Will Supreme Court draw the line on gun rights?

+ how AI could lead to better politics US Edition - Today's top story: Supreme Court justices consider whether to uphold law that keeps guns out of the hands of domestic abusers [View in browser]( US Edition | 7 November 2023 [The Conversation] [The Conversation]( Top headlines - [Accusations of genocide in the Israel-Hamas war]( - [How your brain navigates its mental dictionary]( - [The meaning of Sam Bankman-Fried’s conviction]( Lead story Between journalism jobs, I ran the state anti-domestic violence coalition in Maine. There I learned very quickly that domestic violence victims fear one threat above all others: an abuser with a gun. Abusers in a rage don’t care about the law – and if they’ve got a gun, the next step may well be murder. That’s why Congress passed a law almost 30 years ago to prohibit the possession of a gun by someone under a domestic violence restraining order. But things got complicated in the past year, after the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court revolutionized the court’s approach on a range of issues, from abortion to guns, religion and race. Scholar Morgan Marietta of the University of Texas at Arlington says those rulings constituted a “constitutional revolution.” “When the court announces a new principle … citizens and lawyers are not sure of the full ramifications of the new rule,” writes Marietta. “How far will it go?” Today’s gun case, U.S. v. Rahimi, [may help sketch out the limits of those rights](, says Marietta, “identifying the stopping point of the recent changes in Second Amendment doctrine.” We have more about deadly gun violence in America in a story by criminologist Alex Knorre, who has [uncovered the distressing fact]( that “for some youg men, it can be safer to be in the U.S. military at war than living at home in the most violent neighborhoods of Philadelphia and Chicago.” Today we are launching [“The Conversation on Guns,”]( the fourth book in our [Critical Conversations]( series published by Johns Hopkins University Press. “The Conversation on Guns” explores the role of guns in U.S. society and the impacts of gun violence. Naomi Schalit Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy Will the federal law prohibiting the possession of firearms by someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order survive? iStock / Getty Images Plus [Supreme Court justices consider whether to uphold law that keeps guns out of the hands of domestic abusers]( Morgan Marietta, University of Texas at Arlington An important tool in the fight against domestic violence is under scrutiny in a major US Supreme Court case. Science + Technology - [Engineered ‘living materials’ could help clean up water pollution one day]( Jonathan K. Pokorski, University of California, San Diego; Debika Datta, University of California, San Diego ‘Living materials’ made with genetically engineered bacteria and Jell-O-like gel could make pollutants in water bodies nontoxic. - [Your mental dictionary is part of what makes you unique − here’s how your brain stores and retrieves words]( Nichol Castro, University at Buffalo Most people can draw from tens of thousands of words in their memory within milliseconds. Studying this process can improve language disorder treatment and appreciation of the gift of communication. Economy + Business - [Letting low-income Americans buy groceries online in 2020 with SNAP benefits decreased the share of people without enough food – new research]( Grace Melo, Texas A&M University; Andrea Leschewski, South Dakota State University; Kyle Jones, University of Kentucky The share of low-income US families who sometimes or often didn’t have enough food to eat fell from 24.5% to 22.5% between late April and late July of 2020, a research team found. - [Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud following the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Here’s what investors need to know]( D. Brian Blank, Mississippi State University; Brandy Hadley, Appalachian State University The downfall of the onetime multibillionaire holds lessons for investors and regulators alike. Politics + Society - [Both Israel and Palestinian supporters accuse the other side of genocide – here’s what the term actually means]( Alexander Hinton, Rutgers University - Newark People talk about genocide in a few different ways, ranging from technical to colloquial – but a war of words does not replace a path to peace, a genocide scholar writes. - [Generative AI like ChatGPT could help boost democracy – if it overcomes key hurdles]( Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, Purdue University; Daniel S. Schiff, Purdue University Political scientists have begun to investigate ways AI can help people understand politics better and get more voices into the public sphere. - [Young men in violent parts of Philadelphia, Chicago die from guns at a higher rate than US troops in the heat of battle]( Alex Knorre, Boston College Mass shootings account for only about 3% of gun homicides in the US Environment + Energy - [Acapulco was built to withstand earthquakes, but not Hurricane Otis’ destructive winds – how building codes failed this resort city]( Michel Bruneau, University at Buffalo The best science is not always the best engineering when it comes to building codes. It’s also a problem across the US, as an engineer who works on disaster resilience explains. International - [Both the US and Australia are adamant the Pacific 'matters'. But only one is really moving the dial]( Henryk Szadziewski, University of Hawaii; Graeme Smith, Australian National University While the US is still primarily focused on countering Chinese influence in the region, Australia is making a real impact with its Pacific Engagement Visa. Trending on site - [When science showed in the 1970s that gas stoves produced harmful indoor air pollution, the industry reached for tobacco’s PR playbook]( - [It’s not just about facts: Democrats and Republicans have sharply different attitudes about removing misinformation from social media]( - [Friendship research is getting an update – and that’s key for dealing with the loneliness epidemic]( Today's graphic 📈 [Yemen lies on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula.]( From the story, [How Houthi attacks affect both the Israel-Hamas conflict and Yemen’s own civil war – and could put pressure on US, Saudi Arabia]( - - More of The Conversation Like this newsletter? 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