AMY GOODMAN: The city of Minneapolis is in mourning, after two children, aged 8 and 10, were shot dead, 17 others injured, when a former student fired dozens of shots through the stained-glass church windows at Annunciation Catholic School. At the time of the shooting, the students were sitting in pews at morning Mass during their first week back to school. The injured include 14 children and three elderly parishioners.

Police say the 23-year-old attacker died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Authorities have described the shooter as a former student at the school who reportedly posted two videos on YouTube displaying handwritten journals and weapons with the names of other school shooters written on them.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey addressed the community after the shooting.

MAYOR JACOB FREY: Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church. These are kids that should be learning with their friends. They should be playing on the playground. They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence. And their parents should have the same kind of assurance. These are the sort of basic assurances that every family should have every step of the day, regardless of where they are in our country.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Mayor Frey also condemned attempts to villainize the trans community after police said the shooter was transgender.

MAYOR JACOB FREY: Anybody who is using this as an — using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity. We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone. We should be operating from a place of love for our kids. Kids died today.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We’re joined now by Kris Brown, the president of Brady, one of the oldest gun violence prevention organizations in the U.S.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Kris. If you could just begin by responding to this attack? You’re the president of one of the oldest gun violence prevention organizations in the country. What can be done to prevent violence like what we saw yesterday and we see basically on a quotidian basis in this country?

KRIS BROWN: I wish I was here under better circumstances, and — but thanks for having me.

Not only as the president of Brady, but also as a mom, it’s heartbreaking to experience days like yesterday and know so many parents that I’ve met who also have lost their kids in gun violence at schools. So, we are rightly looking at the kinds of things that we could do to prevent this.

In this particular instance, it does appear that this individual acquired these guns lawfully, although that needs to be verified. But Minneapolis is in Minnesota, and in 2024, Governor Walz signed what’s called an extreme risk protection law. That law provides the ability for firearms to be removed from individuals who are deemed by a court to be at risk to themselves or others. We’re still looking at the facts and circumstances here, but I can tell you, in other states with a richer history, a longer-enacted extreme risk protection law, it’s exactly in these kinds of circumstances that you see the successful removal of firearms, which then also prohibits the individual from acquiring firearms during the pendency of that order.

So, I think the question we have to ask ourselves is not what is the one or two things that we need to do to address the scourge of gun violence and this particular kind of gun violence, but what are all of the things that we need to do, because, Amy, firearms are the number one killer of our kids in America. That’s a uniquely American problem. If you live in America, you’re 26 times more likely to be shot than any other industrialized country. So we need to embrace this as an issue that is solvable. And we know that it is, because in states that have better gun laws, better enforcement, we have material reductions in gun death and injury. And just like the mayor said, of Minneapolis, our kids’ lives are worth this investment.

AMY GOODMAN: Kris Brown, you are the president of Brady. For those who maybe are too young to know who Brady is named for, Jim Brady, the press secretary for President Ronald Reagan, shot in the head during the attempted assassination of President Reagan, if you can talk about, from Reagan now to Trump, especially under Trump’s second term, how the laws are changing around guns and gun control?

KRIS BROWN: Yeah. Thanks for that question. So, yes, Brady is named after Jim and Sarah Brady. Jim was shot in the head while serving as President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary. He and his wife fought for six years, and there were seven votes in Congress, to pass our nation’s background check system. That law has stopped more than 5 million purchases of firearms to individuals we all agree should not have access to them. We then passed the assault weapons ban. That was allowed to sunset. And we have, with former President Biden, accomplished a great deal in gun violence prevention. That’s how, in part, we have material reductions in violent crime in cities across America, including my own city of Washington, D.C., which has a 40-year low of violent crime.

President Trump, since taking office in this term, in particular, has every day attempted to reverse those gains. And that puts us at substantial risk. Let me just name a few things. First, President Biden had established the Office of Gun Violence Prevention within the White House, recognizing gun violence as a public health epidemic. On day one of President Trump’s office, he dismantled that office within the White House and created instead a Second Amendment Task Force to look at where and how any insurrectionist view of the Second Amendment was being infringed in any way.

Then he set about reversing all of the executive actions and orders that President Biden had put in place, that were working, including the zero tolerance policy by the ATF, that actually ensured that gun dealers that were illegally selling firearms were shut down or reformed. He dismantled that entire program. He also redirected about 80% of the ATF agents. And the ATF is the only department in the federal government that actually inspects our nation’s gun dealers, of which we have more than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined. So, he’s taken those agents, and he’s redirected them to immigration enforcement.

We also, in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, passed after Uvalde — 16 Republicans voted yes on that, by the way — had provided unprecedented funding for community violence intervention, at least $180 million in grants. He rescinded all of those. And speaking of school shootings, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act also provided $1 billion to support mental health in our nation’s schools. He had the Department of Education rescind all of those funds.

Amy, I don’t have enough time. I could go on and on and on. A lot of these are both direct activities that he is directing his agencies to undertake, and he’s doing a lot behind the scenes, as well, including restoring gun rights of convicted felons. That has never happened. And comparing this to President Ronald Reagan, let’s recall that Ronald Reagan actually supported gun violence prevention, including the Brady Law, so we have a stark contrast in approach between these two individuals. And the actions, I fear, that President Trump is undertaking will make all of us far less safe.

AMY GOODMAN: And according to The Washington Post, Trump’s hand-picked interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, former Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro, had instructed prosecutors to maximize criminal charges against anyone arrested during Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C., law enforcement, with the exception of people carrying rifles or shotguns in violation of D.C. laws. In those cases, she said prosecutors should not seek felony charges. What exactly does that mean?

KRIS BROWN: Your guess is as good as mine. It’s the strangest and most kind of risky approach for someone who claims to be about safety to say, “Well, if you’re openly carrying a firearm, in violation of D.C. law, we are going to say that we will not press charges against you.” To the average person, what message is that sending? It’s pretty clear to me what message that’s sending. And that is, if you’re someone who believes in a kind of vigilante sort of justice, or you’re a member of a militia, well, come on. Come into D.C. Carry firearms openly, because you won’t be prosecuted for doing that.

And I’m sorry, but I work in D.C. I have many friends in D.C. There’s no question that the way that the — that this is all being administered is highly racialized. And we see that happening over and over and over again. If you happen to be a person of color driving your car near one of their many checkpoints, you are very often pulled over, compared to someone who is not a person of color.

And so, I just think what we will see here are individuals who are potentially creating a much more dangerous environment by openly carrying firearms. We already have a situation in D.C., with the January 6th insurrection, that has been studied over and over and over again, where President Trump never called the National Guard — that was a national emergency — never called the National Guard, and D.C.’s gun laws, we know, the lack of open carry, meant that the individuals who participated in that January 6th insurrection did not have firearms. If they had, we would have had a potential bloodbath on our hands.

It is not in anyone’s interest, not the residents of D.C. or the many visitors who come to our nation’s capital, to permit open carry of firearms. And to have Jeanine Pirro say she won’t enforce the existing law is an absolute aberration, and she will have blood on her hands if, as a result of that, she invites people coming in with open firearms and there is any kind of violence on the streets in D.C.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Kris Brown, president of Brady, one of the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention organizations, thank you so much for joining us.

KRIS BROWN: Thank you.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Coming up, it was 20 years ago this week when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, killing over 1,800 people and forcing over a million people to evacuate. Back in a minute.

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NERMEEN SHAIKH: “El Zapateado” by Las Cafeteras in our Democracy Now! studio.