The Gay Rights Movement Could Take on the NRA - and Actually Win

Can the gay rights movement beat the NRA? (photo: Curt Merlo/WP)

By Jennifer Carlson and David Pettinicchio, The Washington Post

19 June 16
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The gay rights movement knows how to change the culture, not just the law.

t’s an all-too-familiar routine for Americans: mass shooting, dramatic calls for change, inaction. It happened when 20 schoolchildren were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School. When a dozen people were killed in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater. When almost three dozen were slaughtered at Virginia Tech.

But this time, things might be different. Not because of the record number of people killed in Orlando or because this heinous act was a terrorist attack, a hate crime and a mass shooting. It’s because the victims were part of a social movement with infrastructure and political know-how largely unmatched within the gun-control movement. It’s because the attack targeted gays — and their community is organized.

Today’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer coalition is made up of powerful groups able to mobilize at a moment’s notice, including the NOH8 Campaign, the Human Rights Campaign and PFLAG. This robust and multifaceted apparatus is one of the most effective political movements in recent American history. It has faced down obscene public indifference to gay lives (peaking with the AIDS epidemic), violence against LGBTQ people (who suffer more hate crimes than any other protected group), laws that criminalized gay sex (Bowers v. Hardwick was overturned only in 2003) and widespread intolerance.

To attack these issues, queer people have focused not on transforming laws but on transforming culture. In the 1960s, gay rights groups organized “sip-ins” at bars that refused to serve “disorderly” homosexuals. Other picketers staged “zaps,” splashy, media-friendly protests that called attention to homophobic behavior. “Homophile organizations” sprung up around the country to fight for queer-only spaces. Their efforts led to the establishment of hundreds of pride parades, lesbian clubs and gay bathhouses — institutionalized “safe spaces” where people could meet and organize.

fter Stonewall, activists shifted their focus, working to build sympathy and support among straight Americans. They called on gay people to “come out” to family and friends, a social ritual that personalized the political (something gay rights groups learned from feminists). Organizers also broadened their message on important gay rights issues, selling things like same-sex marriage as the right to love. Efforts such as “kiss days” at businesses opposing LGBTQ rights have linked discriminatory policies to more relatable notions of romance and relationships.

It’s worked. According to Gallup polls, in the past 20 years, Americans’ support for marriage equality has jumped from 30 percent to 60 percent. Many people said they softened their attitudes because they knew a member of the LGBTQ community — what social scientists call the “contact hypothesis.” Today, gay groups have the organizational, financial and cultural resources to exploit political opportunities as they arise.

A similar cultural shift undergirds the country’s gun politics. Over the last 50 years, the National Rifle Association has convinced many Americans that gun ownership is a vital tool for self-defense and the key to serving as a responsible “citizen-protector.” The organization brought this galvanizing rhetoric to the national stage through its lobbying arm. But it exerted cultural pressure, too. Its ads, magazines and political paraphernalia reach millions. And the organization’s training courses — attended by hundreds of thousands of Americans each year — present defensive gun use as a civic duty and the NRA as a service organization.

Today, many Americans see a gun as something to be carried alongside a wallet or a cellphone. A majority say firearms enhance public safety. The shift is as striking as the change in sentiment on same-sex marriage: Over the past 15 years, the belief that guns make a home safer jumped from 35 percent to 63 percent. Even Americans who don’t own guns agree that they are objects of safety.

The gun lobby and the LGBTQ movement both understand that political change requires fundamental cultural shifts. It requires deep organizational ties and the ability to connect an issue not just to a set of beliefs, but to a sense of identity. Right now, gun control advocates lack these tools. If they can mobilize gay rights against gun rights, the NRA may have finally met its match.

It won’t be easy. The NRA has a track record of galvanizing a committed block of voters in key states. Meanwhile, the LGBTQ movement has largely focused on changing hearts and courts. In terms of electoral politics, it is unclear whether it can match the influence of the NRA to set national political agendas, especially in presidential campaigns. And those deep pockets of the NRA really are deep. The organization’s budget is more than seven times that of the Human Rights Campaign.

It’s also not clear that gay rights groups will take on gun control. Many gun proponents see gay rights as part and parcel of a broader libertarian cause.

Meanwhile, some LGBTQ activists have vigorously embraced gun rights as a way to protect gay lives. The Pink Pistols group, under the slogan “pick on someone your own caliber,” explicitly advocates the exercise of Second Amendment rights for self-protection, especially against hate crimes. The LGBTQ community is highly diverse, and attempts to ally gay rights activists with gun-control proponents may undermine the diversity that defines the movement.

Still, some Democrats, gun-control supporters and gay rights advocates are already making the link. Actor, activist and author George Takei has described the fight for gun control as “the next chapter of LGBT history.” Many LGBTQ groups cheered the Democratic-led Senate filibuster this past week in favor of gun reforms. This outcry makes sense. This hate-motivated killing in Orlando is but one example of the broad culture of violent intolerance that LGBTQ people face. Until now, the NRA — not just because of its sheer organizational strength and financial backing, but also because of its cultural ingenuity — has been able to define the terms of the gun debate and the terrain of the struggle. The LGBTQ movement might just be able to change that.

Senate GOP Rejects Gun-Control Measures After Orlando Shooting

A vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting. (photo: William West/Getty Images)

By Richard Cowan and John Whitesides, Reuters

21 June 16
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he U.S. Senate on Monday rejected four measures restricting gun sales after last week's massacre in an Orlando nightclub, dealing a bitter setback to advocates who have failed to get even modest gun curbs through Congress despite repeated mass shootings.

A group of senators was still hoping to forge a compromise for later in the week aimed at keeping firearms away from people on terrorism watch lists, although that effort faced an uphill battle with critics in both parties skeptical about its chances.

Last week's massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, had intensified pressure on lawmakers, who moved swiftly to take the issue to the Senate floor. But the gun-control measures lost in largely party-line votes that showed the lingering political power in Congress of gun rights defenders and the National Rifle Association.

Republicans and their allies in the NRA gun lobby said the Democratic bills were too restrictive and trampled on the constitutional right to bear arms. Democrats attacked the Republicans' two proposals as too weak and accused them of being in the thrall of the NRA.

"What am I going to tell the community of Orlando?" asked Democratic Senator Bill Nelson of Florida after the votes. "Sadly, what I’m going to tell them is the NRA won again."

Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, attacked the Democrats' amendments and thanked Republicans for rejecting them. "Today, the American people witnessed an embarrassing display in the United States," he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said the Democratic measures were ineffective and Republican senators "are pursuing real solutions that can help keep Americans safer from the threat of terrorism."

As the parties remain largely locked in their positions, polls show Americans are increasingly in favor of more restrictions on guns in a country with more than 310 million weapons, about one for every citizen.

The issue is already a prominent one for voters in November elections. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton supports new gun restrictions, while Republican Donald Trump expressed a willingness to talk to the NRA about the issue.

After the votes, Clinton issued a one-word statement: "Enough." It was followed by the names and ages of the dead in Orlando.

Gun control efforts failed after mass shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and a conference center in San Bernardino, California, in 2015. But some senators see resistance to gun restrictions softening as national security looms larger in the debate.

The Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to the militant group Islamic State as he killed 49 people in a gay nightclub.

"This country is under attack ... it's not a plane or an explosive device, it's an assault weapon," said Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat who led a 15-hour filibuster last week to draw attention to the effort to restrict guns.

'SHAME ON EVERY SINGLE SENATOR'

Murphy walked off the floor after the Senate votes and embraced Erica Smegielski, the daughter of Dawn Hochsprung, a Sandy Hook principal killed during the Newtown shooting.

"He said, the good thing about me and you is we’re young, we’ll be at this a long time," said Smegielski, 30.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week found that 71 percent of Americans favor at least moderate regulations and restrictions on gun sales. That compared with 60 percent in late 2013 and late 2014.

Senior Senate aides left open the possibility of other votes later in the week on unspecified gun control proposals. Some Republicans pinned hopes on a proposal by Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, which was not one of the four bills being considered on Monday.

Collins' plan would restrict gun purchases to a narrow group of suspects, including those on a "no-fly" list or a "selectee" list of people who require additional screening at airports.

But Democratic aides said people credibly suspected of involvement in terrorism would not be covered by the weapons ban under Collins' bill, and a Republican aide indicated it would not do enough to protect the constitutional rights of gun buyers.

Even if the Senate approved a gun compromise, it would also have to be passed by the more conservative, Republican-majority House of Representatives. House Republican leadership aides did not comment on the possibility that any bills proposing gun restrictions would be considered on the House floor this week.

On Monday, all four of the measures to expand background checks on gun buyers and curb gun sales to those on terrorism watch lists - two put forth by Democrats and two by Republicans - fell short of the 60 votes needed for passage in the 100-member chamber.

Gun-control advocates expressed disappointment after the vote and vowed to take revenge on lawmakers at the ballot box in November.

"Shame on every single senator who voted against these life-saving amendments and protected the rights of terrorists and other dangerous people to buy guns," said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "The Brady Campaign will expose these politicians for who they really are and call out their failure to disarm hate in America."

The great Second Amendment hoax

Carmen Feldman, of Orlando, cries while visiting for the first the scene of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting from a block away Friday, June 17, 2016, in Orlando, Florida. (photo: David Goldman/AP)

By Dahlia Lithwick, Slate

19 June 16

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How the NRA and conservatives have perverted the meaning of the right to bear arms.

unday night, when my son asked me why we shoot each other dead almost every day in America, I got to tell him that it’s because we are “free.” We are free to get a .223 caliber AR-15–style semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm handgun. And we are free to sell those weapons to someone who might shoot and kill 49 people in a nightclub because of whom they choose to love. We are free to arm ourselves against any potentially tyrannical federal government and also free to watch our children bleed to death in our schools, and churches, and clubs.

And we are free to do it all again tomorrow and the day after that. We are free to feel paralyzed and trapped in a system that is literally killing us.

Freedom in America also means that we are free to wake up every morning hoping that it’s not our kid who gets shot with a weapon of war, and free to wake up hoping it’s not our kid who shoots someone, and free to wake up praying it’s not our kid, or our spouse, or our neighbor who shoots herself. In this freest country on earth, we also happen to be in a perpetual hostage situation, in which one false move—or merely the choice to go to class, or to dance with friends—means you may wind up dead.

What does all this have to do with freedom? Well the document that promises and protects our freedom has been interpreted to say that we are all condemned to live out our days in terror, hostage to powerful interests who urge us to become ever more free by purchasing and stockpiling ever more lethal weapons of war. Perhaps nobody so perfectly captured this twisted definition of freedom as former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, who in the wake of yet another round of futile debates about gun rights last fall said this: “I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away.” Indeed.

This is where I tell you that the current interpretation of the Second Amendment—the one held onto by Carson, and Donald Trump, and practically the entire Republican Party—is a hoax. Outside of the GOP, this is widely understood. But what we fail to comprehend, as we bury more of our dead in the name of freedom, is that it is a triple-decker hoax: A lie wrapped in a fabrication, lacquered over with a falsehood.

That we chose to wrap it around our necks as a symbol of our own liberty is our own fault and shame.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution says this: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” For most of U.S. history, that was understood to mean that the freedom guaranteed by the Second Amendment was precisely what it said: the right of the people of each state to maintain a well-regulated militia.

So clearly and unequivocally held was this worldview that no less a liberal squish than Richard Nixon Supreme Court appointee Warren Burger said after his retirement in 1991 that the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud—I repeat the word ‘fraud’—on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.” This reading was based on precedent.

The Supreme Court had clearly agreed with Burger’s interpretation and not that of the special interest groups he chastised, perhaps most famously in a 1939 case called U.S. v. Miller. That ruling said that since the possession or use of a “shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length” had no reasonable relationship to the “preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia,” the court simply could not find that the Second Amendment guaranteed “the right to keep and bear such an instrument.” Period, full stop. And that was the viewpoint adopted by the courts for years.

What changed? As Cass Sunstein and others have explained, what changed things was a decades-long effort by exceptionally well-organized, well-funded interest groups that included the National Rifle Association—all of whom “embarked on an extraordinary campaign to convince the public, and eventually the courts, to understand the Second Amendment in their preferred way.” It’s rather miraculous, if you stop to think about it: In a few short decades the NRA’s view of the Second Amendment became the law of the land. By 2008, writing the majority opinion for the Supreme Court in District of Columbia et al. v. Heller, Antonin Scalia enshrined this view for first time that: “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”

That the Heller court itself qualified that right in multiple ways—and that in the years since Heller, the court has declined one important gun case after another—doesn’t change the fact that the hoax is now the law. On top of everything, most Americans believe by rather huge margins that the concededly ambiguous wording of the Second Amendment means that individuals have the constitutional right to bear arms, even if they don’t want it. According to a recent NRA poll, when asked if “[e]very American has a fundamental right to self-defense and a right to choose the home defense firearm that is best for them,” 76 percent of respondents said “yes.” 

But that is only the crunchy bottom layer of the fraud. The larger fabrication is the idea that the Second Amendment—unlike other provisions of the Constitution—cannot be subject to any reasonable restriction. As my friend Sonja West pointed out in Slate after another mass shooting late last year, we impose limits, caveats, and conditions on many provisions of the Constitution without crying tyranny:

We have the constitutionally protected right to peaceably assemble, but not to block traffic. We are protected from unreasonable and unwarranted searches, unless there is probable cause, exigent circumstances, or a hot pursuit. If charged with a crime, we have the right to a speedy trial (but not if the prosecution is hunting down witnesses) and also a public one (but not if you want your trial televised). We also have the right to a trial by jury (unless the crime carries a sentences of six months or less).

Constitutional rights are subject to every sort of condition and limitation, and as Scalia himself noted in Heller, “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” He even went on to list some reasonable limits.

The second hoax—that the right to bear arms is not merely an individual right but also that it is the only constitutional right subject to zero regulation—makes no sense on its face, until and unless you are willing to fall prey to the third fraud.

Hoax number three: Obama, Clinton, Democrats, liberals, the media, whomever are coming for your guns. They are Coming. For your Guns!!! This is the crunchy candy shell that makes the other two lies seem almost reasonable. Of course you should have an inviolate individual right to defend yourself against a tyrannical federal government if you have persuaded yourself that the federal government is indeed tyrannical. This is the big lie that continues to be broadcast and pushed out ad nauseam, and no amount of fact-checking or direct confrontation with accusers makes a whit of difference. The NRA wanted us to feel that only our guns would make us free, and they have prevailed.

That is, of course the paradox. We are in thrall to a fib of epic proportions that itself relies on two other lies. And because we are captive to all these lies, we are also captive to the notion that as much as we wish someone would do something about all the innocent dead people, our hands are tied by the freedom-affording gift that is the Second Amendment. It is a sick joke of our democracy that after every mass shooting we must tell our children that the Framers gave us this precious gift of liberty, more valuable than their lives, and that we are stuck with it. This is the opposite of freedom. It is slavery by choice.

The Punk Who Would Be President

Donald Trump describes how he was ready to punch a person who rushed the stage during an election rally. (photo: Nati Harnik/AP)

By Garrison Keillor
Madison.com
18 June 16
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t is the most famous ducktail in America today, the hairdo of wayward youth of a bygone era, and it's astonishing to imagine it under the spotlight in Cleveland, being cheered by Republican dignitaries. The class hood, the bully and braggart, the guy revving his pink Chevy to make the pipes rumble, presiding over the student council.

This is the C-minus guy who sat behind you in history and poked you with his pencil and smirked when you asked him to stop. That smirk is now on every front page in America. It is not what anybody — left, right or center — looks for in a president. There's no philosophy here, just an attitude.

He is a little old for a ducktail. By the age of 70, most ducks have moved on, but not Donald. He is apparently still fond of the sidewalls and the duck's ass in back and he is proud as can be of his great feat, the first punk candidate to get this close to the White House. He says that the country is run by a bunch of clowns and that he is going to make things great again and beat up on the outsiders who are coming into our neighborhood. His followers don't necessarily believe that — what they love about him is what kids loved about Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, the fact that he horrifies the powers that be and when you are pro-duck you are giving the finger to Congress, the press, clergy, lawyers, teachers, cake-eaters, big muckety-mucks, VIPs, all those people who think they're better than you — you have the power to scare the pants off them, and that's what this candidate does better than anybody else.

After the worst mass shooting in American history on Sunday, 50 persons dead in Orlando, the bodies still being carted from the building, the faces of horror-stricken cops and EMTs on TV, the gentleman issued a statement on Twitter thanking his followers for their congratulations, that the tragedy showed that he had been "right" in calling for America to get "tough."

Anyone else would have expressed sorrow. The gentleman expressed what was in his heart, which was personal pride.

We had a dozen or so ducktails in my high school class and they were all about looks. The hooded eyes, the sculpted swoop of the hair, the curled lip. They emulated Elvis but only the look, not the talent. Their sole ambition was to make an impression, to slouch gracefully and exhale in an artful manner. In the natural course of things, they struggled after graduation, some tried law enforcement for the prestige of it, others became barflies. If they were drafted, the Army got them shaped up in a month or two. Eventually, they all calmed down, got hitched up to a mortgage, worried about their blood pressure, lost the chippiness, let their hair down. But if your dad was rich and if he was born before you were, then the ducktail could inherit enough wealth to be practically impervious to public opinion. This has happened in New York City. A man who could never be elected city comptroller is running for president.

The dreamers in the Republican Party imagine that success will steady him and he will accept wise counsel and come into the gravitational field of reality but it isn't happening. The Orlando tweets show it: The man does not have a heart. How, in a few weeks, should Mr. Ryan and Mr. McConnell teach him basic humanity? The bigot and braggart they see today is the same man that New Yorkers have been observing for 40 years. A man obsessed with marble walls and gold-plated doorknobs, who has the sensibility of a giant sea tortoise.

His response to the Orlando tragedy is one more clue that this election is different from any other. If Mitt Romney or John McCain had been elected president, you might be disappointed but you wouldn't fear for the fate of the Republic. This time, the Republican Party is nominating a man who resides in the dark depths. He is a thug and he doesn't bother to hide it. The only greatness he knows about is himself.

So the country is put to a historic test. If the man is not defeated, then we are not the country we imagine we are. All of the trillions spent on education was a waste. The churches should close up shop. The nation that elects this man president is not a civilized society. The gentleman is not airing out his fingernail polish, he is not showing off his wedding ring; he is making an obscene gesture. Ignore it at your peril.

Hillary Vetting Elizabeth Warren for VP

Sen. Elizabeth Warren. (photo: AP)

By Laura Meckler and Colleen McCain Nelson, The Wall Street Journal

16 June 16
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illary Clinton’s campaign isn’t considering primary rival Bernie Sanders as her running mate, but is actively looking at Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose populist politics line up closely with Mr. Sanders, people familiar with the process said.

The vetting remains in its early stages. So far, potential candidates have been scrutinized using publicly available information. The Clinton team hasn’t asked anyone to submit tax returns or other personal information, one of the people said.

Conversations with Mrs. Clinton herself about options are just now beginning.

Beyond the Massachusetts senator, other prospective candidates include Labor Secretary Tom Perez; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro; Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Cory Booker of New Jersey; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and Reps. Xavier Becerra of California and Tim Ryan of Ohio, several Democrats said.

Asked Tuesday if she would consider Mr. Sanders, Mrs. Clinton told Telemundo, “I haven’t even begun to sort all that out.” She added, “There are a lot of really qualified, dynamic candidates, I’m sure, to be considered for vice president.”

The search process is being led by John Podesta, the campaign chairman. Longtime Clinton adviser Cheryl Mills also is an informal adviser.

Many Sanders supporters, disappointed by his failure to win the nomination, have held out hope that Mrs. Clinton would pick the Vermont senator in a show of unity and a signal that she will chart a progressive course if elected.

At a board meeting of Friends of the Earth Action last week that included senior Sanders advisers, several board members said Mr. Sanders should receive serious consideration as Mrs. Clinton’s running mate, said Erich Pica, president of the environmental group. Their argument, he said, was that he has brought ideas and energy to the debate.

Larry Cohen, a Sanders adviser who was there, replied that Mr. Sanders would be a “powerful voice” and a major national figure from his Senate perch, Mr. Cohen confirmed.

Mr. Sanders isn’t particularly interested in the job, nor is he expecting to be offered it, though he doesn’t mind being part of the conversation, a senior Sanders adviser said. He sees himself as exercising his strongest influence in the Senate, where his profile is sure to be elevated following his presidential run, the adviser said.

The two camps are now in talks about how to unify the Democratic Party, with the Sanders forces pushing for changes in party rules and installing liberal policies in its platform at the July convention in Philadelphia.

Mr. Sanders plans a video address to supporters Thursday night, but isn’t expected to formally endorse Mrs. Clinton there, an aide said.

Mrs. Clinton’s top priority is finding someone who is prepared to step in as president, she has said. She also is looking for a working partner who can help advance her agenda, and her advisers are less concerned with demographic and geographic factors, people familiar with the process said.

Some Sanders backers are encouraging her to pick someone from the more liberal wing of the party. “I would certainly encourage consideration of Bernie and other folks who represent the progressive side,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), the only senator to back Mr. Sanders during the primary fight. Mr. Merkley also mentioned Ms. Warren and Mr. Brown.

Mrs. Clinton doesn’t feel pressured to go that route, since she already embraced such progressive positions as a large increase in the minimum wage and a plan to guarantee debt-free tuition at public universities, a senior strategist said.

Clinton officials said they’ve been impressed by Ms. Warren’s sharp critique of Republican Donald Trump, and they’ve made a point to highlight her endorsement along with those of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Mr. Brown also appears to be under consideration, although if he were elected, Ohio’s Republican governor would appoint his successor, which could impact control of the Senate. One person familiar with the process said this is a factor in considering him, but said every candidate brings some sort of wrinkle.

FBI to Trump: You're Wrong, Muslims Do Report Extremist Threats

FBI director James Comey delivers a speech at the Master of Science in Foreign Service CyberProject's sixth annual conference at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., U.S., April 26, 2016. (photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

America's leader of bigots perpetrates another whopper

By Kristina Cooke and Joseph Ax, Reuters

16 June 16

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uslim-Americans have repeatedly informed authorities of fellow Muslims they fear might be turning to extremism, law enforcement officials say, contrary to a claim by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump this week.

"They don't report them," Trump said in a CNN interview on Monday, in the wake of the mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub of 49 people by an American Muslim who claimed allegiance to Islamic State. "For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this."

But FBI director James Comey said, "They do not want people committing violence, either in their community or in the name of their faith, and so some of our most productive relationships are with people who see things and tell us things who happen to be Muslim.

“It’s at the heart of the FBI’s effectiveness to have good relationships with these folks,” Comey said at a press conference following the Orlando shootings.

Andrew Ames, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Washington field office, told Reuters on Wednesday that the agency has a “robust” relationship with the local Muslim community. FBI agents operating in the area have received reports about suspicious activity and other issues from community members.

Michael Downing, deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and head of its Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said the city's Muslim community has been cooperative in reporting "red flags."

“I personally have been called by community members about several things, very significant things,” Downing told Reuters. “What we say to communities is that we don’t want you to profile humans, we want you to profile behavior.”

Charles Kurzman, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who has conducted several studies on Muslim-Americans and terrorism, disputed Trump's criticism.

“To claim there is no cooperation is false and defamatory to the Muslim-American community,“ Kurzman said.

Kurzman said a January 2016 study by himself and colleagues at Duke University’s Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security found that many law enforcement agencies had made progress in establishing trust with local Muslim-American communities.

But the study also found some tensions. In one focus group described in the study, Muslim-American participants debated when to report activity when they were unsure how to detect imminent violence.

“The group participants expressed concern that police would be more likely to encourage a plot in order to make an arrest," the authors wrote, "rather than to divert people onto a nonviolent path that community members and family members would prefer.”

One imam interviewed for the project told researchers he felt that his “trust is not being reciprocated” by U.S. government officials.

The imam told the researchers that after he attended a meeting with federal law enforcement officials designed to increase cooperation, he went to the local airport, was held for hours at security and missed his flight, the study said.

A Reuters review of court records also produced examples of Muslim-Americans informing law enforcement of possible radicalization within their families.

Suspecting that her then 17-year-old son, Ali Amin, was radicalizing, Amani Ibrahim followed the advice of a local imam and reported her fears to law enforcement officials, according to court records. In August 2015, Amin was sentenced to 11 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State after he helped a schoolmate travel to join the extremist group.

In 2014, the sister of Abdi Nur contacted Minneapolis police to report her younger brother missing. She later showed federal agents messages she received, in which he said he had “gone to join the brothers” and promised to see her in the afterlife. Nur has been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist group, but is still at large.

And in 2014, Adam Shafi’s father, Sal Shafi, told officials in the U.S. embassy in Cairo that he was worried his son was radicalizing after Adam went missing during a family trip in Egypt.

Adam Shafi soon rejoined his family, but was arrested in July 2015 after trying to board a flight to Turkey from San Francisco airport. He was charged with attempting to provide material support to al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda linked group in Syria.

Dem Senators Engage in One of Longest Filibusters in US History to Demand Action on Gun Control

Senator Chris Murphy led the 15 hour gun control filibuster in the Senate. (photo: Pete Marovich/AP)

By Hudson Hongo, Gawker

16 June 16

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filibuster led by Democratic senators demanding new gun control measures in the wake of this weekend’s deadly shooting in Orlando continued past the 13-hour mark Wednesday evening, making it one of the longest such actions in modern Senate history.

At 11:21 a.m., Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy began speaking, vowing not to give up the Senate floor “until we get some signal, some sign that we can come together.” Dozens of senators, including one Republican and one Independent, joined Murphy’s effort throughout the day, which focused on two possible gun control amendments to a spending bill. From the Associated Press:

Murphy is seeking a vote on legislation from Feinstein that would let the government bar sales of guns and explosives to people it suspects of being terrorists. Feinstein offered the amendment in December, a day after an extremist couple killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, but the Republican-run Senate rejected the proposal on a near party-line vote. Murphy also wants a vote to expand background checks.
The Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, was added to a government watch list of individuals known or suspected of being involved in terrorist activities in 2013, when he was investigated for inflammatory statements to co-workers. But he was pulled from that database when that investigation was closed 10 months later.

Republicans have argued that the so-called “no fly, no buy” law denies due process rights to Americans erroneously placed on the secret, often inaccurate terrorist watch list. Wednesday evening, Republican Senator Pat Toomey said that lawmakers were still working toward a potential compromise.

“There are some discussions under way,” Toomey told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s a process that’s in the works.”