SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
giffords
'We Don't Have to Live This Way': Deadly Brown Shooting Spurs Calls for Action on Guns
"Our lawmakers fail us every day that they refuse to take action on gun violence," said Students Demand Action.
Dec 13, 2025
With at least two people dead, several others in critical but stable condition at Rhode Island Hospital, and a suspect at large after a Saturday shooting at Brown University in Providence, gun violence prevention advocates and some US lawmakers renewed calls for swift action to take on what the nonprofit Brady called "a uniquely American problem" that "is completely preventable."
"Our hearts are with the victims, survivors, their families, and the entire community of Brown University and the surrounding Providence area in this horrific time," said Brady president Kris Brown in a statement. "As students prepare for finals and then head home to loved ones for the holidays, our all-too-American gun violence crisis has shattered their safety."
"Guns are the leading cause of death for youth in this nation. Only in America do we live in fear of being shot and killed in our schools, places of worship, and grocery stores," she continued. "Now, as students, faculty, and staff hide and barricade themselves in immense fear, we once again call on lawmakers in Congress and around the country to take action against this uniquely American public health crisis. We cannot continue to allow politics and special interests to take priority over our lives and safety."
Despite some early misinformation, no suspects are in custody, and authorities are searching for a man in dark clothing. The law enforcement response is ongoing and Brown remains in lockdown, according to a 9:29 pm Eastern update on the university's website. Everyone is urged to shelter in place, which "means keeping all doors locked and ensuring no movement across campus."
The Ivy League university's president, Christina H. Paxson, said in a public message that "this is a deeply tragic day for Brown, our families, and our local community. There are truly no words that can express the deep sorrow we are feeling for the victims of the shooting that took place today at the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building."
US Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said on social media that he was "praying for the victims and their families," and thanked the first responders who "put themselves in harm’s way to protect all of us." He also echoed the city's mayor, Brett Smiley, "in urging Rhode Islanders to heed only official updates from Brown University and the Providence Police."
In a statement, US Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) also acknowledged everyone impacted by "this horrific, active, and unfolding tragedy," and stressed the importance of everyone listening to law enforcement "as they continue working to ensure the entire campus and surrounding community is safe, and the threat is neutralized."
The state's two Democratic congressmen, Brown alumnus Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo, released similar statements. Amo also said that "the scourge of mass shootings is a horrific stain on our nation. We must seek policies to ensure that these tragedies do not strike yet another community and no more lives are needlessly taken from us."
Elected officials at various levels of government across the country sent their condolences to the Brown community. Some also used the 389th US mass shooting this year and the 230th gun incident on school grounds—according to Brady's president—to argue that, as US House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) put it, "it's past time for us to act and stop senseless gun violence from happening again."
Both Democratic US senators from Massachusetts also emphasized on Saturday that, in Sen. Elizabeth Warren's words, "students should be able to learn in peace, not fear gun violence." Her colleague Sen. Ed Markey said that "we must act now to end this painful epidemic of gun violence. Our children should be safe at school."
New York City's democratic socialist mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, noted that this shooting occurred just before the anniversary of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut:
This senseless violence—once considered unfathomable—has become nauseatingly normal to all of us across our nation. Tonight, on the eve of the anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting, we find ourselves in mourning once again.
The epidemic of gun violence stretches across America. We reckon with it when we step into our houses of worship and out onto our streets, when we drop our children off at kindergarten and when we fear if those children, now grown, will be safe on campus. But unlike so many other epidemics, we possess the cure. We have the power to eradicate this suffering from our lives if we so choose.
I send my deepest condolences to the families of the victims, and to the Brown and Providence communities, who are wrestling with a grief that will feel familiar to far too many others. May we never allow ourselves to grow numb to this pain, and let us rededicate ourselves to the enduring work of ending the scourge of gun violence in our nation.
Fred Guttenberg has been advocating against gun violence since his 14-year-old daughter was among those murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida nearly eight years ago. He said on social media that he knows two current students at Brown and asserted that "IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE THIS WAY!!!"
Students Demand Action similarly declared: "Make no mistake: We DO NOT have to live and die like this. Our lawmakers fail us every day that they refuse to take action on gun violence."
Gabby Giffords, a former Democratic congresswoman from Arizona who became an activist after surviving a 2011 assassination attempt, said that "my heart breaks for Brown University. Students should only have to worry about studying for finals right now, not hiding from gunfire. Guns are the leading cause of death for young people in America—this is a five-alarm fire and our leaders in Washington have ignored it for too long. Americans are tired of waiting around for Congress to decide that protecting kids matters."
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, warned that "we either take action, or we bury more of our kids."
The Associated Press noted that "Rhode Island has some of the strictest gun laws in the US. Last spring the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed an assault weapon ban that will prohibit the sale and manufacturing of certain high-powered firearms, but not their possession, starting next July."
Gun violence prevention advocates often argue for federal restrictions, given that, as Everytown's latest analysis of state-level policies points out, "even the strongest system can't protect a state from its neighbors' weak laws."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Gun Reform Groups Warn Trump Admin Settlement on Trigger Device 'Paves the Way for Mass Violence'
Gun violence prevention groups say that the "forced-reset triggers," which allow semiautomatic rifles to fire more quickly, effectively turn rifles into machine guns.
May 18, 2025
The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday announced that it settled litigation centering on "forced-reset triggers," devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire faster, and which gun violence prevention groups warn effectively turn semiautomatic rifles into machine guns.
Some gun reform groups said on Friday that the move effectively legalizes machine guns.
The settlement allows the sale of forced-reset triggers. Under the terms of the settlement, a manufacturer of the device, Rare Breed Triggers, will be allowed to sell the devices but will not be allowed to design them for use in a pistol, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The company also agreed to enforce its patent to ward off infringement.
Under former President Joe Biden, some of the devices were classified by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in 2022 as machine guns, which are illegal under federal law.
In 2023, the DOJ sued Rare Breed Triggers, leading to a ruling that blocked the company from selling the devices. Separately, the National Association for Gun Rights sued over the DOJ's classification of the devices as machine guns. Last year, a federal judge ruled in favor of the National Association for Gun Rights and struck down the ban.
According to the Friday announcement from the DOJ, the settlement resolves both of those cases, which were on appeal.
Brady, a gun violence prevention group, condemned the settlement and said in a statement on Friday that it "benefits the gun industry, circumvents gun laws, and paves the way for mass violence."
"The Trump Administration's secret settlement with the gun lobby to permit the sale of Forced Reset Triggers will turn already deadly firearms into weapons of mass destruction," said Kris Brown, the president of Brady. "This dangerous backroom deal is not only an astonishing abuse of power, but undermines decades of sensible government gun safety policy and puts whole communities at immediate serious risk."
"The Trump administration has just effectively legalized machine guns. Lives will be lost because of his actions," said Vanessa Gonzalez, vice president of government and political affairs at Giffords, another gun violence prevention group.
"This move puts our communities in danger. Machine guns have no place on our streets," wrote the group Everytown for Gun Safety on Friday.
The settlement aligns with an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump in February, which directed the attorney general to look at orders, guidance, and other actions by entities in the executive branch to "assess any ongoing infringements" of rights under the Second Amendment.
"This Department of Justice believes that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right," said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement on Friday.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'We Don't Have to Live This Way,' Says Teachers Union Leader After Florida Shooting
"Lawmakers must urgently move to thwart these horrific events that result in terrifying and tragic real-world consequences," said the head of the American Federation of Teachers.
Apr 17, 2025
Following a deadly shooting at Florida State University on Thursday, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, vowed to redouble the union's efforts to push for gun safety reform.
"Campuses and classrooms must be safe and welcoming places, but they can become unsafe in an instant because of the ever-present threat of gun violence," said Weingarten, who noted that the shooting at FSU comes on the heels of a shooting at a Dallas, Texas high school on Wednesday and a shooting near a school campus in San Antonio, Texas also on Wednesday.
"We are the only country in the world that regularly deals with this—but we don't have to live this way," Weingarten said. "We should remove weapons of war from our streets and communities, fund community violence intervention programs, enforce background checks and safe-storage laws, ban high-capacity magazines, and pass more risk-protection laws."
"Lawmakers must urgently move to thwart these horrific events that result in terrifying and tragic real-world consequences," Weingarten concluded.
In a press conference Thursday afternoon, FSU Chief of Police Jason Trumbower said that two people are dead following the shooting—though they were not students. Six others were wounded. The gunman was also shot and is at the hospital.
CNN reported that the shooting suspect has been identified as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, who is the son of a Leon County sheriff deputy.
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed during the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018, said he is not surprised by the shooting at FSU and that some of his daughter's friends are currently attending FSU.
"My daughter Jaime was murdered in the Parkland school shooting. Many of her friends who were lucky enough to survive that shooting went on to attend FSU. Incredibly, some of them were just a part of their 2nd school shooting and some were in the student union today," he wrote on X.
The Tallahassee Democrat also reported that a survivor of the Parkland school shooting was at the FSU campus Thursday.
The gun violence prevention group Giffords reacted to the news of the shooting, writing on X: "What Florida doesn't have: Universal background checks, assault weapon restrictions, large-capacity magazine bans. What Florida does have: The latest school shooting in America."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump's Vision for US Now Includes Allowing Gun Sellers to Skip Background Checks
"These aren't just policy changes—they're deliberate choices that prioritize gun industry profits over American lives," said one gun violence prevention advocate.
Apr 08, 2025
A reported Trump administration plan to eliminate a "zero tolerance" policy for firearm sellers who violate gun safety regulations is aimed at benefiting two groups, said one gun violence prevention advocate: "The gun sellers knowingly endangering communities, and the gun CEOs getting rich off of weapons sales to criminals."
"It absolutely does not benefit the American people," said Emma Brown, executive director of Giffords.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is expected this week to announce the reversal of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) policy, which was implemented by the Biden administration to hold gun sellers accountable for falsifying records, skipping background checks, and otherwise disobeying regulations meant to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a danger to others or themselves.
As The New York Times reported Monday, President Donald Trump plans to order FBI Director Kash Patel, the interim leader of ATF, to move toward eliminating a ban on pistol braces, which can convert handguns to weapons that resemble rifles, and a rule requiring background checks for private gun sales.
Enforcement of the rules has been down since Trump took office in January, with federal courts moving to freeze and weaken the two ATF rules.
"This administration is systematically dismantling the safeguards designed to keep weapons out of dangerous hands."
But Brown said the official repeal of the regulations would embolden "reckless" gun sellers.
"The impact here is simple: Putting gun dealers who break the law back in business will increase crime," said Brown. "Dealers who are willing to sell guns to traffickers and criminals have been given our president's seal of approval at the cost of Americans' safety."
Under the Biden administration, the rules helped empower the ATF to revoke 170 gun seller licenses—more than the agency revoked in the previous three years combined, said Giffords.
"With the reversal of the 'zero tolerance' policy federal firearms licensees who are violating the law will stay in business, allowing more illegal firearms to flow into communities," warned the group.
The gun violence prevention group Brady called the planned repeal "a gift to the gun industry," noting that homicide rates soared during Trump's first term and projecting that gun crimes will once again "skyrocket" after Bondi ends the zero tolerance policy.
"The data is clear and compelling—90% of crime guns come from just 5% of dealers," said Kris Brown, president of Brady. "By dismantling this policy, the Trump administration is deliberately empowering these irresponsible gun dealers to operate without accountability, effectively arming criminals who will use these weapons to terrorize our communities."
"This administration is systematically dismantling the safeguards designed to keep weapons out of dangerous hands," she added. "These aren't just policy changes—they're deliberate choices that prioritize gun industry profits over American lives."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Relieved But Not Happy': Maine Mass Shooting Suspect Found Dead
The discovery ended a two-day manhunt that had kept the city of Lewiston and the surrounding community on edge.
Oct 28, 2023
The man suspected of killing 18 people during a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday was found dead on Friday evening.
The body of the 40-year-old Robert Card was found at around 7:45 pm ET near the Androscoggin River in Lisbon Falls, Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck said at a press conference a little after 10 pm, as the Lewiston Sun Journal reported. He appeared to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The discovery ended a two-day man hunt that had kept Lewiston and the surrounding community on edge.
"Like many people, I'm breathing a sigh of relief tonight knowing Card is no longer a threat to anyone," Maine Gov. Janet Mills said at the press conference at Lewiston City Hall.
Card allegedly opened fire on the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and the Schemengees Bar & Grille at around 7 pm ET Wednesday evening, according to the Portland Press Herald. The shooting killed 18 people and injured 13. Three of those injured were still in critical condition as of Friday, the Sun Journal reported.
Among those killed were Joe Walker, who helped manage the bar and grill and attempted to stop the shooter with a butcher knife, his father and Auburn City Councilor Leroy Walker told reporters, and four members of the deaf community, according to The Associated Press. In total, two women, 15 men, and one 14-year-old boy were killed.
"I'm relieved but not happy," Lewiston resident April Stevens, who knew one of the victims, told AP. "There was too much death. Too many people were hurt. Relieved, yes, happy, no."
Lewiston and nearby Auburn were placed under a shelter-in-place order shortly after Card fled the scene Wednesday, according to the Portland Press Herald. That order was then expanded to Bowdoin Thursday morning and northern Sagadahoc and northern Androscoggin counties Thursday afternoon. The order was lifted at 5:23 p.m. ET Friday, roughly two hours before Card's body was found.
Card's motives remain unknown, according to AP. However, he recently told family members he had been hearing voices and had become increasingly fixated on the Lewiston bar and bowling alley, his family told law enforcement officials during the search. In July, Card, an Army reservist, was hospitalized for two weeks after his trainers in West Point, New York, became concerned over the state of his mental health. At the hospital, he said that he was hearing voices and expressed the desire to hurt other soldiers.
"Americans should not have to live like this."
Gun control advocacy group Giffords said on social media that it was unclear whether or not this history would have legally barred Card from owning a gun. Most gun laws only block people from owning guns if they have been "formally committed" to an institution, and it is not yet clear whether Card was. However, the group noted that Maine does not have a Red Flag law, which empowers family members or law enforcement to ask a court to remove a person's guns temporarily if they pose a threat to themselves or others. Maine currently has a Yellow Flag law, which only allows firearms to be removed if a person is taken into protective custody and a doctor agrees they pose a risk.
"When someone shows signs of harming themselves or others, you need to move quickly," Giffords wrote. "Maine's law has been slow and limited, which has rendered it unusable at times when it is critically needed."
The Lewiston shooting marked the 36th mass killing in the U.S. in 2023.
"Americans should not have to live like this," President Joe Biden said in a statement after Card's body was found. "I once again call on Republicans in Congress to fulfill their obligation to keep the American people safe. Until that day comes, I will continue to do everything in my power to end this gun violence epidemic. The Lewiston community—and all Americans—deserve nothing less."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy