Sociology Associate Professor Jooyoung Lee was recently featured on Global News about renewed gun regulation debates in the USA, in light of the mass shooting in Las Vegas at the beginning of October. In the article, Professor Lee outlines the ways in which the Trump Administration has been weakening gun regulations, such as allowing easier access to guns for those with mental health conditions or those with outstanding arrest warrants. Professor Lee's research involves gun violence and its effects on the social environments and health of Black youth.
We have posted an excerpt of the article below.
4 things Donald Trump is doing to loosen gun laws in the U.S.
By Maham Abedi
Gun regulations in the United States are facing renewed scrutiny in the aftermath of a mass shooting in Las Vegas last weekend, which left 58 dead and more than 500 injured...
Just weeks after he became president, Trump signed a bill making it easier for those with mental health conditions to access guns. The law reversed one that Obama signed in December, which added people receiving Social Security mental health checks, and those considered unable to handle their own finances, to the national background-check database.
Trump’s Feb. 28 bill prohibits the Social Security Administration from adding information about such individuals to the database.
The move was done quietly, The Washington Post reports, with many advocacy groups of gun control unaware of the changes until later.
Jooyoung Lee, a University of Toronto associate professor of sociology who studies gun violence, said the reversal of Obama’s law is one way the president is trying to weaken gun control.
“This is one example of Trump and Republicans trying to weaken just very common sense laws.”...
Read the full article here.