Politics
Column: California has the toughest gun laws in the U.S. That’s irrelevant if they’re not enforced
How a lot cash are we prepared to spend to grab weapons from the likes of the disturbed father who shot and killed his three daughters in a church?
And are Sacramento Democrats now prepared to retool California’s controversial sanctuary regulation after it most likely protected the daddy residing right here illegally from federal immigration brokers days earlier than he killed his children?
Placing a price ticket on the lives of younger ladies is an unattainable job. However the precedence ought to be lots increased than the place we’re putting it now, regardless of all of the rhetoric in regards to the want for tight gun management.
California has the hardest state gun legal guidelines within the nation. However that’s irrelevant in the event that they’re not adequately enforced — and so they’re not.
“We have to implement extra of the legal guidelines that we’ve,” state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta acknowledges. “The rise in violent crime all through the nation is nearly completely due to weapons.”
Particularly, he provides, “ghost weapons are a brand new problem we have to rise to.”
They’re unregistered weapons which are assembled from bought components. It’s virtually unattainable to hint them to a violent proprietor to allow them to be seized.
You undoubtedly learn the unhappy, unimaginable story in regards to the father killing his youngsters.
Seems that 39-year-old David Mora was residing within the nation illegally and used an unlawful ghost gun.
Mora was topic to a home violence restraining order that forbade him from going close to his former girlfriend, Ileana Gutierrez Rios, the women’ mom. In searching for the order final Might, she warned a Sacramento courtroom that he was harmful and had threatened her and to kill himself.
Rios requested that he even be avoided their children. However the courtroom purchased Mora’s protest that he needed “a wholesome relationship” along with his youngsters. And he was granted weekly supervised visits with the women.
On Feb. 28, Mora and his daughters have been visiting in a Sacramento church when he opened hearth with a ghost AR-15-style assault rifle. It was geared up with an unlawful high-capacity 30-round journal. In all, 17 photographs have been fired, killing the women, ages 9, 11 and 13, and the chaperone, a mutual buddy of Mora and Rios.
Mora killed himself with the 17th shot.
Below the restraining order, Mora wasn’t allowed to legally possess a gun. However apparently neither the courtroom nor regulation enforcement knew he had one. His abused former girlfriend apparently wasn’t conscious he did. And probably he didn’t receive it till not too long ago, after being launched from the Merced County Jail, the place he’d been held for one night time.
5 days earlier than the Sacramento taking pictures, Mora was arrested close to Los Banos on suspicion of drunk driving and assaulting a California Freeway Patrol officer. He additionally was booked for attacking a hospital emergency room technician.
Federal immigration brokers tried to detain Mora. However due to California’s sanctuary regulation, “the jail was unable to carry him or talk with ICE about his launch and he walked out” on $15,000 bail, the investigating Sacramento County Sheriff’s Workplace reported Friday.
“This unspeakable tragedy highlights the true value, unintended or not, of sanctuary insurance policies that stop regulation enforcement from defending its residents,” mentioned Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, who’s operating for Congress as a Republican.
The sheriff’s sweeping assertion is controversial.
There was a last-minute compromise compelled by Gov. Jerry Brown on the sanctuary invoice earlier than it handed the Legislature in 2017. The measure, by then-Senate chief Kevin de León — now a Los Angeles Metropolis Council member and mayoral candidate — denied California assist to federal brokers attempting to deport individuals who got here right here illegally however, like most, are staying out of hassle. The compromise meant ratting out unhealthy guys to the feds.
Go away the great ones alone and kick out the bums. Round 800 crimes have been listed as qualifiers for bum standing.
But when Mora didn’t meet the factors for being turned over to customs brokers, then the sanctuary regulation ought to be toughened up. He clearly ought to have been deported.
There’s lots about this mass taking pictures we nonetheless don’t know.
How did Mora get the gun? Did he purchase it off the road? Make it himself? Was it stolen? Did anybody know he had it?
Legislation enforcement should not have recognized, or it could have seized the weapon. You’d suppose.
There ought to be extra thorough investigations with in-depth interviews of home violence victims after they search restraining orders. And if the goal is discovered to own a firearm, confiscate it instantly. That will require extra money.
The statewide knowledge system can also be decrepit and details about restraining orders isn’t circulated broadly, if in any respect. Bonta needs cash to beef it up.
There’s a gun violence restraining order that’s targeted on firearms. It includes native “pink flag” packages aimed toward folks judged by a courtroom to be potential killers. Their weapons are confiscated instantly.
“Crimson flags are underutilized,” Bonta says.
There are about 24,000 Californians the lawyer basic’s workplace is aware of about who possess weapons and legally shouldn’t. However it might’t recruit sufficient state officers to seize the weapons and make a dent within the record. The job is harmful and the pay isn’t aggressive.
“We have now probably the most restrictive gun legal guidelines within the nation,” says Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert, who’s operating for lawyer basic as an impartial. “However you must have the funding to take the weapons off the road. There are ghost weapons in all places proper now.”
There’s laws aimed toward tightening up the seemingly ineffective ghost gun ban.
Gov. Gavin Newsom tasks a $21-billion discretionary state surplus for the following fiscal yr. Take 1% of that and make investments it in defending younger ladies from their gun-toting fathers.
And assist the feds deport those right here illegally.
Politics
Trump admin cracks down antisemitism as DOJ official exposes 'violent rhetoric' of radical protesters
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The Trump administration has taken a more aggressive approach than its predecessor toward addressing the nationwide surge in antisemitic incidents, launching investigations, punishing elite universities, and intensifying its immigration enforcement practices.
President Donald Trump, through his Department of Justice (DOJ) and other agencies, is using law-and-order tactics that his deputies say are necessary, but that critics say could constitute overreach.
Harmeet Dhillon, the DOJ’s assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, told Fox News Digital she has not seen any “close cases” when it comes to weighing antisemitic behavior against First Amendment rights of those who oppose Israel or Judaism.
BIDEN EDUCATION DEPT PUT PRIORITY ON PRONOUNS, LEFT BACKLOG OF NEARLY 200 ANTISEMITISM COMPLAINTS: OFFICIAL
“Criticizing the government of Israel is not what I’m typically seeing here,” Dhillon said. “I’m seeing an intifada revolution. I’m seeing blocking Jewish students from crossing campuses and destroying property on campus, which is a crime. … Quiet, polite conversation and disagreement with Israeli policy is not really what’s happening here. It’s literally people saying Israel shouldn’t exist — and bringing the revolution to the United States.”
Dhillon added that “that type of violent rhetoric has led to violent acts in our country.”
Antisemitic violence
After Hamas’s deadly terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the FBI’s hate crime statistics showed a sharp spike in anti-Jewish incidents in the U.S. The data runs through December 2023.
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) data from 2024 and high-profile incidents this year suggest the trend is continuing.
Police respond to a firebombing in Boulder, Colo., last week, where a suspect identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, right, was arrested and charged by state and federal authorities. (Storyful/KDVR)
An Egyptian national in the U.S. illegally in Boulder, Colorado, is facing state and federal charges for allegedly injuring 15 people, including elderly victims and a dog last weekend with Molotov cocktails during a peaceful pro-Israel demonstration in support of hostages being held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
Suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, stated to authorities “he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead,” according to an FBI affidavit. During the attack he allegedly yelled “free Palestine,” the agent said.
In May, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, who worked at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., were gunned down outside the Capitol Jewish Museum in D.C.
Suspect Elias Rodriguez of Illinois shouted “free Palestine” as he was detained, and Interim U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said her office is investigating the case as a hate crime and act of terrorism.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, left, and Elias Rodriguez allegedly committed crimes, including murder, and shouted, “Free Palestine” afterward. (Alex Osante / Instagram/@shinewithIsrael)
SUSPECT CHARGED WITH MURDERING ISRAELI EMBASSY STAFF COULD FACE DEATH PENALTY
In another incident, a man allegedly set fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence on the first night of Passover. Emergency call logs released by local authorities revealed that the suspect, Cody Balmer, invoked Palestine after the arson and blamed Shapiro, who is Jewish, for “having my friends killed.”
Tarek Bazrouk, who identified himself as a “Jew hater” and said Jewish people were “worthless,” allegedly carried out a series of assaults on Jewish New Yorkers in 2024 and 2025, according to an indictment brought against him in May.
Bazrouk wore a green headband that mimicked Hamas garb and a keffiyeh during the attacks, and he celebrated Hamas and Hizballah on his social media, according to federal authorities.
Harvard and Columbia
Trump warned in an executive order at the start of his presidency that foreign nationals participating in “pro-jihadist protests” would be deported, and he specifically highlighted college campuses as being “infested with radicalism.”
Unlike the Biden administration, the Trump administration has since gone to war with elite universities, some of which have been roiled by disruptive pro-Palestinian protests that involve occupying academic buildings and installing encampments.
The Trump administration has taken on elite universities such as Harvard.
LEO TERRELL SAYS TRUMP ADMIN WILLING TO TAKE HARVARD ANTISEMITISM FIGHT ALL THE WAY TO SUPREME COURT
Harvard and Columbia, in particular, are now engaged in litigation after Trump moved to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding for the universities and ban Harvard’s foreign students.
The embattled schools have been successful in winning temporary pauses to Trump’s sanctions through the courts, but litigation is pending and legal experts have said they face an uphill battle.
Free speech controversies
The Trump administration has zeroed in on non-citizen students and activists who it has accused of supporting Palestinian causes in ways it deems hostile to U.S. interests.
Amid Trump’s pursuit of visa and green card holders, Mahmoud Khalil’s case has become a flashpoint.
Khalil was arrested in March and detained after the administration accused him of violating immigration laws by engaging in anti-Israel activism.
This week, Khalil said in court papers the administration’s claims against him were “grotesque” and that his activism involved “protesting this Israeli government’s indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians.”
Acting Columbia University President Claire Shipman was interrupted by students during graduation, who chanted, “Free Mahmoud,” calling for Mahmoud Khalil, right, to be freed. (Columbia University / Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Civil rights groups have warned that the government’s hardliner posture risks violating free speech and protest rights. A coalition of 60 groups issued a joint statement this week on antisemitic hate crimes in which it warned the Trump administration not to over-correct because it would “make us all less safe.”
“As we condemn these heinous [antisemitic] acts and those who perpetrate hate and violence, we also recommit to ensuring that these events — and the legitimate fear in the Jewish community — are not exploited to justify inhumane immigration policies or to target Arab Americans and those who peacefully and nonviolently exercise their First Amendment rights in support of Palestinian human rights,” the groups said.
Dhillon told Fox News Digital: “It’s not my responsibility to balance free speech issues on campus. It’s my responsibility to enforce the federal civil rights laws. And my opinion, there’s really no conflict.”
Antisemitic task force and more
When he took office, Trump vowed in a string of executive orders to direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to “aggressively prosecute terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews.”
Trump appointees at the DOJ then moved quickly to convene an antisemitism task force. Dhillon said there is also frequent communication between the White House, the DOJ, and Jewish leaders about addressing antisemitism.
JEWISH STUDENTS WELCOME TRUMP ADMIN’S CRACKDOWN ON ANTISEMITISM, HAMAS SYMPATHIZERS ON CAMPUSES
DOJ Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon says she’s focused on launching the division’s work toward combating antisemitism. (Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“We have heard from the Jewish community, and I’ve probably met with — I think there’s at least two dozen rabbis who have my number on speed dial now. I literally sent three emails to rabbis in the last hour,” she said.
She said her division has opened several investigations involving land use for religious purposes under a law known as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), including five related to Judaism. The administration is also notifying Jewish communities of grants available for added security at synagogues, and she said campuses are a “significant focus” for her.
Internal turmoil
After reports surfaced that Dhillon’s shakeup in the Civil Rights Division led to a mass exodus of more than 100 attorneys leaving the division, she told the media she was unfazed by the departures and that her focus remains on launching the division’s work toward combating antisemitism.
Testing the limits of his subordinates and the courts, another top DOJ official, Emil Bove, launched an internal investigation into Columbia student protesters early this year. The probe caused concern among line attorneys, who felt it was flimsy and was also met with multiple reprimands from a magistrate judge, according to the New York Times.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement in May that the New York Times’ story was false and fed to the newspaper “by a group of people who allowed antisemitism and support of Hamas terrorists to fester for years.”
Blanche confirmed the veracity of the investigation and said it involved, in part, a probe into a Hamas-linked image on Columbia University Apartheid Divest’s social media.
During China’s imperial age, those deemed guilty of the worst offenses were sometimes sentenced to death in a public square by a brutal form of execution known as lingchi. Soldiers — using sharp blades — would slice away pieces of flesh from the accused until they died. Translated, lingchi means “death by a thousand cuts.”
Maybe democracy does die in darkness, as journalist Bob Woodward often suggests. Or maybe democracy’s demise comes in the light of day, in a public forum, where everyone can bear witness. Sometimes those holding the knives are the oligarchs or elected officials drenched in corruption. And sometimes there’s blood on the hands of the people.
On Saturday, voters in San Antonio — the seventh-largest city in the country — are headed to the polls to decide the first open mayoral race since President Obama’s first term. Or at least some voters will be.
In November 2024, nearly 60% of the 1.3 million registered voters in the county cast a ballot in the general election. However, in the local election held last month, barely 10% showed up to the polls. Before anyone starts throwing shade at San Antonio, in Dallas the turnout was even lower.
Lackluster participation in an “off year” election is not new. However, the mayoral race in San Antonio has increased national interest because the outcome is being viewed as a litmus test for both the strength of the Democrats’ resistance and the public’s appetite for the White House’s policies.
Like other big blue cities nestled in legislatively red states, San Antonio’s progressive policies have been under constant assault from the governor’s mansion. And with neither the progressive candidate, Gina Ortiz Jones, or her MAGA-leaning opponent, Rolando Pablos, eclipsing 50% of the vote in May, the runoff has drawn more than $1 million in campaign spending from outside conservative groups looking to flip the traditionally blue stronghold.
The outcome could provide a possible glimpse into the 2026 mayoral race in Los Angeles, should the formerly Republican Rick Caruso decide to run against Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat. When the two faced off in 2022, around 44% of the city’s registered voters went to the polls. Caruso lost by less than 90,000 votes in a city with 2.1 million registered voters — most of whom didn’t submit a ballot.
It is rather astonishing how little we actually participate in democracy, given the amount of tax dollars we have spent trying to convince other nations that our government system is the best on the planet. Capitulating to President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud, many local conservative elected officials have tried to ram through a litany of “voter integrity” policies under the guise of protecting democracy. However, democracy is not a delicate flower in need of protection. It’s a muscle in need of exercise.
“Some people find voting to be a chore,” Michele Carew, the elections administrator for Bexar County — which includes San Antonio — told me. “We need to make voting easier and quite frankly, fun. And we need to get those who don’t feel like their vote counts to see that it does. That means getting out and talking to people in our neighborhood, in our churches, in our grocery stores … about when elections are coming up and what’s at stake locally.”
Carew said that the added outside interest in the city’s election has driven up early voting a tick and that she expects to see roughly a 15% turnout, which is an increase over previous years. It could be worse. The city once elected a mayor with 7% turnout back in 2013. Carew also expressed concern about outside influence on local governing.
“One of the first times I saw these nonpartisan races become more political was in 2020, and so as time goes by it’s gotten even more so. I would like to think once the candidate is elected mayor they remain nonpartisan and do what’s best for the city and not their party.”
In 2024, a presidential election year when you’d expect the highest turnout, 1 in 3 registered voters across this country — roughly 20 million people — took a look around and said, “Nah, I’m good.” Or something like that.
The highest turnout was in Washington, D.C., where nearly 80% showed up. Too bad it’s not a state. Among the lowest turnout rates? Texas — which has the second-greatest number of voters, behind only California.
And therein lies the problem with trying to extrapolate national trends from local elections. Maybe Ortiz Jones will win in San Antonio this weekend. Maybe Caruso will win in L.A. next year. None of this tells us how the vast majority of Americans are really feeling.
Sure, it’s good fodder to debate around the table or on cable news shows, but ultimately the sample size of a mayoral election belies any claims about a result’s meaning. Turnout during an off year is just too low.
One thing we know for certain is most voters in America exercise their right to vote only once every four years. Oligarchs and corrupt officials are not great, but it’s hard for democracy to stay healthy and strong if that’s all the exercise it’s getting.
@LZGranderson
Elon Musk and President Trump began a relationship nearly a decade ago that developed into a close partnership over the last year. That alliance unraveled publicly in just a few days.
Here’s a look at what the two men have said about each other over the years — both the praises and the jabs.
Frenemies (2016-23)
The relationship between Mr. Musk and the president started off rocky. Before the 2016 presidential election, Mr. Musk said in an interview with CNBC that Mr. Trump was “not the right guy” to lead the country. Over the next few years, Mr. Trump would both praise and insult the tech billionaire.
What Musk said
Nov. 4, 2016
July 11, 2022
What Trump said
Jan. 22, 2020
July 9, 2022
Oct. 28, 2022
Mr. Musk in 2022 reinstated Mr. Trump’s account on Twitter, now X, after purchasing the social media platform, but would later support Ron DeSantis in the early days of the Florida governor’s presidential campaign.
A close allyship (2024-May 2025)
Mr. Musk gave a strong endorsement to Mr. Trump after the first assassination attempt against him at a rally in Butler, Pa., in July 2024. That year, Mr. Musk spent over a quarter of a billion dollars helping to elect Mr. Trump, and was later rewarded with a top adviser position and broad powers to slash the federal bureaucracy.
Mr. Musk made a stunning Oval Office appearance in February, alongside Mr. Trump. During his time as a “special government employee,” Mr. Musk had a public spat with a top Trump economic adviser, Peter Navarro.
What Musk said
July 13, 2024
Oct. 5, 2024
Nov. 11, 2024
April 8, 2025
May 27, 2025
May 30, 2025
What Trump said
Oct. 5, 2024
Feb 11, 2025
March 11, 2025
May 30, 2025
Feud (June 2025)
Cloying flattery abruptly turned into a hostile feud after Mr. Musk criticized the president’s signature domestic policy bill. The two men traded insults — mostly over their respective social media platforms — in what has become a very public breakup.
What Musk said
June 3, 2025
June 5, 2025
June 5, 2025
What Trump said
June 5, 2025
June 5, 2025
June 5, 2025
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