7. Record year for background checks
- In June, there were 3.9 million background checks done, according to the FBI, which is the highest they’ve seen since it became a requirement to purchase a firearm in November 1998. March of this year was the previous record holder with 3.7 million background checks.
- In 2020, there have been more background checks done in the first six months than any other year, currently being just over 19 million. This year has already seen record gun sales due to the coronavirus pandemic and now unrest and calls to defund the police.
6. No, we shouldn’t get rid of Mount Rushmore
- Before the planned Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore, there were people saying the monument should be destroyed, calling it a symbol of “white supremacy.” However, U.S. Representative Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) is speaking out in support of keeping the monument.
- Brooks has announced that he’s co-sponsoring the Mount Rushmore Protection Act that’s been authored by U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson (R-SD). Brooks said that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt “contributed monumentally to America’s greatness and share a common legacy of spreading freedom and liberty throughout the world.” He added, “Their places on Mount Rushmore are well-deserved as exemplars of what it took to make America great, and efforts to denigrate their contributions are beyond reprehensible.”
5. Vaccine early next year, hopefully
- As cases grow at a rapid rate, even with deaths falling, Director of the Global Health Institute Dr. Ashish Jha has said that a vaccine by early 2021 is very likely, but the effectiveness of said vaccine is still up for debate. Jha said he’s “very worried about supply chains, about having enough vials and syringes, and all the stuff.”
- Jha noted that it could be roughly a year before there’s widespread vaccination of everyone within the United States, but he expects that China will have the first vaccine as there are over a dozen in clinical trials. He went on to say that “it might be the kind of vaccine where you need to get one every year.”
4. Palmer wants to see a debate
- Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made it clear that he’s willing to debate former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, but Tuberville has declined every invitation, and now U.S. Representative Gary Palmer (R-Hoover) is calling for a debate before the U.S. Senate runoff.
- Palmer said that the “candidates owe it to the voters to have a debate,” adding that not being willing to debate shows “severe weakness.” Palmer went on to say what “Alabamians need to realize is that in two years, Richard Shelby is leaving,” making a point about how voters need to be looking for who is going to be the senior senator.
3. Man charged in Riverchase Galleria shooting
- Over the weekend, a shootout took place at the Hoover Riverchase Galleria that left three people injured and 8-year-old Royta Giles, Jr. dead, and now Montez Coleman is being charged for the shooting.
- It’s been discovered that the shooting started through an argument between Coleman and another group of men who were all shooting at each other. Coleman will be charged with capital murder and three counts of third-degree assault.
2. Tuberville’s financial past becomes a campaign issue
- Last week, it was an allegation about former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville being soft on a player convicted of a misdemeanor. This week, the latest opposition dump is about how after Tuberville left Auburn, he entered into a strange world where he started up a hedge fund that ended with his partner sentenced to 10 years in jail and Tuberville himself settling civil lawsuits.
- Tuberville told the New York Times that he was just an investor in the fund, but the paperwork also shows Tuberville pitched investors, had “managing partner” on his business cards and had a BMW and health insurance paid for through the company.
1. Trump praises America — the media and their Democrats hate it
- During President Donald Trump’s weekend event at Mount Rushmore, the president defended the United States from a growing mob of detractors and their allies in the media, saying, “Our children are taught in school to hate their own country & to believe that the men & women who built it were not heroes but were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies.”
- This, of course, infuriated those who profit off the lies with CNN setting the tone for the 4th of July coverage by declaring, “President Trump will be at Mount Rushmore, where he’ll be standing in front of a monument of two slave owners and on land wrestled away from Native Americans.” CNN went on to have a weekend of coverage about how divisive his event was while also implying the monument was the latest piece of America that had to go, only stopping to complain about how people weren’t wearing masks.
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