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On WRAL-TV at 5: Parts of central NC see Level 2 storm risk as tropical system forms. Aimee Wilmoth tracks what central NC can expect from both. — A Level 2 storm risk comes Friday for parts of central North Carolina as we're keeping an eye on a tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico. On WRAL-TV at 5, Meteorologist Aimee Wilmoth joins us from the WRAL Severe Weather Center, with a closer look at when that could happen -- and if the tropical system will affect North Carolina. more
Published: 2022-06-02 15:56:07 Updated: 2022-06-02 15:56:41
Posted June 2, 2022 3:56 p.m. EDT
Editorial: The time for tightening state’s ghost gun law is now
It was chilling that Gov. Ned Lamont noted that there are only two things he knows of that are less expensive now than they were six months ago: illegal guns and fentanyl.
Chilling because illegal guns and fentanyl are taking lives in the United States, the lives of adults and children. Chilling because the governor’s words came the day after 21 people, including 19 children, were gunned down in a Texas elementary school.
The words put into context the ease with which these deadly items can be obtained, in an age when a Hartford teen died this year as a result of a fentanyl overdose and a Connecticut teen was recently arrested for allegedly manufacturing AR-15 rifles and other ghost guns at home.
Connecticut has faced many more fentanyl-related deaths in addition to the Hartford teen: Of the more than 1,300 fatal drug overdoses in the state in 2021, about 85% of them were fentanyl or fentanyl analog-involved deaths, according to the state health department.
But Connecticut has also been the site of a tragic school shooting that took the lives of 20 children and six adults in Sandy Hook in 2012. Memories of that day and its aftermath stay with residents here and come roaring back to the forefront when there is news of yet another massacre of children.
It happened in Oxford, Michigan. It happened in Parkland, Florida; Roseburg, Oregon; Washington state; Vista, California; DeKalb, Illinois, and more.
After the Sandy Hook slayings, Connecticut adopted what have been lauded as some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. Connecticut expanded the state’s ban on assault weapons, expanded the circumstances requiring national criminal background checks, imposed wider regulation on long guns, banned the sale of bullet magazines containing more than 10 rounds, and more.
Yet now, after Parkland, after Robb Elementary School, there remain, according to Connecticut’s governor, “so many illegal guns on the street right now.”
In particular, according to the governor, as well as numerous law enforcement sources, it is ghost guns that are the problem. These are the guns that can be assembled in parts bought on the internet or made separately, unregistered and untraceable, with no serial numbers. Some of the parts can be made from 3D printers, authorities say.
Police nationwide reported about 20,000 suspected ghost gun seizures to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — 10 times more than in 2016, according to the White House. Hartford police had seized 20 ghost guns off city streets by April this year.
But in Connecticut there is a problem: The legislature banned newer ghost guns in 2019; older ghost guns that were manufactured before 2019 inexplicably were grandfathered in as legal. The effort to require registration of the older guns failed.
And it did not come up in this year’s legislative session. There are partisan issues contributing to the lack of action.
This despite the governor acknowledging ghost guns “are there to kill people.”
Now the governor should push for it again, even in this election year. A law to require such registration would send a strong message that Connecticut remains determined to protect its residents as well as the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
A law requiring registration of ghost guns should not impose a roadblock for law-abiding gun owners. Those gun owners have nothing to hide and already abide with a host of laws in this state.
Lamont says he does not know whether a special session is needed.
But he has lamented “we could have done a better job here in Connecticut and send a message far afield, especially when it comes to those ghost guns.”
This is not a time to lament. It is a time to act.
Editorial: Don’t lose sight of wind power gains
Connecticut has made real strides in moving toward a green energy future. Along multiple pathways, the state is working to limit emissions and move toward a 21st-century economy less dependent on fossil fuels. That will have benefits for the environment, and also help put the state on better economic footing.
But it hasn’t been a smooth path on every front.
Among the highest-profile efforts has been an embrace of wind power, with the State Pier in New London to be a central hub in a growing industry. Announced by Gov. Ned Lamont in 2019, the plan was to turn the location into “a world-class, state-of-the-art port facility through combined public-private investment of $93 million to upgrade its infrastructure and heavy-lift capability,” according to the state.
Three years later, those projections look woefully inadequate. The state recently approved yet another round of new funding for the project, bringing the total upwards of $255 million. Officials swear this is the end of the additional money needed.
The project has been plagued with trouble from the start. Under previous leadership, the state Port Authority was found in an audit to have a lack of clear guidelines on spending, leading to waste. The quasi-public nature of the authority has also come into question, with a lack of understanding on the part of the public of just who reports to whom and what officials can be held to account. It’s a system that has long been ripe for reform.
Without question, the state pier project is complicated, with no end to moving parts. There’s dredging required in the Thames River, outdated infrastructure and other obstacles. Connecticut is looking to take a giant leap into a new industry for which it wasn’t adequately prepared, and officials should have done a better job of preparing cost estimates at the outset.
At the same time, the State Contracting Standards Board has made attempts over the past three years to investigate contracts agreed to by the Port Authority, but says it has been held back by a lack of staff. The state needs to ensure that its watchdogs are properly funded if it wants to keep important projects on track.
The issue has made its way into the state governor’s race, with challenger Bob Stefanowski decrying the increasing costs and Lamont declaring he’s “mad as hell” at the increasing cost projections for the project. Even at a time of swelling state coffers, government waste remains a potent topic, and it’s up to elected officials to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely. This will not be the last time this project makes news.
Even amid the stumbles, however, this remains a project that is vital to Connecticut’s future. The era of burning fossil fuels is coming to an end, and wind power is among the most promising avenues for generating the power we need to support our lifestyle. The turbines will not be located in Long Island Sound, but further out in the Atlantic to take advantage of the open ocean.
This is the way forward for Connecticut. The cost overruns must be held in check, and better oversight going forward is necessary. But the current troubles must not lead to an abandonment of the industry.
Editorial: A victory in the constant fight for the public’s right to know
It should come as little surprise that we agree with Berney Kubetz. He is, after all, the Bangor Daily News’ lawyer. But he is absolutely right when highlighting the importance of a recent court ruling in the paper’s favor, and in support of the principles that underpin the Maine Freedom of Access Act (FOAA).
“That law was created to enable the public to access and monitor the actions of our government officials. The decision is particularly important at a time when police decision-making has been called into question in Maine and throughout the United States,” Kubetz said.
Together with the Portland Press Herald, the BDN jointly sued the Maine State Police arguing that final officer disciplinary records are public under the FOAA. The papers had separately requested five years of disciplinary records in order to investigate transparency (or lack thereof) surrounding officer misconduct. Of the 85 pages of documents eventually received, 14 had redactions.
The BDN and Press Herald argued that these redactions were unlawful. And Penobscot County Superior Court Justice William Anderson agreed in many cases, finding in a May 26 ruling that some of the redacted information must be disclosed and that the state must conduct another search for records because its initial search was “inadequate.” The judge allowed a handful of the redactions to stand on the grounds of protecting medical information and information related to another employee’s work plan or performance.
“The decision underscores the need for Maine law enforcement agencies to open their records to public scrutiny, including especially the records of police officers who have been disciplined but allowed to continue in their jobs or who are relieved of their duties and simultaneously paid severance packages funded by taxpayer dollars,” Kubetz continued.
The decision, and the process required to reach it, also continues to underscore the need to strengthen Maine’s freedom of access law. We won, but it took two years from the initial request, some funding from the Pulitzer Center and pro bono work from students at the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School. That is time and resources that many media organizations aren’t able to dedicate. Even a victory such as this shows the limits of Maine’s FOAA, and the need to bolster it to ensure Maine people have timely and actual access to public information.
“Whether we grant the state’s public records ombudsman powers to enforce the law or provide statutory incentives such as mandatory attorney fees for prevailing plaintiffs, we need better tools to protect the public’s right to know” Justin Silverman, the executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition, wrote in a BDN column earlier this year.
That is just as true after this ruling as it was months ago. Because, unfortunately as we’ve seen in this case and other instances, officials and institutions often lean on the litany of exceptions that can limit the FOAA’s reach. Rather than erring on the side of disclosure and transparency, we’ve observed an inclination to stretch these exceptions and withhold information.
For example, though it ultimately didn’t work for the state police here, they tried to argue that settlement agreements between unions and the state police “should only be treated as a final written decision in cases where there is no other documentation of final disciplinary action,” as summarized in the judge’s ruling. Under Maine’s FOAA, certain personnel records like complaints and accusations of misconduct are confidential but final written decisions about disciplinary action are not.
Anderson ruled that settlement agreements in this case did amount to “final written decisions” and are therefore no longer confidential.
“To hold otherwise in this case would allow the State Police to easily circumvent the public records disclosure laws and effectively shield disciplinary documents from public inspection,” Anderson said in his ruling.
Thankfully, the judge sided with the newspapers on this question. And more importantly, he sided with the principle of disclosure and the public’s right to know. But without stronger FOAA protections, we expect people in power to continue to stretch the limits of its many exceptions.
Editorial: State must be ready to act before the Supreme Court rolls back its gun control law
Lawmakers on Beacon Hill and local officials throughout the state cannot afford to give an inch when it comes to protecting the strides made to maintain one of the lowest gun death rates in America.
Lately in America, we can barely grieve and heal from one heinous mass shooting event before we are rocked to the core by another. The victims of a hate-fueled shooting spree in a Black neighborhood grocery store in Buffalo hadn’t yet all been buried when at least 19 fourth-graders and two teachers were murdered in a Uvalde, Texas, classroom. Gun violence in America is an epidemic.
Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court has strongly signaled that, by the end of its current term this summer, it will greatly curtail — if not eliminate altogether — the ability of state and local officials to regulate whether concealed weapons can be carried outside of the home, including here in Massachusetts.
Lawmakers on Beacon Hill and local officials throughout the state cannot afford to give an inch when it comes to protecting the strides the state has made to maintain one of the lowest gun death rates in America. With the Supreme Court poised to strike down the state’s law requiring those seeking licenses to carry a firearm in public to demonstrate a reason for doing so, lawmakers must be ready to act now.
The challenge to “may carry” laws in New York and California will also affect Massachusetts, five other states, and cities such as Chicago and Washington, D.C., with similar laws. Challengers argue that the laws, which require gun owners to demonstrate to local gun license issuers a need to carry guns outside of the home before being granted a concealed carry license, infringe on the individual right to bear arms that the Supreme Court enunciated in a landmark 2008 decision.
But that ruling protected a right to possess guns in the home for self-defense. This time the court can go farther, extending that right outside the home and essentially eliminating the self-defense rationale.
We already know how deadly the consequences of that can be. We also already know what works. Massachusetts is the second-safest state in the nation, behind only Hawaii, when it comes to firearm deaths, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is no accident: Over the last quarter-century, bipartisan legislation has been passed in the state to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, bar weapons that were designed for battlefields, and hold gun manufacturers accountable under consumer protection laws.
The Commonwealth serves as a model for other states and the federal government to follow. It can be a model again by refusing to allow an overbroad reading of Second Amendment protections that would put its residents in peril.
“We will be ready to go, based on what the court says, if they do strike down any portions of our regulatory scheme,” state Representative Michael S. Day, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, told the editorial board hours before the Uvalde shooting.
“I believe that our structure is constitutional,” Day said. Day said that while it is difficult to predict what action will be needed before the court hands down a ruling, “we will be able to pivot fairly quickly on certain areas that may be challenged.”
One way to do that would be to establish clearer statewide standards for concealed carry permits that explicitly bar people from obtaining them who have been convicted of felonies or who have a record of violent offenses, and require safety training before they are issued. Lawmakers can also clarify what constitutes acceptable evidence of a need for self-protection in a way that prevents the law from being challenged as constitutionally arbitrary while still giving local officials enough discretion to decide whether a particular applicant meets the criteria.
Massachusetts could also extend its “red flag” law to allow school officials, employers, and mental health professionals to petition that someone demonstrating threatening behavior to themselves or others have their firearms confiscated. Currently, the law applies to household family members, close associates, and law enforcement officials. Also, too few people are aware of the red flag law, so state and local officials should put in place a public awareness campaign to make sure that citizens know the resources that are available to stop a tragedy before it happens.
The state can also ban firearms from being carried in so-called “sensitive places” like places of worship, public transit, stadiums and arenas, and within a certain parameter of a school. One of the court’s most conservative members, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, conceded during oral arguments that such restrictions are constitutional.
But lawmakers cannot be caught flat-footed. The mass shooting tragedies of the past few weeks alone, in addition to the more than 200 other mass shooting incidents around the nation this year, underscore the urgency to act.
We’re pretty good here in Vermont about being mindful about recycling. It is in our genes. Depression-era residents used to keep everything, from small jars for nails, to the nails themselves after they were retrieved from old boards.
That Yankee ingenuity absolutely comes from the resourcefulness and ability not to waste anything.
This past legislative session, there was a bill proposed to expand the types of beverages covered by the state’s bottle redemption program.
The bottle bill was passed in 1972 and established a system that charges consumers a deposit, worth a few cents, when they buy certain beverages. (Every kid growing up on the back roads of Vermont can tell you how important the bottle bill was to their upbringing.)
According to VTDigger, the bill, H.175, would have expanded the types of beverages covered by the law. It would have included water bottles, hard cider and sports drinks. Currently, the law covers only 46% of beverages sold in the state, the VTDigger article states.
The bill was discussed but did not get the traction it needed. Senators voted 17-13 to pass the bill, but it needed 15 votes to clear the 30-member chamber. It is too bad the bottle bill did not get further down the road, because — as we all have learned by now — recycling is an integral part of modern-day living. We may not be saving every jar for nails, but we are certainly, as a society, doing the right thing by recycling glass, cardboard, packaging and plastics.
In early May, the Philadelphia Inquirer took an in-depth look at the plastics waste stream.
According to reporting by journalist Frank Kummer, only 5% to 6% of the 46 million tons of plastic waste generated annually in the U.S. gets recycled, a big dip from the last estimate of nearly 9% just a few years ago. His reporting was based on a new study by two environmental groups focused on creating awareness around plastic pollution.
The report was released the day New Jersey’s ban on single-use carryout bags went into effect, one of the authors of which, Judith Enck, a visiting professor at Bennington College, said would bring near immediate change for New Jersey. (Vermont already had a bag ban in effect.)
“A lot of laws get put into place, and it takes years to see an effect,” Enck told the Inquirer. “You will see literally in the next few months less litter, like bags in trees and on streets, because of the New Jersey plastic bag law. There’s going to be a visible difference.” (That proved true in Vermont.)
Enck should know. She is a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official and is with Beyond Plastics, a Vermont-based group formed in 2019 seeking to build an “effective anti-plastics movement.” Beyond Plastics paired for the study with The Last Beach Cleanup, a California-based nonprofit formed the same year by Jan Dell, a chemical engineer, to educate the public, according to Kummer’s reporting.
“The current 2021 U.S. plastic recycling rate is estimated to be between 5% and 6%,” the report states. “Factoring in additional losses that aren’t measured, such as plastic waste collected under the pretense of ‘recycling’ that are burned, instead, the U.S.’s true plastic recycling rate may be even lower.”
Plastic has become pervasive. Consider that Americans generated about 60 pounds of plastic waste per person in 1980, according to the report. By 2018, that was up to 218 pounds — a 263% total increase.
Enck told the newspaper that paper and cardboard have a recycling rate of about 68%. Metals, such as aluminum cans, and glass, such as bottles, also have much higher rates of recycling than plastics.
So where is a high percentage of our waste coming from these days? Amazon.
In response, last week, at Amazon’s annual meeting, 48% of the company’s shareholders voted in favor of a resolution asking the company to address its growing plastic packaging problem, falling just short of a majority. The resolution was presented by Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president of As You Sow, the nonprofit organization that filed the resolution. The resolution, which called for the company to issue a report on its plastic packaging footprint and commit to reducing that footprint going forward, received the most support of any of the multiple resolutions considered at the meeting, with 181,296,823 votes in favor. You read that right.
The watchdog group Oceana’s most recent report indicated Amazon’s plastic packaging grew by nearly 29% in just one year. The pollution has done significant damage to sea turtles and other ocean animals that often mistake plastic for food
We agree that it’s time for Amazon to be transparent about its plastic packaging and commit to quantifiable and time-bound company-wide goals to reduce it.
In the meantime, Vermonters will continue to recycle and compost with great pride. And we will just hope the bottle bill finds redemption in the next biennium.
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