Bill Barr wants to fight mass shootings with death penalty; Trump drops background checks



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Attorney General Bill Barr has drafted a bill to expedite the death penalty for suspects convicted of mass murder.

Trump previously claimed that he would push for "Strong" background checks and other gun control legislation after mass shots in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. On Sunday, Trump completely backed up from the concept of background checks that NRA chief Wayne LaPierre persuaded him that such a bill would be unpopular and would not have stopped the shoots.

"Background checks – I will say that for the most part, sadly, if you look at the last four or five, going back even five or six or seven years – for the most part, as well as you make your background checks, they would not have stopped any of it, "Trump told reporters Sunday as he returned to Washington from Camp David.

Instead, Barr, with the assistance of Vice President Mike Pence, has drafted legislation to speed up the death penalty for convicted mass shooters, Bloomberg News reported, even though many shooters are killed by police or commit suicide during their attacks.

The White House claims the death penalty legislation would be part of a larger package aimed at reducing gun violence. The last time Trump backed up NRA following the Parkland school shooting, his big proposal was arm teachers in classrooms.

This time Trump's focus appears to be on mental health. On Sunday, Trump told reporters his administration would try to "identify severely disturbed individuals and disrupt their plans before they strike."

"Trump said," This is one of the most important measures to keep people out of their hands.

Trump has expressed support for a bill being crafted by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S., Which would strengthen "red flag" laws, which are likely to be taken into account.

Goal Democrats said that such a bill would be needed to fight violence.

"The notion that passing an extreme version of an Extreme Risk Protection Order is one ineffective cop-out," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer , DN.Y., said in a statement, adding that the strongest red flag law "will not be fully effective without strong universal background checks."

Former Vice President Joe Biden slammed Barr and Pence's shot at the death penalty for mass shooters, arguing it was "what you do when you do not get something done that's rational – you increase the penalty for the irrational," according to Bloomberg.

Studies found that gun control laws help reduce violence, but many other studies have found no deterrent effect from the death penalty, which Barr recently reinstated after nearly two decades.

Studies have shown that the death penalty has homicide rates between 48 percent and 101 percent higher than those that do not have the death penalty. A survey of criminologists found that just 5 percent believed the death penalty was a deterrent while 88 percent believed the opposite.

On the other hand, studies have shown that gun control legislation does not reduce violence.

A study published this year in the medical journal BMJ They had fewer mass shots while they had laws with more mass shotings.

"A 10 unit increase in the permissiveness of state laws was associated with an approximately 9 percent higher rate of mass shootings after adjusting for key factors," the researchers wrote. "A 10 percent increase in the rate of inflation was associated with an approximately 35 percent higher rate of mass shootings after adjusting for key factors."

The study found "a growing divergence in recent years as the rates of mass shoots in restrictive states have decreased and those in permissive states have increased."

Texas, which has executed more people than any other state over the last 40 years, Sutherland Springs in which 26 people died.

Just hours after a gunman with an "AR-style" rifle killed seven people and injured 22 others in Odessa, new laws loosening gun restrictions went into effect across Texas.

Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Action Demand for Gun Sense in America, wrote that "the only thing that will stop mass shooters is preventing them from getting guns in the first place."

"Texas has executed the most people of any state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 – more than 550," she tweeted. "The second closest state is Georgia with 74." I do not think making the death penalty ".

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