United States of America eSeries: Gun sales are rising again

Thursday 04.01.21

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by Paul LeBlanc and Zachary B. Wolf

: The Latest

Blistering US Capitol Police report. The United States Capitol Police's Inspector General has issued a scathing preliminary report about the department's "deficiencies" leading up to the January 6 riot that left five people dead and nearly 140 law enforcement officers injured.

Business and government clash in Georgia. The state's Republican-controlled House voted to revoke a major tax break for Delta Air Lines as punishment for its CEO's public criticism of the state's controversial new law clamping down on ballot access.

Trump's taxes could be headed to the House. But not yet. Lawyers for the Department of Justice have asked a judge for additional time to decide whether to turn former President Donald Trump's taxes over to the House Ways and Means Committee.

Another emotional day at Derek Chauvin's criminal trial. George Floyd's girlfriend testified that he was a kind, caring, athletic man who struggled with opioid addiction.

Charlottesville can remove the Confederate statues. After years of thwarted attempts, Charlottesville, Virginia, can remove statues of Robert E. Lee and General "Stonewall" Jackson, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Efforts to remove both statues preceded the Unite the Right Rally in 2017, when thousands of White nationalists descended upon Charlottesville and killed a counterprotester.

California shooting suspect knew victims. The suspect who police say killed four people, including a 9-year-old boy, at a business complex yesterday in the Southern California city of Orange had professional and personal relationships with the victims, police said.

: Gun sales are soaring

The pattern of rising gun sales following mass shootings has held true regardless of which political party is in power: Fears of future restrictions prompt gun owners to stock up.

It's happening again.

The FBI conducted a record number of background checks for firearm purchases last month after shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado.

About 4.7 million Americans initiated background checks for gun purchases last month -- a 36% increase from February, according to the FBI.
Gun sales fell slightly in February after a January surge, fueled in part by the Capitol Hill insurrection.
March joined January as the only two months in which gun background checks surpassed 4 million.

: Meet Biden's infrastructure team

President Joe Biden's sweeping infrastructure plan is in for a grueling few months of negotiations, regardless of how Democrats try to pass it.

On Thursday, we found out who is going to be responsible for trying to drum up support for the $2 trillion proposal.

The President announced he would be assigning five Cabinet secretaries to serve as his messengers in working with Congress and engaging with the public on the administration's infrastructure proposal:

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

"Working with my team here at the White House, these Cabinet members will represent me in dealing with Congress, engage the public in selling the plan and help work out the details as we refine it and move forward," Biden said during his short remarks in the East Room.

The team already has an uphill battle. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently said that he'd "fight them every step of the way because I think this is the wrong prescription for America."

And the work has already begun. The five cabinet secretaries began their work the day before Biden laid out his sweeping plan, a senior administration official told CNN's Phil Mattingly. Each cabinet secretary had calls with the Democratic chairs and Republican ranking members on the relevant committees of jurisdiction. Read more here.

The White House is leaning on public support. Chief of staff Ron Klain suggested in an interview with Politico yesterday that like the American Rescue Plan, high public support will drive the passage of the infrastructure plan.

However, the American Rescue Plan, which provided trillions in coronavirus-related relief, passed without the support of a single Republican in Congress.

But reconciliation is not off the table. Pressed on whether he is open to using reconciliation to get the legislation through Congress, Klain reiterated a desire for bipartisanship, but placed more emphasis on getting it passed.

"What we want to do is get this passed," he said, citing a larger conversation with members as the "first goal."

: Good vaccine news

The ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of Pfizer/BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine confirms its protection lasts at least six months after the second dose, the companies said today.

Some context, from CNN's Maggie Fox: The question of how long vaccine protection lasts can only be answered once enough time has passed, and while six months of protection is a modest target, it's longer than previously known. The study is continuing and future updates may reveal more about how long and how strong this protection is.

The two big takeaways:

The vaccine remains more than 91% effective against disease with any symptoms for six months, the companies said.
It also appeared to be fully effective against the worrying B.1.351 variant of the virus, which is the dominant strain circulating in South Africa and which researchers feared had evolved to evade the protection of vaccine.

"Pfizer did the study. They look really good. I would not be surprised at all if Moderna and other companies that did the same thing get similar results," Dr. Anthony Fauci said on CBS This Morning.

"As we said when these came out, all three of the vaccines that have an emergency use authorization from our FDA are highly efficacious vaccines. So that's all good news."

Don't panic about these side effects. As more people get vaccinated, you may start to hear some complaints about fever, fatigue and other side effects.

Side effects from Covid-19 vaccines won't last long. And they're actually proof that your immune system is working the way it's supposed to. (Though vaccines are still very effective even without side effects.)

What are the most common side effects? "The kinds of things we're seeing are arm soreness, body aches, sometimes fatigue, sometimes even low-grade fever," said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccinologist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

How many people get side effects? It's not certain because millions of Americans are getting vaccinated every day, and those who do get side effects might not report them to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

But in vaccine trials, about 10% to 15% of immunized volunteers developed "quite noticeable side effects," former Operation Warp Speed Chief Scientific Adviser Moncef Slaoui said late last year.

Are the side effects worth it? Yes. "Remember what we're protecting against," Hotez said.

"We're protecting against an illness that's killed more than half a million Americans. And so it's a very modest price to pay."

Read more here.

: What are we doing here?

We're trying to connect the dots at a time of political, cultural and economic upheaval.