 | | The mother of Jose Dejesus Hernandez, a victim of the San Jose shooting, places flowers and mourns during a vigil last week in front of San Jose City Hall.Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times |
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Although officials are still trying to piece together exactly what happened that morning and why — a task that may never really be complete — the details that have emerged are gutting, in part because they were predictable in a nation where such mass shootings have become a numbing routine. |
Victims' loved ones described the shattering sudden loss of parents, spouses and friends who were merely starting an ordinary work day when they were killed. |
This wasn't the first time San Jose's mayor, Sam Liccardo, had been called upon to comfort community members grieving for loved ones killed in a mass shooting. |
Now, as then, Liccardo said, the first priority has been to ensure that survivors and families have access to counseling and support. But he said he also feels urgency to enact policies that might stem the tide of gun violence — even if long-sought federal gun control legislation has been elusive. |
"Mayors don't have the luxury of offering prayers and platitudes," he said. "People expect concrete actions." |
 | | The investigation continues into last week's shooting that left nine transportation authority employees dead, as well as the gunman who took his own life.Jim Wilson/The New York Times |
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To that end, Liccardo said, he hoped the San Jose City Council would approve, by the end of the year, a first-in-the-nation requirement that gun owners in the city insure their weapons or pay fees to keep them. The idea, he explained, is that guns are contributing to a public health crisis — and it's expensive. |
Liccardo said that requiring drivers to carry auto insurance has helped cut down on fatalities from car crashes, so having the private insurance industry get involved would help incentivize responsible gun ownership and defray the cost of gun violence to taxpayers, who pay for emergency and law enforcement services. |
The mayor first proposed the idea in 2019 in the wake of the Gilroy shooting, but he said the pandemic delayed progress on the measure. |
"We were working with an epidemiologist at the county, so we put that aside," he said. "Now, I think we're ready to come back." |
Of course, gun laws at every level have faced intense and sustained legal challenges. Liccardo told me he's "not delusional" about the fact that a gun regulation ordinance would require a vigorous legal defense. But he said that city-level policy changes could provide ideas that Congress and even the state legislature would not be nimble enough to enact. |
"No one would say that it would be ideal for each city to come up with its own policies," he said. "But we recognize that cities can be laboratories for policy innovation." |
Here's what else to know today |
 | | Children cool off in the American River in Sacramento during a record-breaking heat wave last September.Max Whittaker for The New York Times |
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Compiled by Jonathan Wolfe |
- Dangerously hot conditions are forecast for the Western United States this week. Temperatures could reach as high as 107 degrees in the San Joaquin Valley, and may break daily records in the Fresno area.
- In a pair of unanimous decisions, the Supreme Court ruled that tribal police officers may sometimes detain and search non-Native Americans on federal highways, and that there is no presumption that testimony from immigrants fighting deportation is credible.
- A drought crisis has erupted in the Klamath Basin along the California-Oregon border, with fish dying en masse and farmers infuriated that they have been cut off from their main water source.
- Mayor London Breed of San Francisco proposed spending more than $1 billion to address homelessness in the city over the next two years, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
- Handgun sales in California surged 66 percent during the pandemic, The Sacramento Bee reports.
- Today, the State Supreme Court will begin hearing a case that is challenging the use of the death penalty, which could potentially reverse death sentences for 704 inmates in the state, CalMatters reports.
- A deputy in the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department died after being shot in a high-speed chase in Yucca Valley, near Joshua Tree National Park, The Los Angeles Times reports.
- The state's unemployment department is so difficult to get a hold of that some people are paying private companies to robocall the department and then connect them, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
- CalMatters asks, can the state withstand the predicted widespread teacher retirements this year?
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 | | Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio in 2015.Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times |
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 | | Monarch butterflies in Pacific Grove.Vern Fisher/Monterey County Herald, via Associated Press |
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