President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he has directed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to propose changes that would ban bump stocks on guns. Earlier in the day, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump had ordered the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to review bump stocks, which has been completed. The DOJ’s and ATF’s review of bump stocks was first announced in December, fol- lowing the Las Vegas concert shooting in October.
The memo that Trump sent to the DOJ asks to ban “all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns.” According to Fox News, the White House said that Trump “opposes the bump stock rifle modifier, which makes semi-automatic firearms fire faster.” Trump said that although the Obama administration said that bump stocks were legal to possess, he wanted further clarification “of the law restricting fully automatic machine guns.” Trump’s call for ban bump stocks comes after bipartisan calls for something to be done following the Florida school shooting that left 17 dead, which occurred only about four months after the worst mass shooting in US history in Las Vegas.
LOCAL:
A Cranston Elementary school is set to reopen after being forced to close for nearly two months due to damaging flooding. Edgewood Highland Elementary School, which has been closed since Jan. 3, will reopen on Monday, Feb. 26. The school was forced to close when a water main break flooded the lower level of the building and damaged several classrooms, according to WPRI News. Students have since been relocated at the Norwood Avenue School. However, on Monday, Edgewood Highland Elementary School is reportedly ready to “fully reopen, without any lim-
itations.”
NATIONAL:
The Florida state legislature rejected an assault weapons and large magazine capacity ban on Tuesday. The Republican House majority voted 36-71 against the ban. The vote came as dozens of students who survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last week announced plans to go to the Florida Capitol building this week in hopes of talking about gun safety and gun control with state legislators.
Facebook announced that later this year, they will be sending postcards to people in an attempt to “verify the identities of people buying advertisements regarding candidates running for federal office,” according to CNN. Facebook is doing this as part of their effort to assure authenticity in political related ads, following concern that fake ads were spread on their platform during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook said that when someone creates certain political ads, they will send a postcard with a code to the person’s physical address, who then must enter the code online to verify their location. Once the buyer’s identity is confirmed, Facebook said the ad on the site will contain a disclaimer saying who paid for the ad.
An Oklahoma man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing his neighbor in what was determined to be a hate crime. Stanley Vernon Majors, 63, shot and killed his Lebanese neighbor, Khalid Jabara. He is said to have previously “terrorized” his neighbor for several years, according to Jabara’s family. Majors was already out on bail at the time of the shooting for a hit-in-run charge, in which he hit the Jabara’s mother in September, which resulted in her suffering extensive injuries.
INTERNATIONAL:
As the Olympic games finish this week, North Korean participants may be returning home without winning any medals. This has led to the North Korean Olympians hoping they don’t see a similar fate as the 1966 athletes who represented North Korea in the World Cup, as they were sent to gulags. The North Korean regime has punished unsuccessful athletes representing North Korea on the world stage for “letting down” the country.
The Syrian government carried out airstrikes over the weekend in rebel held Eastern Ghouta, which is near Damascus. The airstrikes are believed to have killed 62 civilians. Only nine rebel militants were killed. The airstrikes continued on for close to 24 straight hours, according to reports. Human rights groups estimate the number of those killed to be significantly higher, and said that four hospitals were destroyed as well, making it hard to provide medical care for those who were injured.
The area has been surrounded by Syrian forces for four years, according to CNN. It was supposed to be part of a “de-escalation zone,” in accordance with a peace deal reached by Russia, Turkey, and Iran in 2017. Since the Syrian conflict started in 2011, approximately 400,000 Syrians have been killed and 5.4 million have fled the country.