RELEASE: Six Policies To Address Gun Violence in Nevada
Date: January 28, 2021
Contact: Adam Peck
Washington, D.C. Nevada has seen more than its fair share of gun violence in recent years. Violent extremists had a standoff with federal law enforcement officials at the Bundy Ranch in 2014. The state ranked 14th in firearm deaths between 2009 and 2018, and has a gun death rate that is 40 percent higher than the national average. The worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, which left 60 people dead and more than 400 others shot, took place on the Las Vegas Strip in 2017.
But unlike many other states, lawmakers and the public in Nevada responded to these incidents with meaningful action. A 2016 ballot measure imposing universal background checks was approved by voters, and the legislature passed a series of bills aimed at curbing access to firearms for people deemed a risk to themselves and others.
Two other members of the Oath Keepers have also been changed with related offenses,
Reuters reports. Additional charges are likely to follow, as the FBI continues to take a closer look at the right-wing extremist group’s potential role in the attack specifically in terms of its organization and premeditated violence, according to the
New York Times. But who are the Oath Keepers and what do they stand for? Here’s what you need to know about the militia group, its members, and its stances.
Who are the Oath Keepers?
Founded in Las Vegas in 2009, the Oath Keepers is “one of the largest radical anti-government groups in the U.S. today,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Like the Tea Party which began the same year the Oath Keepers formed as a response to the election of Barack Obama, as well as the subsequent policies enacted by his administration.
Notorious Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy says he is ready to “walk towards guns” if the Biden administration takes action to force him to pay up for decades’ worth of rent and fines or seize his cattle that graze for free on public lands, he said in an interview. Observers believe it might not be the best time for Bundy to make an armed stand on government land in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by extremist Donald Trump supporters..
Journalist Leah Sottile examined that in the podcast “Bundyville” from Oregon Public Broadcasting and Longreads.
With the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and the 10-year anniversary of the attempted bombing in Spokane, NWPB revisited some of those past conversations to remember how they’re still relevant now.
WATCH: Reviewing Anti-Government Extremism With ‘Bundyille’ Podcast Host Leah Sottile
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“But with this (second) season, we really kind of unpack this idea that extremist ideologies are being repeated by mainstream politicians, by local politicians, all the way up to the federal government,” Sottile told NWPB’s
Uniquely NW News in August 2019. “So what does it mean when all of a sudden the anti-government movement is a part of the government? That’s where we go with this season is trying to understand what changes when extremist ideologies become slightly more mainstream.”
Could Funding Cuts Be Restored?
By
Ahead of tonight s State of the State Address, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak released a state budget that would reverse many of the cuts made by lawmakers last summer.
The proposal calls for $8.6 billion in general fund spending over the next biennium the two year period spanning fiscal years 2022-23. That’s roughly $187 million or two percent less than what state lawmakers appropriated in 2019 for the current biennium.
While the budget reflects the grim reality of the pandemic’s economic fallout, Sisolak’s Chief of Staff Michelle White told reporters during a press call Monday that current revenue projections are more optimistic than originally predicted.