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U.S. politicians see possible gun deal and wonder: Maybe this time is different – CBC News

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A podium-pounding burst of indignation at the White House may have been the scene-stealing highlight of actor Matthew McConaughey’s gun-control tour of Washington this week.

But that impassioned appearance before the press corps overshadowed other stops on his itinerary that speak to the detail-laden drudgery of passing a gun bill.

The process is now plodding ahead in the U.S. Congress, where the celebrity son of grief-stricken Uvalde, Texas, has also been holding meetings.

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Finally, McConaughey sat for an interview with the one political opinion-maker that may hold more power than any other in shaping the outcome of the current gun debate: Fox News.

That’s because the action right now is in the U.S. Senate, a chamber synonymous with inaction. A gun bill can only pass if it gets the votes of 10 Republicans, and their voters disproportionately watch Fox.

WATCH | Actor Matthew McConaughey visits Washington, D.C., to advocate for gun reform:

Matthew McConaughey calls for gun control

1 day ago

Duration 2:23

Actor Matthew McConaughey speaks about the child victims of the school shooting in his hometown, Uvalde, Texas, and appeals for gun control measures, after a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden

The Senate has notoriously demanding procedures that require a 60 per cent vote to pass bills, and it almost never happens on big, controversial issues.

Except this time, maybe, it might.

Hope for a deal

Don’t expect a nation-altering gun overhaul. The U.S. won’t suddenly become Sweden. But a small, bipartisan circle of senators hopes to reach a preliminary agreement by weekend on elements for a modest gun bill.

The elements potentially include expanded background checks; incentives for state red-flag laws; closer tracking of violent minors; and funding for school security and mental health. 

The Democrat leading the talks comes from a state that suffered its own school massacre, in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.

Chris Murphy says he’s had his heart broken before by the U.S. Congress’s failure to make progress on gun reform and he can’t bear another setback.

“The country’s not going to accept nothing as the answer,” the Connecticut Democrat told a student rally Monday in Washington.

The Democrat leading gun talks in the Senate, Sen. Chris Murphy, right, met President Joe Biden on Tuesday at the White House to update him on the state of negotiations. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

The Republicans sound optimistic, too. Their leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, says an agreement could be within reach: “I hope that’ll be sooner rather than later.” 

The potential specifics of a deal remain murky, as are its chances of passing into law, but here’s what we know based on what the negotiators are saying.

Scope of the deal: limited

At best, any deal will only chip away at the heaping monolith that is the U.S. murder rate, which most research says is at least partly connected to the country’s abundance of guns. 

To put it into numerical perspective, the U.S. homicide rate is about 2.5 to 3.6 times Canada’s, depending on which data set you’re consulting. Put another way, that’s 250 to 360 per cent of Canada’s rate.

One academic expert on gun policy effects on gun crime says he’d be thrilled if congressional action trimmed gun deaths by 10 per cent. It wouldn’t change the U.S.’s status atop developed countries in gun deaths, with 45,000 homicides and suicides in 2020, as gun fatalities surpassed car fatalities.

But it would save thousands of lives per year.

“That’s significant,” said John Donohue of Stanford University. “You’re talking about maybe 4,500 lives saved.” 

Whether Congress gets anywhere close is a different story.

The Rand Corporation think-tank has a calculator to help gauge the potential effects of different gun changes.

It’s based on a survey of 173 gun-policy experts. They offered predictions about the effect of different policies, and the findings are broken into two separate categories: a low-end estimate from the 26 experts skeptical of gun control and a high-end estimate from the other 147.

Under the most drastic scenario, where U.S. lawmakers enacted every policy on Rand’s list — including major gun reforms, like an assault-weapons ban — the calculator estimates U.S. homicides would fall between one-fifth and one-half.

That would still leave the U.S. with a higher murder rate than other developed countries, but the gap would be significantly or almost totally narrowed.

That is, of course, a purely hypothetical exercise. The so-called assault-weapons ban isn’t happening, at least not in this Congress.

Republicans say they hope for a gun deal soon. But the top Republican negotiator, senior Texas Sen. John Cornyn, seen here earlier this year, said guns are a polarizing issue and negotiations aren’t easy. (Jon Cherry/Reuters)

So, back here on legislative Planet Earth, American lawmakers are looking at more targeted measures designed to get conservative votes in the Senate. 

Background checks: Adjustments possible

Lawmakers are discussing changes to the 24-year-old national background-checks system. 

One likely example: Adding juvenile violent-crime records to the records system, or at least having that juvenile record last a few years after the minor’s 18th birthday. 

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said the current system won’t include, for example, the 44,000 juvenile arrests for violent crime in 2019.

“None of that is in a background check today,” said Tillis, one of the lawmakers in the talks. “That’s a lot to check on.”

There’s also talk about closing a loophole in the background-check system, which now works for sales in stores but not for private sellers and gun shows. 

The Rand Corporation survey predicted the impact of universal background checks would range from nothing to a five per cent homicide reduction per year.

Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican leading the talks for his party, said he believed every gun seller should do a background check.

Mourners pay respects at a memorial for the 21 killed in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. (Lucas Boland/USA Today/Reuters)

But don’t expect much on this front.

In a CNN interview over the weekend, the Democrat Murphy downplayed expectations about the scope of the background-check change and said it would not result in universal detailed checks.

Red-flag laws: Potential incentives for states

Red-flag laws could have a more dramatic effect.

Different versions of these laws already exist in 19 states, and Rand’s experts said that homicide rates would drop several percentage points if these and other violence-related prohibitions were extended nationally.

A red-flag law allows someone — a family member, loved one or law enforcement — to request that a court temporarily seize weapons from a violence-prone individual. 

The negotiators in Washington are talking about creating financial incentives to help states set up or improve their existing red-flag laws.

But these laws don’t always work. 

Take the racist shooting last month in Buffalo. New York State has a red-flag law. The shooter had even been brought in for a police-mandated psychiatric evaluation after making cryptic threats at school about plans involving murder and suicide. But authorities never applied for a gun restriction in his case. 

This issue could become the hottest flashpoint for lawmakers.

We’ve already seen indications Republican negotiators might need to tread carefully to avoid angering their base — those Fox News viewers McConaughey was addressing.

Actor Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves McConaughey, visited Congress on Tuesday and he also sat for an interview with Fox News, in an effort to encourage a bipartisan deal. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Far-right politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Matt Gaetz have excoriated colleagues for thinking of backing red-flag laws, calling them unconstitutional and unjust.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said he fears such laws could be abused and people targeted would have little standing to defend their Second Amendment rights.

Gaetz fumed that Republican voters could have their guns taken away: “You betray your voters [if you back this],” Gaetz warned colleagues. “You are a traitor to the constitution. … These [laws] will be abused.”

Of note: Gaetz’s home state already has a red-flag law. And it was enacted by his own party.

After the 2018 Parkland school massacre, Florida passed it under a Republican legislature and it was signed by a Republican governor, Rick Scott, now a U.S. senator.

Minimum age requirement a long shot

Democrats hoped to increase the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 rifle to 21; that’s already the minimum to purchase a handgun under a half-century old law. 

Extending the rule to rifles would reduce homicides up to five per cent, according to the Rand expert survey. 

It doesn’t sound like it’s happening.

When asked why that idea appears doomed, Cornyn, the Texas Republican, said some courts have questioned its constitutionality and said it would be a tough sell in Congress.

“This is a big, diverse country,” Cornyn told reporters Monday. “And there are differences — on this [guns] issue in particular and it just takes time to build consensus.”

Republicans are especially keen on getting other, non-gun provisions into a bill: notably funding for mental health and for school security. 

Donohue, the Stanford analyst, is worried. While polls say the public wants change, he said there’s a recurring pattern after horrific massacres.

National politicians talk about doing something, talks drag on, they stall, the public’s attention drifts elsewhere and nothing happens, at least not at the national level. Any gun action lately has fallen to the states.

Donohue fears this might just be a Republican stalling tactic. But he’s holding out hope.

“I still would like to see us move in the right direction, rather than continuing in the wrong direction, as we’ve been doing for a while now.”

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Opinion: Canada's foreign policy and its domestic politics on Israel's war against Hamas are shifting – The Globe and Mail

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The vote in the House of Commons last week on Israel’s war against Hamas represents a shift in both Canada’s foreign policy and its domestic politics.

The Liberal government is now markedly more supportive of the rights of Palestinians and less supportive of the state of Israel than in the past. That shift mirrors changing demographics, and the increasing importance of Muslim voters within the Liberal coalition.

Both the Liberal and Conservative parties once voiced unqualified support for Israel’s right to defend itself from hostile neighbours. But the Muslim community is growing in Canada. Today it represents 5 per cent of the population, compared with 1 per cent who identify as Jewish.

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Although data is sparse prior to 2015, it is believed that Muslim Canadians tended to prefer the Liberal Party over the Conservative Party. They were also less likely to vote than the general population.

But the Conservative Party under Stephen Harper deeply angered the community with talk about “barbaric cultural practices” and musing during the 2015 election campaign about banning public servants from wearing the niqab. Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was promising to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada if elected.

These factors galvanized community groups to encourage Muslims to vote. And they did. According to an Environics poll, 79 per cent of eligible Muslims cast a ballot in the 2015 election, compared with an overall turnout of 68 per cent. Sixty-five per cent of Muslim voters cast ballots for the Liberal Party, compared with 10 per cent who voted for the NDP and just 2 per cent for the Conservatives. (Telephone interviews of 600 adults across Canada who self-identified as Muslim, were conducted between Nov. 19, 2015 and Jan. 23, 2016, with an expected margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points 19 times out of 20.)

Muslim Canadians also strongly supported the Liberals in the elections of 2019 and 2021. The party is understandably anxious not to lose that support. I’m told that Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly often mentions the large Muslim community in her Montreal riding. (According to the 2021 census, 18 per cent of the people in Ahuntsic-Cartierville identify as Muslim.)

This is one reason why the Liberal leadership laboured so mightily to find a way to support last week’s NDP motion that would, among other measures, have recognized the state of Palestine. The Liberal caucus was deeply divided on the issue. My colleague Marieke Walsh reports that dozens of Liberal MPs were prepared to vote for the NDP motion.

In the end, almost all Liberal MPs ended up voting for a watered-down version of the motion – statehood recognition was taken off the table – while three Liberal MPs voted against it. One of them, Anthony Housefather, is considering whether to remain inside the Liberal caucus.

This is not simply a question of political calculation. Many Canadians are deeply concerned over the sufferings of the people in Gaza as the Israel Defence Forces seek to root out Hamas fighters.

The Conservatives enjoy the moral clarity of their unreserved support for the state of Israel in this conflict. The NDP place greater emphasis on supporting the rights of Palestinians.

The Liberals have tried to keep both Jewish and Muslim constituencies onside. But as last week’s vote suggests, they increasingly accord a high priority to the rights of Palestinians and to the Muslim community in Canada.

As with other religious communities, Muslims are hardly monolithic. Someone who comes to Canada from Senegal may have different values and priorities than a Canadian who comes from Syria or Pakistan or Indonesia.

And the plight of Palestinians in Gaza may not be the only issue influencing Muslims, who struggle with inflation, interest rates and housing affordability as much as other voters.

Many new Canadians come from societies that are socially conservative. Some Muslim voters may be uncomfortable with the Liberal Party’s strong support for the rights of LGBTQ Canadians.

Finally, Muslim voters for whom supporting the rights of Palestinians is the ballot question may be drawn more to the NDP than the Liberals.

Regardless, the days of Liberal/Conservative bipartisan consensus in support of Israel are over. This is the new lay of the land.

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Recall Gondek group planned to launch its own petition before political novice did – CBC.ca

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The third-party group helping promote the recall campaign against Mayor Jyoti Gondek had devised plans to launch its own petition drive, as part of a broader mission to make Calgary council more conservative.

Project YYC had planned with other conservative political organizations to gather signatures demanding Calgary’s mayor be removed, says group leader Roy Beyer. But their drive would have begun later in the year, when nicer weather made for easier canvassing for supporters, he said.

Those efforts were stymied when Landon Johnston, an HVAC contractor largely unknown in local politics, applied at city hall to launch his own recall drive in early February. Since provincial recall laws allow only one recall attempt per politician per term, Project YYC chose to lend support to Johnston’s bid.

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“Now we have to try to do door-knocking in the winter, and there’s a lot of preparation that you have to contemplate prior to starting. And Landon didn’t do that,” Beyer told CBC News in an interview.

Project YYC has helped gather signatures, created a website and erected large, anti-Gondek signs around town. It has supplied organizational heft that Johnston admits to lacking.

Their task is daunting.

According to provincial law, in order to force a recall plebiscite to oust the mayor before the term is up, they have two months to gather more than 514,000 signatures, an amount equal to 40 per cent of Calgary’s population in 2019.

They have until April 4 to collect that many signatures, and by March 21 had only 42,000.

Beyer criticizes the victory threshold for recall petition as so high that it’s “a joke,” and the province may as well not have politician recall laws.

So if he thinks it’s an impossible pursuit, why is he involved with this?

“You can send a message to the mayor that she should be sitting down and resigning … without achieving those numbers,” Beyer said.

Project YYC founder Roy Beyer, from a Take Back Alberta video in 2022. He is no longer with that provincial activist group. (royjbeyer screenshot/Rumble)

He likened it to former premier Jason Kenney getting 52 per cent support in a UCP leadership review — enough to technically continue as leader, but a lousy enough show of confidence that he announced immediately he would step down.

Gondek has given no indication she’ll voluntarily leave before her term is up next year. But she did emerge from a meeting last week with Johnston to admit the petition has resonated with many Calgarians and is a signal she must work harder to listen to public concerns and explain council’s decisions.

The mayor also told the Calgary Sun this week that she’s undecided about running for re-election in 2025. 

“There used to be this thing where if you’re the mayor, of course you’re going to run for another term because there’s unfinished business,” Gondek told the newspaper.

“And yes, there will be unfinished business, but the times are not what they were. You need to make sure you’re the right leader for the times you’re in.”

The last several Calgary mayors have enjoyed multiple terms in office, going back to Ralph Klein in the 1980s. The last one-term mayor was Ross Alger, the man Klein defeated in 1980.

Beyer and fellow conservative organizers launched Project YYC before the recall campaign. The goal was to elect a conservative mayor and councillors — “a common-sense city council, instead of what we currently have,” he said.

Beyer is one of a few former activists with the provincial pressure group Take Back Alberta to have latched themselves to the recall bid and Project YYC, along with some United Conservative Party riding officials in Calgary. 

Beyer’s acknowledgment of his group’s broader mission comes as Premier Danielle Smith and her cabinet ministers have said they want to introduce political party politics in large municipalities — even though most civic politicians have said they don’t want to bring clear partisanship into city halls.

Although Beyer admits Project YYC’s own recall campaign would have been a coalition effort with other conservative groups, he wouldn’t specify which ones. He did insist that Take Back Alberta wasn’t one of them.

A man in a grey baseball cap speaks to reporters.
Calgary business owner Landon Johnston speaks to reporters at City Hall on March 22 following his 15-minute conversation with Mayor Jyoti Gondek. (Laurence Taschereau/CBC)

Johnston says he was approached by Beyer’s group shortly after applying to recall Gondek, and gave them $3,000 from donations he’d raised.

He initially denied any knowledge of Project YYC when documents first emerged about that group’s role in the recall, but later said he didn’t initially realize that was the organizational name of his campaign allies.

“They said they could get me signatures, so I said, ‘OK, if you can do it by the book, here’s some money.’ And it’s worked,” he said.

Johnston has said he’s new to politics but simply wants to remove Gondek because of policies he’s disagreed with, like the soon-to-be-ended ban on single-use plastics and bags at restaurant takeouts and drive-thrus.

He’s no steadfast conservative, either. He told CBC’s Calgary Eyeopener that he voted for Rachel Notley’s NDP because one of its green-renovation incentives helped his HVAC business.

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Larry David shares how he feels about Trump – CNN

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Larry David shares how he feels about Trump

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David shares how he feels about former President Donald Trump and the 2020 election. Watch the full episode of “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” streaming March 29 on Max.


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