Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Walmart CEO Sets An Example To Help End Gun Violence; Survivors Of Mass Shootings Haunted For Rest Of Their Lives
The New York Times: Walmart’s C.E.O. Steps Into The Gun Debate. Other C.E.O.S Should Follow.
Midday Tuesday, Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, sent me a surprise email. He shared a series of policies the company was about to make public about combating gun violence since the mass shooting that killed 22 people at one of his El Paso stores last month. Mr. McMillon’s email was a reply of sorts to an open letter I had written to him, along with the outcry he heard from scores of Americans, calling on him to use his leverage as the leader of the country’s largest retailer to create a model for more responsible gun-selling practices. (Andrew Ross Sorkin, 9/3)
USA Today: After Mass Shootings, Remember Survivors, Witnesses, First Responders
There is a smell to blood. It’s the iron in it. Once you smell it, you can never get it out of your memory. Other things will remind you of it — innocent things, like a rusty pipe. In a scene of violence, like a mass shooting, there are other smells mixed in with the blood. Bodies have emptied out, either because they were shredded by bullets or because that’s what happens with shock and death. If you talk to men and women who have been in war zones, many of whom have post-traumatic stress disorder, they will tell you that certain smells are triggers. (Patti Davis, 9/3)
The Washington Post: How Many More Names Will Be Added To The List Before Mitch McConnell Acts On Guns?
What if there was a mass shooting in the United States not once or twice or four or six times monthly, but every single day, a big one, the kind that electrifies social media and squats for days on Page 1 — would that be enough to move Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from his insistent inertia on gun safety? Would any volume of bloodshed convince the Kentucky Republican that Congress faces a moral imperative to act? Thirty-eight people were slain in three such shootings in August — in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, as well as West Texas — and still Senate Republicans and President Trump refuse to act. (9/3)
St. Louis Post Dispatch: Another Court Supports Reasonable Gun Control. Why Won't Missouri Lawmakers Allow It?
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has affirmed the right of local governments to impose reasonable gun restrictions. This is in line with Supreme Court precedent that says gun control isn’t inherently unconstitutional. Put simply, those who buy into the Nation Rifle Association’s dogma that gun ownership cannot be restricted in any way are flat-out wrong. This latest case again supports the argument being made by St. Louis officials to Missouri leaders: Local governments need the authority to impose their own restrictions based on their own circumstances, and nothing in the Constitution inherently prevents that. In St. Louis’ case, those circumstances include the shooting deaths of more than a dozen children so far this year. (9/3)
