Is This the Moment for Gun Control? A Gridlocked Congress Is Under Pressure
February 26, 2018 by admin
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“I think for Republicans our challenge in the next race is going to be about appealing to the suburban vote that hasn’t been so good for Republicans the last few races,” said Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee, citing in particular suburban women. It is clear, he added, that “people want to see action.”
The combination of political pressure from the governors and moves by President Trump to embrace certain limited measures opposed by the National Rifle Association could set up a congressional showdown with the powerful firearms lobby not seen since the gun debate that followed the deadly school shooting in 2012 in Newtown, Conn.
The sudden focus on guns is likely to complicate an already busy agenda. Congress left Washington without coming up with a replacement for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation and expires next week. A contentious debate over gun legislation could push immigration to the back burner.
While the Newtown massacre and the many that have followed have produced familiar scenes in which Democrats push for tough new gun restrictions and Republicans dig in and resist, the latest mass shooting appears to have shifted the landscape, even if just slightly, as the Parkland students have become overnight gun control advocates and media fixtures.
A smattering of congressional Republicans — including some who have been staunchly opposed to gun control legislation — now suggest that they would be willing to take at least small steps toward restricting gun rights.
After being jeered at a forum televised on CNN, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said last week that he would reconsider his opposition to limiting high-capacity magazines. Another Florida Republican, Representative Brian Mast, an Army veteran who lost both of his legs to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, called for a ban on the purchase of assault weapons.
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Benjamin Nadler/Associated Press
Gun control advocates are looking toward the changing political climate in Florida, where the Republican governor, Rick Scott, and state lawmakers defied the N.R.A. in proposing to raise to 21 the minimum age to buy any firearm.
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Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, is partnering with Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, on legislation that would raise to 21 from 18 the age threshold for purchasing assault weapons like the AR-15 used to kill 17 people in Parkland.
A poll released by CNN on Sunday, which showed support for stricter gun laws at levels not seen since the early 1990s, found that 71 percent of Americans backed barring those under 21 from buying any type of firearm.
“I don’t know if crossing the Rubicon is the right historical analogy, but there is a sense that this is different,” Mr. Flake said, adding, “Where the public is and where some Republicans have been on some of these issues just doesn’t match, and I do think we’re going to have to deal with it.”
Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, a longtime ally of the N.R.A., has said he would back such an age-restriction proposal. “Certainly nobody under 21 should have an AR-15,” he told reporters in Kansas last week.
Mr. Flake, however, is not seeking re-election, and Mr. Roberts, 81, is unlikely to run again in 2020.
At the governors’ meeting, there was agreement on the issue between Democrats and some Republicans. “We do it for alcohol; we’re talking about raising the age for tobacco to 21,” said Gov. Gary R. Herbert of Utah, a Republican. “I think that’s worth talking about.”
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Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said that with such talk among Republicans, “this feels like a watershed moment.”
“You’re seeing some significant and meaningful cracks in the bond that traditionally holds the Republican Party together,” he said. “The question is: Are those cracks enough to get something done?”
Gun rights advocates said the answer was no. “This, thus far, has shown no different a dynamic than any of a dozen fights over the past two decades,” said Michael Hammond, legislative counsel for Gun Owners of America, which has fought gun control measures for decades. “People who, after a week, suggest that this is a tipping point either weren’t around during previous battles or failed to learn the lesson.”
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Some Republicans, warning against a rush to enact new laws, appeared inclined to respect the wishes of the N.R.A., even as the group came under pressure from some corporate leaders, who were moving to cut ties with it.
“I think there’s a temptation just to do a whole host of things that are not really addressing the fundamental problem but would make people feel better that they’ve done things,” said Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who has deep ties to the N.R.A., explaining his opposition to raising the age limit.
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Pool photo by Michael Laughlin
Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Congressional Second Amendment Caucus, warned that Republicans who had run for office on a platform that included protecting gun rights would face political consequences if they changed their tune.
“I suspect that a majority of Republicans are not going to turn on their base,” Mr. Massie said.
While such sentiment makes it unlikely that lawmakers will consider sweeping new gun restrictions, Congress is considering a number of more modest proposals.
In the House, 19 Republicans, led by Representative Leonard Lance of New Jersey, sent a letter on Friday to Speaker Paul D. Ryan, calling on him to schedule a vote on a measure that would require states and federal agencies to do a better job of reporting legal and mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.
But the bill, called the Fix NICS Act, which is backed by the N.R.A. and Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican, is modest. It would not expand the number of gun sales subject to background checks, and it does nothing to close loopholes that allow guns to be sold over the internet, or at gun shows, without background checks on the purchasers.
The bill has already passed the House, but it was included in a broader measure that would permit the carrying of concealed firearms virtually anywhere in the country. That provision is a nonstarter in the Senate, which is why Mr. Lance and his colleagues are pushing for a stand-alone vote in the House.
Representative Tom Reed, Republican of New York and a co-chairman of a bipartisan group of lawmakers known as the Problem Solvers Caucus, said his group planned to tackle the issue of mass shootings this week, with the hope of developing proposals that could become law.
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Mr. Trump, who is a member of the N.R.A. and ran with its backing, has offered ideas of his own, spending much of last week promoting an N.R.A.-backed proposal to arm teachers.
He has also embraced “comprehensive background checks” — without stating precisely what he means — as well as the proposals to raise the minimum age for buying assault weapons to 21. In addition, he has said he supports banning “bump stocks,” which convert semiautomatic guns into automatic weapons and were used last year by the gunman who mowed down concertgoers in Las Vegas.
But Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who said in an interview that he favors banning assault weapons — a major break with his party — called the proposed ban on bump stocks a “small step,” and took issue with the age limit proposal. “By raising the minimum age from 18 to 21, then you’re almost officially legalizing assault weapons,” he said.
If the latest push for tighter gun restrictions has any better chance of success than the ones that came before, it is in large part a result of the fierce lobbying effort by the student advocates, including those from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of this month’s mass shooting.
“We have a group of articulate and smart students who are also very angry and have been activated, and so they have captured the attention of our country, including members of Congress,” said Mark Kelly, a founder of Giffords, an advocacy group named for his wife, former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was grievously wounded during a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson.
“Congress seems to have a hard time paying attention to important issues long enough to solve them, and they’ll move on to the next thing,” Mr. Kelly said. “I don’t think these kids are going to move on to the next thing.”
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LG’s V30S ThinQ is a V30 with more RAM and AI
February 25, 2018 by admin
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LG is usually one of the big hitters of Mobile World Congress. In 2016, the company used this show to debut its radical LG G5 modular flagship. In 2017, we saw the LG G6, which was among the first phones with an almost bezel-free display. But in 2018, LG is giving us a rehash: the LG V30S ThinQ.
Yes, I agree, that name is awful.
The V30S retains the exact same design as the V30, the same dual-camera system, the same 18:9 display, same 3,300mAh battery, and same Snapdragon 835 processor. The only upgrades are to memory, with the V30S stepping up from 4GB of RAM to 6GB, and from a choice between 64GB or 128GB of storage to a 128GB or 256GB selection. The colors on offer are called New Platinum Grey and New Moroccan Blue, in case they’re accidentally confused for being unchanged like the rest of the phone.
Photo: LG
Photo: LG
The immediate question that surfaces when you look at the V30S is, why did this need to exist? LG gave a media presentation here at MWC where it explained its thinking about AI integration into mobile devices and how that found expression in the company’s new AI Cam, the V30S’ headline novelty. But here’s the issue: the AI Cam and every other software improvement in the V30S are promised to be delivered as an update to V30 phones. So there’s no hardware reason for new hardware. Unless you were really lusting for a slightly darker gray on the back of your phone.
Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge
LG’s biggest launch at this year’s MWC is essentially a software update. As software patches go, though, it’s not too bad. The AI Cam facility is licensed by LG from EyeEm — a tool called EyeEm Vision, which other phone makers are free to license too — and I’m told its machine-learning system has been trained on 100 million images. It surfaces keywords related to things it recognizes as you point the camera at various objects or scenes, which is a really nice and immediate way to tell that the camera’s judging the scenes correctly. In a quick test, I found the AI Cam produced better, more accurate color than the unassisted LG camera, so it’s an encouraging start.
Another tweak LG’s made with the V30S camera is a new Bright Mode, which combines four pixels into one to produce brighter pictures in extreme low light. The trade-off there is you lose resolution for improved exposure. This is another change that’s also coming to the existing V30.
Finally, LG’s added a QLens image detection tool to the camera. QLens plugs into Amazon’s online store and is supposed to let you shop just by taking a photo of a thing you want. It’s woefully inaccurate. Taking a photo of the V30 led it to suggest that I buy an iPhone X. That’s the kind of self-own that immature AI will keep delivering for companies that insist on shipping stuff before it’s ready.
Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge
It’s abundantly evident that LG’s 2018 flagship wasn’t ready in time for the grand MWC event, but LG wasn’t willing to turn up to Barcelona empty-handed. What the company has done is rebrand, rather cynically, what remains its most recent (and best) phone. That’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s a definite letdown for anyone looking to see one of the global leaders in consumer electronics living up to its vast potential.
The LG V30S ThinQ will be on sale first in Korea within a couple of weeks. After that, it will be made more widely available later in March, with pricing to be determined locally.