Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are man-made compounds that do not occur naturally. They’re created during the manufacture of Teflon and in the creation of a type of fire-fighting foam mostly used by the military. Wide use over a period of decades means that they’re present in drinking-water systems in many areas of the country, particularly in regions containing military bases or chemical plants. They’re also directly linked to multiple kinds of cancer, to high blood pressure, heart disease, and a host of ailments. And ... the EPA is not going regulate them, despite requirements that such chemicals be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Preventing the regulation of these chemicals has been a long-term project for the Trump EPA. In 2018, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt blocked a public study of the chemicals. Preventing that study’s release meant that, in the most technical sense, the agency wasn’t required to move, even though other studies had already demonstrated the danger, and legislators, both Democratic and Republican, were urging the EPA to take regulatory action. And it wasn’t as if the EPA study hadn’t found a problem with these chemicals. It had. But Pruitt and Trump fought to keep those results under wraps, refusing to release the report for months before finally allowing it to escape in June.

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Failure to regulate the chemicals means that water companies will not be required to test for PFOS and PFOA. There will not be a required standard to meet. And, most critically for Team Trump, it will be much more difficult to take legal action against chemical companies such as 3M, which is responsible for generating the chemicals in bulk, or the military for the health damage the chemicals have already created. Across the country, communities had been looking forward to the regulation of these chemicals as a start toward remediating the high levels that remain in the drinking water of millions. Instead, there will be neither regulations nor funds to begin that effort.

We need to digitize gun-sales records, mandate universal background checks, close gun-show loopholes and straw-man purchases, ban high-capacity magazines, and push for a comprehensive assault weapons ban with an extensive buyback system.

It would also benefit us to redefine what assault weapons are so that when we call for a ban against them, it’s clear that we aren’t trying to ban all guns. No one needs to use an assault weapon to protect themselves while walking home at night. No one should be allowed to use an AR-15...

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings? The most common rationale for an effect of LCM use is that they allow mass killers to fire many rounds without reloading. LCMs are known to have been used in less than one third of 1% of mass shootings. News accounts of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs were known to have been used, occurring in the United States in 1994–2013, were examined. There was only one incident in which the shooter may have been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload. In all of these 23 incidents, the shooter possessed either multiple guns or multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or changing smaller loaded magazines with only a 2- to 4-seconds delay for each magazine change. Finally, the data indicate that mass shooters maintain such slow rates of fire that the time needed to reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective victims to escape.

North Carolina provides for several exceptions to its preemption law:

Cities and counties may enact non-discriminatory regulations or prohibitions of firearms sales at a location if there is a “lawful, general, similar regulation or prohibition of commercial activities” at the location.
1

Cities and counties may enact general zoning plans that prohibit commercial activity within a fixed distance of a school or other educational institution without a special use permit issued for a commercial activity found not to pose a danger to the public health and safety of those attending that school or institution.
2

Cities and counties may regulate or prohibit possession of firearms in, or on the grounds or in the parking areas of, publicly owned buildings, public parks, or recreation areas.
3

A local government may adopt an ordinance to prohibit, by posting, the carrying of a concealed handgun on a municipal and county playground, athletic field, swimming pool, or athletic facility, although a concealed handgun permittee may still secure a handgun within the trunk, glove box, or other enclosed compartment or area of a locked vehicle. Local governments are expressly prohibited from enacting other ordinances, rules, or regulations concerning legally carrying a concealed handgun.
4

Cities and counties may regulate the transportation, carrying, and possession of firearms by their employees in the course of that employment.
5

Cities and counties continue to have emergency powers as specified by statute (though North Carolina generally prevents cities and counties from enacting prohibitions or restrictions on lawfully possessed firearms or ammunition during states of emergency).
6

Cities and counties may regulate or prohibit the discharge of firearms at any time or place, except when lawfully used to take animals (counties only), in defense of person or property, or when pursuant to lawful directions of law enforcement officers.
7

Cities and counties may regulate the display of firearms on public roads, sidewalks, alleys or other public property.
8

Cities and counties may regulate or prohibit the sale, possession or use of pellet guns.
9

How does this random IDIOT (Brooks) get treated as the definitive word on Serious Matters when’s out here acting like (A) Robert Mueller wasn’t appointed by democratically elected officials, (B) This kind of sweeping inquiry could befall literally any president, and (C) Lincoln would be King Of All Paper Shredders if he got investigated? And he’s the one saying something lacks substance? Fire this man.