"We never said... that the street is your castle."

 North America 03:41, 06-May-2023

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Did ‘stand your ground’ usher in rise in gun sales?

Lisa Chiu in Washington

"In most parts of the United States it's completely legal to hurt or kill someone you think is threatening you, in any location, even if there's a way you could escape the situation.

This wasn't always the case. Since 2005, the National Rifle Association and the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council have helped make these so-called "stand your ground" laws the norm in the United States.

As more states adopted the recommended language of special interest groups, gun manufacturing rose. And so did gun deaths.

For most of U.S. history, laws generally allowed people to use deadly force in a home invasion, known as the 'Castle Doctrine.' It wasn't until 1994, that Utah became the first state to pass a law that extended the use of deadly force in public, not just the home, without a duty to retreat.

In 1994 Congress also passed the nation's first federal Assault Weapons Ban which prevented the sale of semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines. Also written into the law was a requirement that the ban be renewed or it else it would expire in 2004.

During the ten years of the ban, sales of all firearms -- including pistols, revolvers, rifles and shotguns -- saw declines in manufacturing according to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Several studies also showed it contributed to declines in gun crimes and mass shootings.

 

As gun manufacturing declined nationally, the National Rifle Association (NRA) worked with Florida lawmakers to pass the second stand your ground law in the United States in 2005, six months after the Assault Weapons Ban expired.

The Florida law, like the one in Utah a decade earlier, also allowed deadly force if a person believed their life was in danger regardless whether there was a way the person could have fled.

An overwhelming majority of Florida lawmakers supported the bill. One of the few against it, Steve Geller said on the Senate floor: "We never said... that the street is your castle."

When then Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed the bill into law, lobbyist and former NRA president Marion Hammer was looking on behind him. Just a few months later, the NRA announced that Hammer had presented text for model legislation based on the Florida law to be replicated in other states at the annual meeting of the the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force, made up of public and private sector members and co-chaired by Wal-Mart, adopted the model legislation unanimously. At the time, Wal-Mart was the largest retailer of ammunition and long guns.

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said at the time that Florida 'slaw was the "first step of a multi-state strategy" that to capitalize on a political climate dominated by conservative opponents of gun control.

"There’s a big tailwind we have, moving from state legislature to state legislature. The South, the Midwest, everything they call 'flyover land.'" LaPierre told the Washington Post.

A year later, 12 more states passed stand your ground laws. And a year after that, three more. There are now stand your ground laws in 30 states. Eight other states have also allowed for stand your ground rules based judicial decisions and jury instructions.

In 2012 the deadly shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin at the hands of neighborhood watch member George Zimmerman brought criticism to ALEC and the stand your ground initiative, causing hundreds of lawmakers and 60 corporations to cut ties with the interest group.

ALEC disbanded the task force just months after Martin's killing. Wal-Mart also announced it had suspended its membership with ALEC.

However states still continued to adopt stand your ground laws.

RISE IN GUNS, RISE IN GUN DEATHS

Since the proliferation of stand your ground, gun manufacturing has increased significantly. In 2004 manufacturing of firearms was down to 3.2 million to 13.8 million in 2021, according to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

An estimate of gun sales by industry data firm Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting found that sales reached nearly 20 million in 2021, the second-busiest year on record. The highest year was in 2020 with 22.8 million sales.

Along with a rise in sales has also come a rise in deaths involving firearms. In 2004 there were 29,569 deaths involving firearms according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By 2021, firearm deaths reached 48,830, the highest in at least 40 years.

> A 2017 study looked at the impact of the Florida law and found that the law was associated with a 24.4 percent increase in homicide and a 31.6 percent increase in firearm-related homicide.

> In a 2022 assessment of 41 states, researchers found stand your ground laws were associated with an 8-11 percent increase in monthly rates of homicide and firearm homicide in the U.S. They also found that violent deaths varied among states, with Southern states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana seeing increases in violent deaths of 16-34 percent.

> Another study found a 45 percent increase in teenage firearm homicide after Florida passed its stand your ground law and that the law exacerbated racial disparities. Prior to the law, Black teenagers made up 63.5 percent of all adolescent firearm homicides, after the law they made up 71.8 percent.

> An 2013 investigation by the Tampa Bay Times also found that 70 percent of people who used stand your ground to avoid prosecution were successful. The Times reported that defense attorneys were using the law in ways never intended, including a man who shot a bear. In a third of the cases the Times looked at, the defendant initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person, or pursued the person, and was not charged.

More than a decade ago, former state attorney for Florida Willie Meggs said that the consequences of the law in Florida had been devastating. The law was being used by rival gang members, rival drug dealers, and road rage incidents, he said.

"It puts us in a posture that, if you and I had words, and I said, 'Get your gun and I will meet you on the street,' we can have a shootout in the street and the winner is standing his ground," Meggs told the New York Times.

For more, check out our exclusive content on CGTN Now and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The China Report.

MORE BLUE CHIP THAN SPECULATIVE

So Far, Fewer Works at the Major Spring Art Auctions Are Guaranteed

Abby Schultz

 Updated May 4, 2023 4:51 pm ET

Gerhard Richter’s 4096 Farben, part of the artist’s Color Chart series, was exhibited in London last month ahead of its sale at Sotheby’s contemporary evening auction on May 18 in New York. The monumental painting is estimated to fetch as much as US$25 million, and is not guaranteed.

Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s

The major auction houses will be selling a slew of high-value works in New York this month, including several artworks that, so far, are being offered for US$10 million or more without a guarantee to be purchased by the auction houses, or a collector or dealer.

A preliminary look at lots on offer at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips beginning with Christie’s sale of 20th-century art on May 11, shows 25% or less of lots on offer have been guaranteed by each of the houses or by a third party. That percentage is certain to move higher in the days and even hours before the sales occur, but may not reach the same level of guaranteed property sold a year ago. 

Last year, 42.4% of all lots on offer carried guarantees, up from 38% a year earlier, according to ArtTactic, a London art market data and analytics firm. 

At the London auctions in March, guaranteed sales calculated by prices achieved before fees fell 25.4% from a year ago, Anders Petterson, founder and CEO at ArtTactic, said in an email.  

“This might be an indication that guarantors are weighing up the risk/benefits in light of higher interest rates, but [it’s] hard to say on the basis of one season,” Petterson said. “The [New York] sales will give us a better idea of whether this is a trend or a one-off.”

Inflation, a rise in interest rates to tamp it down, and market volatility—all of which has an impact on collectors—may be making auction houses more wary of putting up the capital to guarantee the works themselves.  . .

Instead of guaranteeing works, the auction houses may be winning consignments by offering “enhanced hammer” agreements, where a seller, for example, could be granted 100% of the price of a work when the auction hammer comes down without any fees subtracted, in addition to a significant portion of the buyer’s premium, Watson says. 

>  A lot of the material that’s coming to market, especially from collectors who bought and held things for up to four decades, was purchased at a very low cost, so the additional return from an enhanced hammer agreement can help offset the capital gains taxes they’ll have to pay, he says. 

Sometimes auction houses need to offer guarantees to win a competitive consignment, however. In those cases, “we have seen them subsequently de-risk and essentially sell that risk off to a third party,” Watson says. 

A substantial amount of artwork coming to market this season is from major estates, put together by collectors who have since died, and not by those who have the discretion to sell when market conditions are optimal.

Christie’s, for instance, is offering the collection of the late Boston real-estate developer Gerald Fineberg, which has a total estimate across several sales of about US$270 million; none of the works in a May 17 dedicated evening sale—including high-ticket pieces from Picasso, Christopher Wool, and Gerhard Richter—are guaranteed. Sotheby’s May 16 evening sale of 15 lots from the collection of music executive Mo Ostin also is not guaranteed, including René Magritte’s L’Empire des lumières, 1951, which has a high estimate of US$55 million. 

But often auction houses do provide significant guarantees to estates as leverage to win a consignment. At Christie’s, there are guarantees on works being offered from the collections of S.I. Newhouse and Paul Allen. 

Collectors with the cash to spare may be the winners. 

“This isn’t the material that attracts speculative buyers, it’s more blue chip—it’s great for us. This is good stuff,” Long says.

Bloomberg Television: El-Erian Worried Banking 'Cancer' Starting to Spread

 

18,632 views May 5, 2023

Mohamed El-Erian, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, says the US is in "phase two" of the banking crisis and warns that the financial system lacks "anchors" right now during an interview with Jonathan Ferro on "Bloomberg The Open." El-Erian's opinions are his own.

BUSINESS INSIDER 58m

Banking 'cancer' may be spreading as otherwise healthy firms seem vulnerable and credit gets pulled from the economy, Mohamed El-Erian says

"The cancer within them is starting to spread, and we've got to keep an eye on that," economist Mohamed El-Erian said this week. 

"Weakness within the banking system is starting to spread, as otherwise healthy firms are now vulnerable to the fallout stemming from multiple failed banks, and as credit availability contracts throughout the economy," according to famed economist Mohamed El-Erian.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, El-Erian pointed to the recent bout of banking volatility, with First Republic Bank reigniting fears after it collapsed and was bought by JPMorgan on Monday. That marks the third bank failure in two months – a consequence of the Fed's aggressive tightening cycle, poor financial supervision, and bad management, El-Erian said.

"Now we have stage 2, where banks that are not particularly badly managed  – they have issues but they're not particularly badly managed – are suddenly vulnerable," El-Erian warned, pointing to regional lenders that have been struggling since First Republic's failure this week. "The cancer within them is starting to spread, and we've got to keep an eye on that," he added.

Credit conditions are also beginning to tighten, and the risks of further contraction go up as banking contagion spreads.

If banking issues spur widespread financial contagion, the US would be in a true banking crisis, El-Erian said. That makes critical for regulators to contain the stress, he noted, adding that the US could also take steps to reform its federal deposit insurance." 

Read next

MI ExclusiveMohamed El-ErianBanking Crisis

More...

Report by Edge Media Group (May 5)

JPMorgan sees investors moving to gold, tech amid recession risk

Tassia Sipahutar

/

Bloomberg

May 05, 2023 15:09 pm +08

-A+A

(May 5): Investors are likely to favour gold and technology stocks, as those bets are expected to provide a buffer against the possibility of a US recession this year, according to strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The trade defined as “long duration” is expressed by being overweight on gold, as well as growth stocks such as technology companies and currencies (short the US dollar), strategists including Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou and Mika Inkinen wrote in a note, adding that the bet is far from crowded in rates due to the highly inverted yield curve.

“The US banking crisis has increased demand for gold as a proxy for lower real rates as well as a hedge against a ‘catastrophic scenario’,” they wrote.

JPMorgan noted that the long-duration theme seems to have become a consensus in recent months. Such a trade looks “relatively attractive”, as it would have limited downside in a mild US recession scenario, but plenty of upside in a deeper recession.

Other key points from the report:

• Indeed, the share of tech in global equities has risen sharply this year, approaching the 2021 highs, implying that the world as a whole has become more overweight on tech. 
• In addition, by looking at the short interest across US equity sectors, tech has the lowest short interest pointing to an increase in the net exposure by long/short equity investors.
• Institutional investors flocked into gold, but it appears retail investors boosted exposure to bitcoin.
• In credit, investors are going long on investment-grade corporate bonds.
  • “This is because high-grade corporate bonds have typically higher durations of around seven to eight years, around double that of high-yield corporate bonds.”
• In currencies, investors express duration trade by shorting the US dollar, “given the strong negative correlation between US bonds and the US dollar index's performance”.

The Edge Markets (theedgemarkets.com) is the main website of The Edge Media Group and it helps its readers to make better business and investment decision through key features that include:

• Proprietary news from our team of journalists in Malaysia and Singapore
• Business & markets news from the region from our media partners in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong and China
• Global financial news from AFP, Bloomberg and Reuters
• Tracks the portfolios of market personalities

Read also:

WGC: Global gold demand fell in first quarter of 2023 

MORE SEVERE than Imagined! $800 Billion of US DEBT may be LIQUIDATED .丨AsianQuicktake

 

1,112 views Premiered 42 minutes ago

"On May 3rd, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of the latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. According to the minutes, the Fed raised the target range for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to between 5% and 5.25%, marking the tenth consecutive rate hike since March. Since March, the banking crisis in the United States has escalated. Some believe that continued aggressive rate hikes could exacerbate the crisis and bring the U.S. closer to a recession. In the face of the Fed's rapid and sustained rate hikes, banks are suffering significant asset losses, leading to the closure of small and medium-sized banks. Biden's assurance that banks are safe is a sham. Depositors, frightened by bank closures, will surely withdraw their money from small banks and move it to larger banks, making the U.S. banking system even more fragile and possibly causing another wave of bank failures. The New York Times believes that the Fed is using euphemisms such as "soft landing" or "hard landing" to avoid the issue of an economic recession. In reality, there is a high probability that the U.S. economy will slow down within a year, and the "soft landing" that the Fed expects may be difficult to achieve. Yellen has again issued a stern warning that the U.S. may default on its debt as early as June 1, and faces the risk of "defaulting on all of its obligations," which would lead to a historic debt default and liquidity crisis.'

Wiped-Out! Ukranian Government State Networks Get Data Files Deleted

CERT-UA recommends that all critical organizations in the country reduce their attack surface, patch flaws, disable unneeded services, limit access to management interfaces, and monitor their network traffic and logs.

Russian hackers use WinRAR to wipe Ukraine state agency’s data

By 

Bill Toulas

 

• May 3, 2023
 
• 04:41 PM
 
• 1

"The Russian 'Sandworm' hacking group has been linked to an attack on Ukrainian state networks where WinRar was used to destroy data on government devices.

In a new advisory, the Ukrainian Government Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) says the Russian hackers used compromised VPN accounts that weren't protected with multi-factor authentication to access critical systems in Ukrainian state networks.

Once they gained access to the network, they employed scripts that wiped files on Windows and Linux machines using the WinRar archiving program.

> On Windows, the BAT script used by Sandworm is 'RoarBat,' which searches disks and specific directories for filetypes such as doc, docx, rtf, txt, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, vsd, vsdx, pdf, png, jpeg, jpg, zip, rar, 7z, mp4, sql, php, vbk, vib, vrb, p7s, sys, dll, exe, bin, and dat, and archives them using the WinRAR program.

RoarBat searching for specified filetypes on all drives (CERT-UA)

However, when WinRar is executed, the threat actors use the "-df" command-line option, which automatically deletes files as they are archived. The archives themselves were then deleted, effectively deleting the data on the device.

CERT-UA says RoarBAT is run through a scheduled task created and centrally distributed to devices on the Windows domain using group policies.

Scheduled task set to run the BAT script (CERT-UA)

> On Linux systems, the threat actors used a Bash script instead, which employed the "dd" utility to overwrite target file types with zero bytes, erasing their contents. Due to this data replacement, recovery for files "emptied" using the dd tool is unlikely, if not entirely impossible.

As both the 'dd' command and WinRar are legitimate programs, the threat actors likely used them to bypass detection by security software.

CERT-UA says the incident is similar to another destructive attack that hit the Ukrainian state news agency "Ukrinform" in January 2023, also attributed to Sandworm.

"The method of implementation of the malicious plan, the IP addresses of the access subjects, as well as the fact of using a modified version of RoarBat testify to the similarity with the cyberattack on Ukrinform, information about which was published in the Telegram channel "CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn" on January 17, 2023." reads the CERT-UA advisory.

CERT-UA recommends that all critical organizations in the country reduce their attack surface, patch flaws, disable unneeded services, limit access to management interfaces, and monitor their network traffic and logs.

As always, VPN accounts that allow access to corporate networks should be protected with multi-factor authentication."

WinRAR як "кіберзброя". Деструктивна кібератака UAC-0165 (ймовірно, Sandworm) на держсектор України із застосуванням RoarBat (CERT-UA#6550)

29.04.2023

Загальна інформація

Урядовою командою реагування на комп'ютерні надзвичайні події України CERT-UA на виконання Закону України "Про основні засади забезпечення кібербезпеки України" вживаються організаційно-технічні заходи із запобігання, виявлення та реагування на кіберінциденти і кібератаки та усунення їх наслідків.

За фактом отримання інформації про втручання в роботу інформаційно-комунікаційної системи (ІКС) однієї з державних організацій  України ініційовано заходи з дослідження кібератаки. З'ясовано, що працездатність електронно-обчислювальних машин (серверного обладнання, автоматизованих робочих місць користувачів, систем зберігання даних) була порушена в результаті деструктивного впливу, здійсненого із застосуванням відповідного програмного забезпечення.

Зокрема, для виведення з ладу ЕОМ, що функціонують під управлінням операційної системи (ОС) Windows, застосовано RoarBat - BAT-скрипт, що здійснює рекурсивний пошук файлів (на дисках та у конкретних каталогах) за визначеним переліком розширень (.doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx, .vsd, .vsdx, .pdf, .png, .jpeg, .jpg, .zip, .rar, .7z, .mp4, .sql, .php, .vbk, .vib, .vrb, .p7s та .sys, .dll, .exe, .bin, .dat) з метою їх подальшого архівування за допомогою легітимної програми WinRAR з опцією "-df", яка передбачає видалення вихідного файлу, а також подальше видалення створених архівів. Запуск згаданого скрипта здійснено за допомогою запланованого завдання, яке, за попередньою інформацією, було створено та централізовано розповсюджено засобами групової політики (GPO).

Виведення з ладу ЕОМ під управлінням ОС Linux здійснено за допомогою BASH-скрипта, що, серед іншого, забезпечував використанням штатної утиліти "dd" для перезапису файлів нульовими байтами.

Доступ до ІКС об'єкту атаки імовірно отримано шляхом підключення до VPN із застосуванням скомпрометованих автентифікаційних даних.

Спосіб реалізації зловмисного задуму, IP-адреси суб'єктів доступу, а також факт використання модифікованої версії RoarBat свідчать про схожість з кібератакою на Укрінформ, інформація про яку була опублікована в телеграм-каналі "CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn" 17.01.2023.  

Таким чином, незважаючи на висвітлення факту кібератаки за допомогою іншого телеграм-каналу, описану активнісь з помірним рівнем впевненості CERT-UA асоціює з діяльністю угрупування Sandworm, проте для її точкового відстежування створено відповідний ідентифікатор UAC-0165. 

Звертаємо увагу, що успішній реалізації атаки сприяли відсутність багатофакторної автентифікації при здійсненні віддалених підключень до VPN, відсутність сегментації мережі та фільтрації вхідних, вихідних та міжсегментних інформаційних потоків.

Вкотре закликаємо відповідальних співробітників організацій не ігнорувати повідомлення про виявлення ознак аномальної активності та вживати невідкладних заходів зі зменшення "поверхні" атаки: проаналізувати та убезпечити "зовнішній" периметр ІКС організації (ліквідувати вразливості, відключити сервіси, обмежити доступ до інтерфейсів управління тощо), забезпечити фільтрацію вхідних, вихідних, міжсегментних інформаційних потоків за принципом "заборонено все, що явно не дозволено" та запровадити використання багатофакторної автентифікації при здійсненні віддаленого доступу до ІКС (VPN) і/або корпоративних сервісів, таких як електронна пошта, документообіг та інші (https://cert.gov.ua/article/1751036).

Інформація може оновлюватися.

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• DATA WIPER
 
• HACKERS
 
• RUSSIA
 
• SANDWORM
 
• UKRAINE
 
• WINRAR
 
• WIPER

 

 

BILL TOULAS  

Bill Toulas is a technology writer and infosec news reporter with over a decade of experience working on various online publications. An open source advocate and Linux enthusiast, is currently finding pleasure in following hacks, malware campaigns, and data breach incidents, as well as by exploring the intricate ways through which tech is swiftly transforming our lives.