Arizona Governor Jan Brewer meets with President Obama in 2010. (White House Photo/Pete Souza.)
Editor's Note: With this post we welcome Mychal Denzel Smith, who has already been a guest-blogger and contributor to TheNation.com, back to our site as a regular blogger! You'll find Mychal's work, focusing on racial justice, criminal justice, and more, here at least once per week.
The United States Senate, as it is wont to do, failed to find enough votes to pass legislation that a majority of Americans support. In this instance, it was for expanded background checks, the one gun control measure that, since the tragic shooting in Newtown, seemed likely to become law. But where there’s a will there’s a way, and our Congress, if nothing is else, wills its way into ineffectiveness with ease.
Thus far, it has been left up to individual states to craft their own gun control legislation, and a few have stepped up to the plate. Colorado, New York, Maryland and Connecticut have all passed new gun control laws, including bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Arizona has also taken up the issue of gun control. On Monday (April 29), Governor Jan Brewer, of SB1070 and finger-wagging fame, signed a bill that prevents cities and counties conducting gun-buyback events from destroying the weapons they obtain and forces them to sell the guns to licensed firearm dealers, to then be resold to the public. According to state Representative Brenda Barton, the Republican author of the measure, the bill is meant to “clarify” already existing laws that require the government to sell weapons that they have seized. According to the Arizona Daily Sun, the “law also covers ‘found property’ which is defined as anything recovered, lost or abandoned that is not needed as evidence,” and by “adding the word ‘surrendered’ to what is considered found property” it now covers even those guns.