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gun control
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.
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Still Marching: 25 Years After the Million Mom March
We didn’t march 25-years ago because we wanted to. We marched because we had to—children were dying. They still are.
May 11, 2025
I’d never seen anything like it: a mother standing quietly in the crowd, wearing a plain white T-shirt with a large photo of a young boy flashing a wide grin, a missing front tooth, and a superhero logo across his chest. Below the picture, in simple black letters, “Darius Carter 1993-1999 Forever Six.”
She was living my worst nightmare, her beautiful six-year-old son had been shot and killed. And there she was, surrounded by thousands of other moms wearing similar shirts, refusing to let her son be forgotten.
We were just feet from the massive, bright pink-and-white Million Mom March stage on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., listening to speakers demand Congress pass common sense gun laws. It was Mother’s Day 2000—25 years ago.
Darius’ mom and I stood among 750,000 parents, grandparents, and children holding signs, wearing Million Mom March shirts, and carrying photos of loved ones lost to gun violence. Across the country, hundreds of sister marches rose up in solidarity. For many, like me, it was our first protest.
Twenty-five years ago, we marched because we believed a safer world was possible.
But the Million Mom March was more than a protest. It was a collective outcry—stitched together by grief, fueled by hope, and driven by one belief: no child should die by gun violence. With Congress failing to act, mothers across the country rose up— angry, determined, demanding change.
I never imagined I would become an activist. But on April 20, 1999, I sat frozen in front of my TV, heart pounding, as the unthinkable unfolded at Columbine High School—my alma mater. My basketball coach, Dave Sanders, was killed along with twelve students.
Something inside me broke.
I went from a stay-at-home mom with a six- and two-year-old, juggling diapers, nap schedules, and tantrums, to a gun control activist with a new sense of purpose. The following year I organized and led a delegation from Oregon to the D.C. march.
The Million Mom March was a tipping point. It sparked national conversations about gun laws and helped launch a lasting movement—it later merged with the Brady Campaign, amplifying the call for reform. The march also introduced life-saving initiatives like the ASK (Asking Saves Kids) campaign, which urges parents to ask one critical question before their child visits a friend’s home: Is there an unlocked gun in the house? It’s a simple question that can prevent tragedy. Each year, unintentional shootings injure or kill an average of 363 children in the U.S.
In the 25-years since, the movement—propelled by that day on the National Mall—has helped reshaped the fight for gun safety in America. It ignited one of the first large-scale grassroots campaigns, led to the formation of Brady Campaign chapters, and paved the way for groups like Moms Demand Action. It also spurred a wave of state-level reforms: dozens of states passed child access prevention laws, expanded background checks, and enacted red flag laws—one of our most promising tools for temporarily removing firearms from individuals who pose a danger to themselves or others.
Despite the progress, the crisis has grown worse. In 2000, about 28,000 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S.—a staggering number. Today, it’s soared to over 48,000 per year—132 lives taken every day. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teens in America, surpassing car crashes, drownings, and cancer.
So what happened? Political courage withered and the gun lobby adapted.
They pushed through PLCCA, granting themselves sweeping immunity from lawsuits. They blocked federal funding for gun violence research. And in 2008, they won a Supreme Court ruling that redefined the Second Amendment as an individual right and struck down local gun safety laws.
The COVID-19 pandemic certainly didn’t help. It created a perfect storm: fear, isolation, distrust of government, and economic insecurity, all of which led to record-breaking gun sales. Millions of first-time gun buyers flooded the market, many without proper safety training. The gun industry profited from the fear, and communities are still paying the price.
Meanwhile, untraceable ghost guns flooded our communities, and leaders in many states chose to weaken gun laws rather than strengthen them. The gun industry seized the moment, expanding its appeal.
Twenty-five years ago, the typical gun buyer was a middle-aged man, and gun ownership was in decline. Today, the industry aggressively markets to women, young adults, and even parents—selling pink pistols to moms and tactical diaper bags to dads—casting gun ownership as a form of family empowerment. As sales rose, so did deaths.
So what now? We march again—in new ways, in new places, with the same resolve.
First, we confront the gun industry’s false promises to women and families. Marketing isn’t the problem; it’s the deadly narrative that owning a gun makes your home safer. It simply doesn’t. Research shows that a gun in the home increases the risk of homicide by 100%, suicide by 50%, and unintentional death significantly. I’ve witnessed how quickly an unsecured gun can turn a moment of fear, anger, or despair into an irreversible tragedy.
Second, we shift the national conversation from gun rights to gun responsibilities. Rights come with duties. An unsecured gun doesn’t just put your family at risk—it endangers neighbors, classmates, and entire communities. Only about 6% of guns used in crimes are stolen, yet those guns are far more likely to be used in violent crimes. And nearly 74% of school shooters under 18 got their gun from home or a relative. These aren’t just tragedies, they’re preventable. Responsible gun owners lock up their firearms, store ammunition separately, and support common-sense policies like mandatory reporting of lost or stolen guns, child access prevention laws, and required training. Supporting background checks and red flag laws isn’t anti-gun, it’s pro-responsibility.
Third, gun violence groups must work together.
In 2000, there was one widely recognized national organization: the Brady Campaign. Today there are many, but they often compete for funding, attention, and influence. It’s time to align, collaborate, and focus our collective energy against a fractured gun lobby whose primary strategy remains fear and bravado. Only by working together can we create sustained lasting change.
Finally, we must elevate and invest in the next generation of activists. Today’s young people have grown up with lockdowns and active shooter drills. They understand the stakes—viscerally. Their leadership was undeniable after the 2018 Parkland shooting, when survivors organized March for Our Lives, one of the largest single-day protests in U.S. history. Those of us who marched in 2000 must now step up and mentor, resource, and amplify this rising generation. Our kids’ lives depend on it.
Twenty-five years ago, we marched because we believed a safer world was possible. I often think of Carole Price, who bravely stood on stage that day and told us about her 13-year-old son, John—shot and killed while playing at a friend’s house. “It never occurred to me to ask about guns,” she said. “I wish I had asked the question.” Then she said something I’ll never forget: “It might be uncomfortable to ask the question. But I can tell you from personal experience, it’s a lot more uncomfortable to pick out a casket for your child.”
Even now—despite the setbacks, the rising death toll, and the political paralysis—I still believe. I believe in this next generation, in the power of parents and survivors, and in ordinary people who refuse to look away. We didn’t march 25-years ago because we wanted to. We marched because we had to—children were dying. They still are.
So we keep going. Because really, what other choice do we have?
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Trump Is Robbing Public Health to Pay for His Deportation Conveyer Belt
For $40 billion-worth of health cuts to come as our government wants to spend $45 billion to become Amazon-efficient at shipping human beings to foreign prisons is establishing this nation as a beacon of cruelty.
May 10, 2025
The Trump administration wants to spend $45 billion to build an inhumane deportation industry while planning to cut at least $40 billion in life-saving programs from the Department of Health and Human Services. The juxtaposition is a near-perfect gauge of how heartless our government has become in the richest nation on Earth.
For deportation, the administration virtually froths for an Amazon-like fulfillment center to robotically sort out handcuffed humans and shuffle them down the aisles onto trucks and planes.
Todd Lyons, the acting director of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), recently told private security companies seeking contracts that ICE needs to be “like Amazon, trying to get your product delivered in 24 hours… trying to figure out how to do that with human beings and trying to get them pretty much all over the globe is really something for us.”
So far, all that the government is proving is how cruel it is in running roughshod over due process to separate children from parents and deport U.S. citizen children, including one with late-stage cancer.
That is really something, on many levels. One is the sheer immorality of reducing humans to shrink-wrapped products to shove onto conveyor belts and stack on forklifts. Another is that so far, ICE is as indiscriminate and incompetent as Amazon is efficient. President Donald Trumppromised “the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America.” Border czar Tom Homan said the United States government was “targeting the worst of the worst” for deportation.
Instead, there have been notorious incidents of students being rounded up for exercising their right to free speech and deportations of untold numbers of people without U.S. criminal records. One recent notorious case is that of 238 mostly Venezuelan migrants deported to prisons in El Salvador; Bloomberg Newsfound that only about 10% of them had a criminal record in the United States. The legality of many deportations is highly questionable, as the White House has defied court orders to turn back deportation planes and return wrongly deported people back to the United States
According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, founded at Syracuse University, ICE issued 18,000 “detainer” requests for local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to hold people for possible deportation in the first month of the new Trump administration. That was more than triple the detainers issued in the first full month of the Biden administration, which faced its own fierce criticism from immigration rights advocates.
ICE says detainers are mostly for people who have been convicted of burglaries and robberies, kidnapping, homicide, sexual assault, weapons offenses, drug trafficking, and human trafficking. But only 28% of people targeted by a detainer in the first month of the new Trump administration had a prior conviction in the United States, with the most frequent offenses involving drunk driving and other traffic violations.
As for the “worst of the worst,” just one half of 1% of detainers involved a convicted rapist or murderer. So far, all that the government is proving is how cruel it is in running roughshod over due process to separate children from parents and deport U.S. citizen children, including one with late-stage cancer.
That the nation would spend $45 billion on this malicious ruination of lives and destruction of families looks even more unconscionable when President Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. want to cut $40 billion from a department that says its mission is to “enhance the health and well-being of all Americans, by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health, and social services.”
A review of the proposed cuts—as detailed in a 64-page memorandum that was leaked to the media—shows how profoundly the Trump administration is about to betray that mission.
Cuts Despite Deadly Toll
The administration would end the HIV Epidemic Initiative, even though nearly 5,000 people a year in the United States still die with HIV/AIDS as the underlying cause. Despite many advances in HIV treatment that allow patients longer lives, there were still 38,000 HIV diagnoses in 2022, half of them in Southern states. While 1 in 5 people in the United States with HIV are still not able to access treatment.
The administration would kill the Minority AIDS Initiative, even though the disease is rife with gross racial disparities. Though African Americans are 12% of the nation’s population, they accounted for 37% of new HIV diagnoses in 2022.
The cuts would eliminate the division of Firearm Injury and Mortality Research. In doing so, the administration is imposing an ignorance that will likely further paralyze any debate on gun control, since the division’s mission is to provide data “to inform action” on a major cause of death in the United States. Last year, then-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory declaring gun violence an “urgent public health crisis,” as gun deaths soared to a record 48,830 in 2021.
All this raises real questions of how people in this nation could needlessly die if the HHS cuts become real in the areas of gun safety, mental health, food safety, HIV, or nursing.
New research funded by HHS’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that emergency rooms were receiving a gunshot victim every 30 minutes in nine Southern and Western states and the District of Columbia. Even though murders have subsided somewhat from a record 21,000 in 2021 during the Covid-19 crisis, gun suicides kept rising to a record 27,300 in 2023.
Yet, HHS has scrubbed Murthy’s advisory from its website.
The Youth Violence Division would also be eliminated, even though gun deaths are the leading cause of death for youth under 18, killing 2,500 kids a year. Due to the Trump administration’s demands to end equity across all public policy, HHS proposes to eliminate the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. More than half of Black youth who die before the age of 18 are victims of gun violence, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. Black youth are six times more likely to die a gun death than white youth.
Besides the 27,300 gun suicides in 2023, another 22,000 suicides occurred that year from other methods, primarily suffocation and intentional poisoning. About another 100,000 people died in 2022 from unintentional overdoses of fentanyl, methamphetamine, prescription opioids, cocaine, heroin, and other substances.Yet, despite the approximately 150,000 combined deaths a year from suicides and overdoses, President Trump and Secretary Kennedy propose to eliminate dozens of mental health and substance abuse training and treatment programs for children, families, people of color, people in the criminal justice system, first responders, community recovery support, and crisis response.
As if the Flint Water Crisis never happened, HHS under the Trump administration would end the Childhood Lead Poisoning Program and the Lead Exposure Registry. That is despite a 2022 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal that showed half of the U.S. population was exposed to high levels of lead in early childhood, and a 2016 Reutersanalysis that 3,000 communities across the nation had higher lead levels than Flint. A 2022 study found that without stronger congressional action to protect children from the brain damage of lead exposure, the nation will “needlessly absorb” about $80 billion in annual costs to the nation’s economy, double the proposed cuts to HHS.
HHS would end the direct involvement of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in routine inspections of food facilities, trusting an uneven patchwork of state vigilance on bacteria, parasites, and viruses in our food systems. Never mind that the CDC says there are 48 million cases of foodborne illness every year, costing 3,000 lives and requiring 128,000 hospitalizations. A study last year done by researchers from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Colorado School of Public Health found that food illnesses cost the nation $75 billion a year in medical care, lost productivity, premature deaths, and ongoing chronic illnesses.
Yet, HHS wants to cut $40 billion from the budget.
Cuts Range From Chronic Diseases to Drowning Programs
The Trump administration and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, have disingenuously stated that funding and eliminations of departments are targeting waste and fraud. One need not be a math major to see that what they propose is the opposite.
For instance, the cuts would eliminate the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, even though cancer, heart disease, and stroke kill more than 1.5 million people a year in the United States, and cost the nation hundreds of billions of dollars a year in healthcare costs and lost productivity. Many of those diseases, along with diabetes and obesity, are often preventable, and the national center has been a resource for programs to reduce smoking, promote physical activity, lower alcohol intake, and improve nutrition.
The administration wants to eliminate the National Institutes for Nursing Research and several other nursing programs. This is in the face of studies that show that lower nurse-to-patient ratios and lower patient waiting times (because of more nurses) can save a hospital a couple of million dollars a year. It is also in the face of a 2021 study that found that in New York state alone, lower nurse-to-patient ratios could save more than 4,000 lives and more than $700 million over a two-year period.
The administration is so heartless that it even wants to eliminate its program for drowning, even though 4,500 people a year perish underwater, even though it is the top cause of death for preschoolers, and even though 55% of U.S. adults have never taken a swim lesson.
All this raises real questions of how people in this nation could needlessly die if the HHS cuts become real in the areas of gun safety, mental health, food safety, HIV, or nursing. It should be unfathomable that the nation would let its guard down after Flint, risking stunted brain development in untold children.
For these $40 billion-worth of cuts to come at the same time our government wants to spend $45 billion to become Amazon-efficient at shipping human beings “all over the globe” to foreign prisons is establishing this nation as a beacon of cruelty in the developed world. The government wants a conveyor belt of deportation as it dismantles health systems in the name of efficiency.
That would be quite the fulfillment center. Immigrants are forklifted into misery. The rest of us are being carted into a cavalier world by a government that clearly does not care how many people die.
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