti-immigrant, mass deportation agenda and in demanding that more straight couples should marry and have children, as the right-wing policy playbook Project 2025 demands.
Trump's former adviser and benefactor, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, has spoken frequently about the need to prevent a collapse of U.S. society and civilization by raising birth rates, and has pushed misinformation fearmongering about birth control.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy proposed rewarding areas with high birth rates by prioritizing infrastructure projects, and like Vance has lobbed insults at single women while also deriding the use of contraception.
The report was released days after CNN detailed the close ties the Trump administration has with self-described Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson, who heads the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, preaches that women should not vote, and suggested in an interview with correspondent Pamela Brown that women's primary function is birthing children, saying they are "the kind of people that people come out of."
Wilson has ties to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose children attend schools founded by the pastor and who shared the video online with the tagline of Wilson's church, "All of Christ for All of Life."
But the NWLC noted, no amount of haranguing women over their relationship status, plans for childbearing, or insistence that they are primarily meant to stay at home with "four or five children," as Wilson said, can reverse the impact the Trump administration's policies have had on families.
"While the Trump administration claims to be pursuing a pro-baby agenda, their actions tell a different story," the report notes. "Rather than advancing policies that would actually support families—like lowering costs, expanding access to housing and food, or investing in child care—they've prioritized dismantling basic need supports, rolling back longstanding civil rights protections, and ripping away people's bodily autonomy."
The report was published weeks after Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law—making pregnancy more expensive and more dangerous for millions of low-income women by slashing Medicaid funding and "endangering the 42 million women and children" who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for their daily meals.
While demanding that women have more children, said the NWLC, Trump has pushed an "anti-women, anti-family agenda."
Martin said that unlike the pronatalist movement, "a real pro-family agenda would include protecting reproductive healthcare, investing in childcare as a public good, promoting workplace policies that enable parents to succeed, and ensuring that all children have the resources that they need to thrive not just at birth, but throughout their lives."
"The administration's deep hostility toward these pro-family policies," said Martin, "tells you all that you need to know about pronatalists' true motives.”
A Center for Constitutional Rights lawyer called on Kathy Jennings to "use her power to stop this dangerous entity that is masquerading as a charitable organization while furthering death and violence in Gaza."
A leading U.S. legal advocacy group on Wednesday urged Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings to pursue revoking the corporate charter of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose aid distribution points in the embattled Palestinian enclave have been the sites of near-daily massacres in which thousands of Palestinians have reportedly been killed or wounded.
Last week, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) urgently requested a meeting with Jennings, a Democrat, whom the group asserted has a legal obligation to file suit in the state's Chancery Court to seek revocation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's (GHF) charter because the purported charity "is complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide."
CCR said Wednesday that Jennings "has neither responded" to the group's request "nor publicly addressed the serious claims raised against the Delaware-registered entity."
"GHF woefully fails to adhere to fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence and has proven to be an opportunistic and obsequious entity masquerading as a humanitarian organization," CCR asserted. "Since the start of its operations in late May, at least 1,400 Palestinians have died seeking aid, with at least 859 killed at or near GHF sites, which it operates in close coordination with the Israeli government and U.S. private military contractors."
One of those contractors, former U.S. Army Green Beret Col. Anthony Aguilar, quit his job and blew the whistle on what he said he saw while working at GHF aid sites.
"What I saw on the sites, around the sites, to and from the sites, can be described as nothing but war crimes, crimes against humanity, violations of international law," Aguilar told Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman earlier this month. "This is not hyperbole. This is not platitudes or drama. This is the truth... The sites were designed to lure, bait aid, and kill."
Israel Defense Forces officers and soldiers have admitted to receiving orders to open fire on Palestinian aid-seekers with live bullets and artillery rounds, even when the civilians posed no security threat.
"It is against this backdrop that [President Donald] Trump's State Department approved a $30 million United States Agency for International Development grant for GHF," CCR noted. "In so doing, the State Department exempted it from the audit usually required for new USAID grantees."
"It also waived mandatory counterterrorism and anti-fraud safeguards and overrode vetting mechanisms, including 58 internal objections to GHF's application," the group added. "The Center for Constitutional Rights has submitted a [Freedom of Information Act] request seeking information on the administration's funding of GHF."
CCR continued:
The letter to Jennings opens a new front in the effort to hold GHF accountable. The Center for Constitutional Rights letter provides extensive evidence that, far from alleviating suffering in Gaza, GHF is contributing to the forced displacement, illegal killing, and genocide of Palestinians, while serving as a fig leaf for Israel's continued denial of access to food and water. Given this, Jennings has not only the authority, but the obligation to investigate GHF to determine if it abused its charter by engaging in unlawful activity. She may then file suit with the Court of Chancery, which has the authority to revoke GHF's charter.
CCR's August 5 letter notes that Jennings has previously exercised such authority. In 2019, she filed suit to dissolve shell companies affiliated with former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Richard Gates after they pleaded guilty to money laundering and other crimes.
"Attorney General Jennings has the power to significantly change the course of history and save lives by taking action to dissolve GHF," said CCR attorney Adina Marx-Arpadi. "We call on her to use her power to stop this dangerous entity that is masquerading as a charitable organization while furthering death and violence in Gaza, and to do so without delay."
CCR's request follows a call earlier this month by a group of United Nations experts for the "immediate dismantling" of GHF, as well as "holding it and its executives accountable and allowing experienced and humanitarian actors from the U.N. and civil society alike to take back the reins of managing and distributing lifesaving aid."