Three Things for January 27
1. San Jose works toward requiring insurance and annual fees for gun owners
On Tuesday, Jan. 25, the San Jose City council moved in favor of a gun-ownership ordinance.
“If the measure is passed again after a second reading next month, as expected, the fees imposed on the roughly 50,000 gun-owning households in the city of more than one million residents could take effect in August,” reports The New York Times.
If the ordinance is passed, gun owners will be required to carry liability insurance and pay an annual fee for suicide prevention and other safety programs intended to reduce gun violence.
San Jose officials say the annual $25 “harm reduction fee” will fund the nonprofits running the safety programs which aim to “reduce forms of gun violence like suicide and domestic violence, as well as to provide gun safety training, mental health counseling and addiction treatment.”
“It’s certainly not unheard of to have reoccurring fees associated with gun ownership and possession,” said Billy Rosen, managing director for state policy and government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety. “But the specific mechanics of this may be unique. We’ll be eagerly following to see how this plays out.”
2. Tennessee school board removes award-winning graphic novel about Holocaust from curriculum
On Jan. 10, the McMinn County school board voted to remove “Maus” from the eighth grade English Language Arts curriculum.
Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” tells the story of the author’s father who was a prisoner in German concentration camps. The Jews in the story are depicted as mice and the Nazis as cats. In 1992 it became the first, and so far the only, graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize.
The 10 members who unanimously voted to remove “Maus” from curricula say it is due to the book’s use of profanity and nude drawings of the mice characters.
School members say the change is not related to the book’s depiction of the Holocaust.
“Our children need to know about the Holocaust, they need to understand that there are several pieces of history,” said Jonathan Pierce, school board member. “I move that we remove this book from the reading series and challenge our instructional staff to come with an alternative method of teaching The Holocaust.”
3. Memorial statues of Kobe Bryant and his daughter erected at crash site
On Wednesday, Jan. 26, exactly two years after their fatal helicopter accident, a statue honoring Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was set up at the site of the crash.
The artist, Dan Medina, sculpted Bryant wearing his Laker’s uniform with his arm around Gianna as she holds a basketball.
The following quotation lies at the foot of the sculpture: “Heroes come and go, but legends are forever.” The sculpture also includes a list of the nine other victims who died in the 2020 crash.
According to CNN, the statue will only be at the site temporarily.
“A lawsuit related to the crash is set to go to trial soon as lawyers for Vanessa Bryant, Kobe's wife and Gianna's mother, allege photos of the area following the crash, including images of those who died, were shared widely amongst police and fire employees. The trial is to begin on February 22,” reports CNN.
