Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Massachusetts state lawmakers on Wednesday filed joint legislation to amend state gun laws by cracking down on “ghost guns,” expanding the state’s red flag law and limiting dangerous individuals’ access to firearms.
The new bill, a compromise between the pending State House and State Senate bills, is likely to be approved by both chambers in a vote tomorrow. After that, it will appear on Democratic Governor Maura Healy’s desk to be signed into law.
The initial impetus for the legislation was the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, a case that expanded gun rights. The majority ruling in the case stated that both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a gun for self-defense outside the home.
A joint collaboration between Massachusetts’ House and Senate was led by State Representative Michael Day and State Senator Cynthia Creem.
According to NBC Boston, Day and Creem said in a joint statement that the bill “delivers meaningfully on our promise to align our statutes with the challenges gun violence poses to our communities today and incorporates the perspectives of firearm owners, law enforcement, community leaders and those impacted directly by gun violence.”
AP Photo/Elise Amendola
Newsweek reached out to Day and Creem for comment via email on Wednesday.
The proposed bill is hard on “ghost guns,” which are largely untraceable, privately made firearms from different non-serialized and often mixed and matched parts. These weapons pose a significant safety concern, with nearly 38,000 ghost guns recovered since 2017, although that number is likely an underestimate given their untraceable nature.
A summary of the legislation obtained by NBC shows that the bill would require all firearms to be serialized and would impose new penalties for the possession, creation and transfer of the so-called “ghost guns.”
House Speaker Ronald Marino issued a statement ahead of Thursday’s vote, saying: “While the Commonwealth’s existing gun laws have proven to be effective in preventing gun violence compared to other states, relative success is never a cause for complacency.”
Newsweek reached out to Mariano for comment via email on Wednesday. Newsweek also reached out to Senate President Karen Spilka for comment via email on Wednesday.
Additionally, the bill is set to expand the state’s red flag law by authorizing health care professionals and others to petition a court to suspend an individual’s right to firearm possession.
The legislation also forbids carrying firearms in public spaces like government buildings, polling places and schools, with exemptions for law enforcement members. It would also require people applying for a firearm license to pass a basic safety exam and live fire training.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
The summer tourist season for Massachusetts is in full swing, drawing in visitors of all shapes and sizes, not to mention species.
An American Flamingo, associated with decidedly warmer climes than Massachusetts, made a number of bird watchers very happy, and a blue whale literally made a splash off the coast of Gloucester.
Though there have been no more unusual whale sightings since then, user-reported bird watching database Ebird exploded once again on Monday with sightings of a Brown Booby in South Boston.
For non-birders, a Brown Booby is a tropical bird. The fact that it’s common in the Carribean should give most people an idea of why it would be so surprising to find it in New England.
The first report of the Brown Booby on ebird was posted Saturday, July 13 a little after 9 a.m., by user Dan O’Brien, but the actual first sighting is credited to one Laura Markley the day before in a number of notes. Meaning the animal has been in the area for at least six days now.
O’Brien wrote that the bird was perched at the end of the wooden piling when he arrived, right as it began to rain. “When the rain started to let up it joined the feeding frenzy of gulls and terns. Saw it plunge diving a few times!” he said in the details section.
Plunge diving is a distinctive behavior used by a number of fishing bird species, diving from the air to the water for fish. Unlike other fishing birds, brown boobys perform relatively shallow dives of about two meters. They are also known to steal food from other birds, known as klepto-parasitism.
O’Brien speculated that the steady southern winds over the last week, and especially Wednesday through Friday, may have brought a few southern birds north, explaining why the bird was so far out of its normal territory.
This species breeds on islands and coasts in the pantropical (tropics in the eastern and western hemispheres) areas of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, often on islands in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. They can also be seen on islands in the Pacific and Indian ocean and even the northern coast of Australia. A wide range but all having one thing in common – south.
PARIS, FRANCE – AUGUST 08: Spectators attend the Olympic Games handover ceremony on August 8, 2021 in Paris, France. On August 8, during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, will officially receive the Olympic flag for the handover ceremony to mark Paris 2024 Olympic Games (July 26-August 11) and Paralympics (August 28-September 8). (Photo by Siegfried Modola/Getty Images)
With the 2024 Paris Olympics coming up shortly, it’s time to take a look at the 20 athletes from the commonwealth of Massachusetts who are heading to Paris to represent the United States. Massachusetts has an illustrious Olympic history ranking 21st in gold medals by state tied with Arkansas and Virginia. So let’s take a look at the twenty athletes from around the state hoping to add to Massachusetts and Team USA’s olympic history.
The world is the happiest it has been since COVID-19, new report shows
The world is experiencing its highest levels of happiness since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Gallup’s Global Emotions Report for 2024.
unbranded – Lifestyle
The world has been dealing with COVID since the pandemic set in back in 2020, and while we know more about the disease, it still hasn’t gone away.
This year is no different, with new COVID variants arriving on the scene, and those variants have been taking their toll on Massachusetts residents.
Meanwhile, health officials are still advocating for staying up on vaccinations, as they say that is one of the best ways to fight the virus.
Here’s what to know about the new COVID variants.
The new variants are called the FLiRT strains of the virus. There are three variants of FLiRT.
They “accounted for the majority of COVID cases in the U.S. at the beginning of July. One of them, KP.3, was responsible for 36.9% of COVID infections in the United States, KP.2 made up 24.4%, and KP.1.1 accounted for 9.2% of cases,” according to a Yale Medicine study.
There is also another new strain – not FLiRT – called “LB.1,” strain, which is similar to the FLiRT variants.
“But with an additional mutation, (LB.1) has attracted attention as well,” Yale Medicine stated. “As summer began, it was responsible for 14.9% of COVID cases.”
More: COVID-19 emergency room visits, deaths are up. Should you be worried?
According to Yale Medicine, “There is no conclusive information yet about whether a COVID illness will be more severe with the new variants or how symptoms might change.”
More: COVID-19 variant KP.3 remains dominant in US, rises to 36.9% of cases: See latest CDC data
The latest data from the Massachusetts Department of Health covers from June 23 to June 29. During that time, there were 1,151 confirmed cases of COVID in the state, with 99,565 for the entire spring and summer.
In that same time period, the state reported six confirmed deaths, with 985 confirmed COVID deaths for the season.
Doctors say vaccination is still a key for defense against COVID. Other ways to defend against the disease include:
According to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, symptoms of the new variants include:
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