With one quarter of 2023 in the books, how has the S&P 500 performed so far?

The index had a tumultuous 2022, ending the year down 18%, its worst performance since 2008. But so far, despite dealing with tight monetary conditions and an unexpected banking crisis, the S&P 500 has promptly started to rebound.

The animation below from Visual Capitalist’s Jan Varsava shows the stock performance of each company on the S&P 500, categorized by sector.

Biggest Gainers on the S&P 500

The S&P 500 increased 7.5% during the first quarter of 2023. Though it was led by a few big outperformers, more than half of the stocks on the index closed above their end-of-December prices.

Here are the top 30 biggest gainers on the index from January 1 to March 31, 2023.

Nvidia shares gained the most of all the companies on the S&P 500 in Q1 2023, posting a staggering 90% return over three months.

As the world’s largest chipmaker by market cap, Nvidia gained from both strong earnings and semiconductor industry performance. It also benefited from the rising prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) through software like ChatGPT.

Meanwhile, other tech giants Apple and Microsoft gained 27% and 21% respectively over the same time period.

Tech Leads Returns by Sector

The technology sector as a whole was the best performing sectoral index thanks to these big moves, up 21.7% at the end of March.

Shares of other tech-adjacent companies like Meta (formerly Facebook) and Tesla—listed on the S&P 500 under the categories of communication services and consumer discretionary—also had a strong start to the year and lifted their respective sectors.

Meta in particular is up 76% in Q1 2023, continuing its rebound after falling to an eight-year low in November 2022 on the back of better-than-expected fourth quarter results and share buybacks.

Biggest Losers on the S&P 500

On the other side of the S&P 500, the financial sector was rocked by sudden collapses.

Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Financial Group shares lost the most ground in the first quarter, after both banks collapsed, shedding nearly all of their value in a matter of 30 days.

In fact, seven of the 10 worst performers on the index to start 2023 are banks or financial companies. The visualization shows the ripple effect on the market after the collapse of regional banks in March, and the ensuing rout driving the entire sector down 5.6% year-to-date.

Here are the top 30 biggest losers on the index from January 1 to March 31, 2023.

Despite the tight monetary landscape, traditionally defensive sectors like energy, consumer staples, and healthcare also underperformed the broader index. This is a reversal from market trends seen in 2022.

Investment Trends to Watch for in 2023

Experts predict a pause in U.S. interest rate hikes “sometime in 2023” but it’s unclear when (or at what level) the pause will take place given persistent inflation in the economy.

However, if interest rates level off in 2023, it could be a key momentum maker for the S&P 500. As Barron’s points out, the index tends to rise after hikes are paused.

Meanwhile, the current tumult in the financial sector is fanning the flames of recessionary fears. How effectively regulators manage the crisis might be the story of the year.

Finally, as we have seen in 2023 so far, investor interest in AI has sent tech stocks soaring. Is this a quick fad, or an overarching trend for the year?

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wants the armed forces of European countries to patrol the contested Taiwan Strait, a plan outlined for the first time in an opinion piece he authored for French weekly Journal Du Dimanche.

Emphasizing the crucial importance for Europe of Taiwan peace and stability, Borrell wrote that the self-ruled island “concerns us economically, commercially and technologically” – and urged for European navies to ensure its protection.

He said, “I call on European navies to patrol the Taiwan Strait to show Europe’s commitment to freedom of navigation in this absolutely crucial area.“

Borrell’s comments seemed a counterargument to French President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial stance voiced earlier in the month. Coming off a visit to Beijing where he met with President Xi Jinping, Macron had stressed the Europe must not be a “follower” of US policy on Taiwan.

Macron’s articulating a concept of strategic autonomy for Europe was ‘enthusiastically endorsed’ by Xi and the CCP, who have been focusing on the notion that the West is in decline while China rises, and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will accelerate this trend.

“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” said Macron. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

He followed with: “If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals.”

China has meanwhile ramped up its aerial and maritime drills surrounding Taiwan after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over two weeks ago.

The Chinese military would certainly see any scenario of a joint naval presence among European countries and the US in the Taiwan Strait as a further provocation, and would likely only increase its patrols and presence there.

Authored by Alexander Zhang via The Epoch Times,

Diane Abbott has been suspended as a Labour MP after suggesting Jewish people are not subject to racism “all their lives.”

Abbott, who served as shadow home secretary under the hard-left former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, made the comment in response to a comment which suggested that Irish, Jewish, and Traveller people all suffer from racism in the UK.

She wrote in a letter in The Observer newspaper:

“It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice.

“But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people, and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus.

“In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.”

Abbott’s remarks sparked a backlash and led to calls for her to be suspended.

Energy Secretary Grant Shapps said on Twitter:

“Once again, Jewish people have to wake up and see a Labour MP casually spouting hateful antisemitism.”

Shapps asked Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, “Are you actually going to do anything?”

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer speaking in east London, following the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s announcement that it has concluded its monitoring of the Labour Party, on Feb. 15, 2023. (Stefan Rousseau/PA Media)

‘Deeply Offensive’

Shortly afterwards, the Labour Party confirmed that the whip has been suspended from her pending an investigation.

A party spokesman said:

“The Labour Party completely condemns these comments, which are deeply offensive and wrong.

“The chief whip has suspended the Labour whip from Diane Abbott pending an investigation.”

This means Abbott will not be allowed to represent Labour in the House of Commons, and will now sit as an independent MP.

The suspension came after Abbott apologised for any “anguish” caused, suggesting “errors arose” in her initial draft letter to the newspaper.

She said on Twitter:

“I am writing regarding my letter that was recently published in the Observer. I wish to wholly and unreservedly withdraw my written remarks and disassociate myself from them. The errors arose in an initial draft being sent. But there is no excuse and I wish to apologise for any anguish caused.

“Racism takes many forms and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, travellers and many others.

“Once again, I would like to apologise publicly for the remarks and any distress caused as a result of them.”

‘Either Woefully Misinformed or Deliberately Bigoted’

Abbott’s comments in The Observer have been heavily criticised by Jewish members of the Labour Party.

Jewish Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge said on Twitter that Abbott’s letter was “deeply offensive and deeply depressing.”

She added: “Keir Starmer’s response is right. No excuses. No delays. The comments will be investigated and she has been immediately suspended.”

Labour Against Antisemitism said Abbott’s comments are “simply unacceptable.”

Spokeswoman Fiona Sharpe said:

“To reduce the racism faced by Jews to mere prejudice when in living memory 6 million Jews were systematically slaughtered in Europe for their race is grossly offensive.

“In the UK today one in five of all Jews have suffered a racist attack, with more than one in three Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller reporting the same.

“Ms. Abbott is either woefully misinformed or deliberately bigoted. Neither should be tolerated.”

The Jewish Labour Movement welcomed the move to suspend the whip, saying: “We should be unified in our struggle against racism, not divided against one another. A hierarchy of racism only divides communities and assists the racists. We must not allow this.”

Anti-Semitism

This is the latest incident of alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

During Corbyn’s leadership from 2015 to 2020, Labour was persistently plagued by allegations of anti-Semitism among party ranks.

Jeremy Corbyn, then-leader of the Labour Party, pauses while speaking at the vote count in his Islington North constituency in London, on Dec. 12, 2019. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

In October 2020, months after Corbyn stepped down as party leader, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found the Labour Party in breach of the Equality Act (2010) for political interference in anti-Semitism complaints, failure to provide adequate training to those handling such complaints, and harassment.

Starmer, the new Labour leader, suspended Corbyn’s party membership after he said the EHRC’s findings “dramatically overstated” the problem “for political reasons.”

Corbyn got his party membership back the following month, but Starmer refused to give back his party whip, which means that he has been kept out of the parliamentary Labour Party and has continued to be classed as an “independent” MP.

Last month, the Labour leadership formally blocked Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate in the next general election.

Starmer said in February that anyone who plays down anti-Semitism will be treated with “zero patience or tolerance.”

He said Labour “will never again be a party captured by narrow interest” and “will never again be brought to its knees by racism or bigotry.”

If there’s one prediction that set social media ablaze late last week, it was ARK Invest’s newest $2,000 per share price target for Tesla, which manager Cathie Wood and her team released late in the week. 

Responding to the target along with numerous skeptics on Twitter, CNBC’s Dan Nathan, who was permanently banned from Twitter for playing an April Fool’s joke on Elon Musk earlier this month, had some choice words for Tesla late last week on his show, Fast Money. 

On Thursday, Nathan offered up a scathing analysis of Elon Musk’s empire after the company posted earnings that disappointed Wall Street earlier in the week. Musk referred to Nathan as a “doofus” back in January 2023.

Nathan’s main concerns – highlighted by Mediaite – were about Musk taking on too much debt and what the consequences could be if Tesla’s stock price continued to slide lower. The stock finished the week down more than 10%, but still about 60% higher than lows it plumbed in late 2022. 

“I actually think it’s going probably break 100, which is where I was in January, and my price target is 69 to the downside. That might seem a little aggressive on 4/20 on a day that it was just Elon day here,” Nathan said.  He then called into question the economics of Musk spreading himself thin between his three companies:

We know that he had been selling Tesla shares all year last year to fund his purchase of Twitter. We know that SpaceX has been for sale. He’s been looking to raise capital that way. You know, if this stock were to continue to go lower, if they are pushing out a manned trip to the moon, and that’s what the whole idea of this rocket launch was today on Twitter, they just marked down from $44 billion to $20 billion, got $13 billion.

This is not a generally very liquid person. He used to be able to get whatever lines that he wanted to, but now he’s got all these banks on the hook for this debt that he can’t service based on Twitter’s businesses. So to me, he might be entering the endgame here a little bit for being the CEO of all of these companies and being that levered.

And now when you look at this stock right here, it’s broken. The fundamentals have shifted. Not a single analyst on the street downgraded the stock. Okay. There’s plenty of price target downgrades.

They will be downgrading the stock lower. I’m just telling you that people over the next 3 to 6 months or so and that’s when you have a situation where, you know, who knows if he’s going to be in control of this company in the not so distant future, because it doesn’t seem like the “Elon aura” is playing out right now, the three biggest companies.

“I think there’s a demand issue and I think there’s a competition issue in China. And I think that if you’re looking at the prices of an average price point of $45,000 for your car and you’ve just seen margins go from 25% last year down to 19% and likely going lower,” he told his co-hosts. 

“They have a big fundamental problem that I didn’t hear a single analyst talk about this, there’s this guy, Gary Black, and he was on Max’s, he was on Last Call last night. He’s like the biggest bull ever on Twitter. He’s always talking about Tesla. He’s seen to have turned on this story. He’s lowering his estimates. So earnings estimates are coming down. Margin estimates are coming down, Delivery estimates are coming down, backlogs coming down and inventory inventories going up. Does that sound like a good fundamental situation for you?”

“I don’t have something against Elon, I just don’t trust him,” Nathan had said in a January 2023 discussion about Tesla and Musk. 

You can watch the full 5 minute clip of Nathan’s rant on Mediaite here. 

Authored by Magyar Nemzet’s Gergely Kiss via Remix News,

With the closure of Germany’s last three nuclear power plants, the country’s 60-year era of nuclear power generation has come to an end. The move was originally planned for the end of last year. However, due to uncertainty over energy supplies in the wake of the Russian-Ukrainian war and sanctions, the coalition government extended the deadline until after winter.

For a long time, nuclear energy has been one of the most divisive areas of energy policy in the EU’s supply. The technology offers stable energy supplies and has positive environmental and economic indicators, but the radical Green parties of Europe have worked hard to convince many that these plants should be closed.

This has been achieved mainly in Germany and Austria. Downsizing has begun and further investment has become impossible. Reality, however, has shown that this ideology-driven energy policy comes at a heavy price. It was not by chance that energy policy expert Oliver Hortay recently recalled an estimate by a Berkeley University researcher that the social cost of German nuclear plant closures had already reached $12 billion a year.

The threat of energy shortages in Europe has led to a change in the perception of nuclear power among EU citizens.

In Germany, for example, the percentage of people who oppose nuclear power has fallen from 65 to 20 percent. But it seems that the will of the electorate does not matter.

“It’s a black day for climate protection in Germany,” Jens Spahn, a conservative member of the CDU, told RTL television the other day.

It is hard to talk about a green transition when carbon emissions are rising.

The huge expansion of solar and wind capacity in Germany is no guarantee of security of supply. The country is increasingly using coal instead of Russian gas. In fact, mines that had previously been closed down have had to be reopened, and a German energy company has even started to dismantle a wind farm to allow for the expansion of a neighboring coal mine.

On average, 30,000 tons of coal are transported daily by trains from North Sea ports to large power stations across Germany. Last year, the war caused the country to increase its coal imports by 8 percent to 44.4 million tons. These are the hard facts.

The Greens went after gas boilers, too. They will now be banned in German homes from 2024.

Greens say they cannot meet their climate commitments otherwise.

However, it is coal-fired power stations, not residential gas boilers, that threaten climate targets.

Péter Szijjártó, the Hungarian minister of foreign affairs and trade, often warns that it is impossible to supply the economy with gas or oil, or even to heat houses and apartments, with ideology or political statements instead of actual supply chains.

In other words, the Hungarian government continues to treat energy security as a physical and not an ideological issue. That means it is not willing to give up working, proven and reliable sources.

An ideology-driven energy policy is very expensive, has harmful consequences, and in the future, could even end with us freezing in our homes if an especially cold winter hits Europe.

Authored by Roger Kimball via AmGreatness.com,

Doubtless your mother used to tell you to count your blessings. It was good advice.

Your situation may be bad. In the case of the United States, things indisputably are bad, and worsening. You know that. But look on the bright side.

Sure Merrick Garland, the first American Gothic attorney general of the United States, is a partisan horror show, withholding real protection from Supreme Court justices who are threatened by violent criminals even as he stigmatizes as “domestic terrorists” parents who criticize their local school boards and orders the FBI to conduct dawn raids on critics of the regime. He is a horrible man and a dangerous partisan hack, the very instantiation of the two-tier application of the law that has made such a mockery of justice during Biden’s tenure. 

But again, look on the bright side. Garland will soon be gone. And remember, he almost made it to the Supreme Court. Obama nominated him in the waning days of his administration. But Donald Trump had other ideas and—let’s give credit where credit is due—Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made sure that Garland’s nomination got lost when Republicans held the majority. I am no fan of McConnell’s, but I try to remember to say a little prayer for him whenever I list my intentions. By scotching Garland’s ascension to the Court, McConnell did the country a huge favor. 

I say Garland will “soon” be gone. Most of my readers will assume I mean on or about January 20, 2025, when the next Republican president assumes office. 

It might take that long. But recent developments have me wondering whether he might make his congé even earlier.

A few days ago, it was reported that an unnamed, senior IRS special agent was seeking whistle-blower status in connection with the ongoing investigation of First Son Hunter Biden, who has serious tax problems. 

According to a letter from the agent’s lawyer to several House and Senate committees, the agent laid out multiple examples of “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject [i.e., Hunter Biden] were not politically connected.”

The agent’s allegations also “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee” and “involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case” against Hunter Biden.

An “unnamed senior political appointee,” eh? Well, that unnamed status didn’t last long. On Thursday, the New York Post reported that the international man of mystery was none other than Merrick Garland himself.

Back in March, Garland had insisted to Congress that the investigation into Hunter Biden’s extracurricular activities was free from political interference. David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney investigating the case, had full autonomy, Garland said. Quoth Garland, “The U.S. attorney has been advised that he has full authority to make kind of those referrals you’re talking about or to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it is necessary, and I will assure that if he does, then he will be able to do that.” 

It was not reported whether that claim was greeted with titters. I assume that the echoing claim from the White House, that the investigation would be “free from any political interference by the White House,” was greeted by at least restrained and incredulous laughter. 

Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

What does it all portend? Probably about the same thing that the revelation last week regarding Secretary of State Antony Blinken portends. Blinken, it transpired, was the origin of the campaign against the story, first reported by the New York Post, about Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell.” Forget about the salacious bits—the drugs, the guns, the whores. More damaging were the emails detailing some of the Biden family’s corrupt business dealings with various foreign entities, dealings that clearly implicated the “Big Guy,” Joe Biden. 

The Post bombshell was detonated a scant two weeks before the 2020 presidential election. It promised disaster for the Biden campaign. What to do? Remember the 51 former intelligence specialists, including such senior figures as former CIA director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who signed a letter testifying that the laptop bore “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”? 

 According to the sworn testimony of Michael Morell—a senior Democratic operative—it was he, working hand-in-glove with Blinken, then a Biden campaign official, who organized the letter and helped shut down the story.

Why did he do this?

Two reasons.

He wanted to help Joe Biden in his debates with Donald Trump, so he wanted the story buried. Beyond that, he said, he wanted Biden “to win the election.”

What better way to help than to use the power of the state to censor the media and thereby suppress an unflattering story, one that would probably have altered the outcome of the election? 

It is possible that both Garland and Blinken will have to answer for their alleged malfeasance. Both might easily be impeached and forced from office.

If they are, it will be a signal that the Regime is about to expel Joe Biden and find another candidate for 2024. I don’t really expect that to happen, though anything is possible in this increasingly yeasty situation. More likely, I think, is that our deeply ensconced two-tier system of “justice” will prevail, just as it is, for the benefit of Hunter Biden.

More’s the pity, but the longer such outrages continue, the more definitive the reverse peristalsis of swampy denizens in Washington, D.C. will be in November 2024. 

A new nongovernmental organization (NGO) launched by former Presidents Obama, Clinton and George W. Bush, Miles4Migrants, is teaming up with American Express Global Business Travel (AmEx GBT) and Welcome.US, in order to fly migrants to communities throughout the United States, according to Breitbart.

Welcome.US was originally intended to facilitate the resettlement of some of the 85,000 Afghans who fled to the US in 2021 and 2022 following the Biden administration’s disastrous pullout from the country. The organization (surprise!) has ties to George Soros’ Open Society Foundation through several board members who sit on their “National Welcome Council.”

Now, the NGO is teaming up with the open borders group Miles4Migrants as well as American Express Global Business Travel to fund flights to American communities for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Ukraine, and Nicaragua. -Breitbart

“Donations are needed to fund the flights for newcomers to travel to the United States,” the website for the initiative states.

Those forced to flee often leave behind all but what they can carry, and the costs of international travel can be prohibitive. Welcome Connect Travel removes the cost of travel as a barrier for both sponsors in the United States and the displaced families they are supporting through humanitarian sponsorship. [Emphasis added]

With the average cost of a single flight at $1,600, public donations through our partner Miles4Migrants will help provide a lifeline to newcomers, giving them the opportunity to safely travel to their new communities. Donate below to help newcomers access safe travel. [Emphasis added]

Last week Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said that close to five million illegal migrants have entered the Untied States since Biden took office in early 2021, a figure which doesn’t include those released into the US interior, those who got away, and migrants who were never caught in the first place.

By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

Time Travelers:

“I like sci-fi, but prefer time travel stories to dystopian superintelligence ones,” said Lindsay Politi, our inflation portfolio manager, early one morning, our Bloomberg’s aglow. “Maybe that’s why I still think the better sci-fi tale playing out in real time is happening in the financial markets, not in Silicon Valley with its latest AI advances. Interest rates are the price of time, so, in a way, last decade’s monetary policy experiment was really a time distortion experiment. Crossing the zero bound in interest rates, like exceeding the speed of light with matter, causes our sense of time to become unfixed. Future values and present values converged and became indistinguishable. Time became irrelevant,” said Lindsay. 

“Financial valuation, at its core, is about valuing future cash flows,” continued Lindsay. “Taking interest rates near or below zero across almost all-time horizons completely distorted the idea of time in that cash flow valuation process. It compressed present values and future values to the point of being nearly identical. Being able to pretend that time doesn’t matter is alluring but completely unhinged from reality. Distorting the pricing of time doesn’t make time irrelevant, even if it seemed that way for a while, and having to consider time again as an extremely relevant variable is destabilizing for today’s markets, quite literally.” 

“Now that time matters again, we’re starting to realize that a lot of money we thought was on hand is trapped in the future,” said Lindsay. “You hear it all the time from the house you no longer want to sell because the mortgage rate is too low, to the PE deal you’re holding longer than you anticipated. Good or bad, people have all kinds of financial holdings they thought they’d be trading in the present but it’s now too expensive not to hold well into the future. It is creating all kinds of unexpected illiquidity and distortions. It’s not that the capital doesn’t exist. It’s just that it exists in a different time than we thought it did. And inflation is a catalyst that exposes these time distortions.”

“All this trapped capital means inflation will be worse than most think,” said Lindsay. “There are supply issues, capital investment is needed to resolve them, but that capital is locked up in investments that we now realize are much longer term than originally anticipated. Negative and zero interest rates are so distorting that even a slight move away from that was always going to create a substantial shift towards value of the present — liquidity, cash, current cash flow, etc. Inflation itself is all about time preference for the present, wanting the ability to buy today before it’s more expensive tomorrow. This natural shift towards wanting assets and consumption in the present creates an inherent inflationary push that’s hard to anticipate. It means that prices rebound more quickly on dips than we expect.”

Authorities in Texas are investigating the mysterious deaths of six cattle found with their tongues “completely removed” by precision “clean cuts.” 

Ranchers in Madison County, about 100 miles southeast of Waco, found the mutilated remains of a 6-year-old longhorn-cross cow lying on her side at their ranch. 

Madison County Sheriff’s Office said, “A straight, clean cut, with apparent precision, had been made to remove the hide around the cow’s mouth on one side, leaving the meat under the removed hide untouched. The tongue was also completely removed from the body with no blood spill.” 
“It was noted there were no signs of struggle and the grass around the cow was undisturbed,” investigators from the sheriff’s office said. 

Investigators added: “No footprints or tire tracks were noted in the area.” 

Ranchers also reported five similar cases involving four adult cows and one yearling in Brazos and Robertson counties. 

The exact cause of death of the six livestock is unknown; each was found the same way, with “face cut along the jaw line and the tongue removed” in “straight, clean cut, with apparent precision,” the sheriff’s office said. 

One commenter on the Facebook post wrote, “This is just to dristraxt of from how high inflation is.” 

The discovery of the cattle resembles a storyline from an episode of “The X-Files.”

Authored by Elizabeth Dowell via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Another gun control restriction has been passed by Washington state legislatures, implementing a ban on dozens of models of semi-automatic rifles on Wednesday.

Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to sign the bill (HB 1240) into law and posted his reaction to this latest effort to stop the growing list of mass shootings in the United States.

“WA does not and will not accept gun violence as normal. Banning the sale of assault weapons, our bill to enact training requirements and a waiting period, and the bill to improve the accountability of manufacturers and retailers will save lives,” the governor posted on Twitter in response to the bill’s approval.

The Washington law would block the sale, distribution, manufacture, and importation of more than 50 gun models, including AR-15s, AK-47s, and similar-style rifles. Some exemptions are included for sales to law enforcement agencies and the military in Washington. The measure does not bar the possession of weapons by people who already have them.

Republican state lawmakers opposed the ban, with some contending school shootings should be addressed by remodeling buildings to make them less appealing as targets and others saying it infringes on people’s right to defend themselves.

“HB 1240 clearly violates our state and federal constitutions, which is why it will end up in court immediately,” state Sen. Lynda Wilson of Vancouver said in a statement.

President Joe Biden called for stronger gun control laws during a visit to Monterey Park, California, in March, where he met the families of the mass shooting that claimed 11 lives and injured nine others in January 2023.

“I’m here on behalf of the American people, to mourn with you, to pray with you. To let you know you’re loved and not alone. Every case is different. But I know what it’s like. I know what that’s like to get that call,” Biden said in his speech.

Requirements should be enforced more effectively before an individual can buy a firearm.

“It’s just common sense to check whether someone is a felon, a domestic abuser before they buy a gun,” Biden added.

Gun manufacturing CEOs Marty Daniel of Daniel Defense and Christopher Killoy of Sturm, Ruger & Co. both testified last year before Congress and denied any responsibility in connection to America’s mass shootings over the decade.

“I believe that these murders are a local problem that has to be solved locally,” Daniel said in a statement. “These acts are committed by murderers. The murderers are responsible.”

Killoy, the CEO of the largest manufacturer of rifles in the United States, said blaming an “inanimate object” for deaths caused by murderers isn’t accurate.

“We firmly believe that it is wrong to deprive citizens of their constitutional right to purchase a lawful firearm they desire because of the criminal acts of wicked people,” Killoy said in a statement. “A firearm, any firearm, can be used for good or for evil. The difference is in the intent of the individual possessing it, which we respectfully submit, should be the focus of any investigation into the root causes of criminal violence involving firearms.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott believes raising the minimum age to buy assault-style rifles from 18 to 21 years old wouldn’t help solve the murder problem and would be unconstitutional.

“It is clear that the gun control law that they are seeking in Uvalde—as much as they may want it—has already been ruled as unconstitutional,” Abbott said in a statement during his reelection campaign last year.

California is one of the strictest states when it comes to gun control laws as Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to push for tighter reforms leading the nation.

“From our schools to our parks to our homes, our kids deserve to be safe—in California, we’re making that a reality. As the Supreme Court rolls back important gun safety protections and states across the country treat gun violence as inevitable, California is doubling down on commonsense gun safety measures that save lives,” Newsom said in a statement. “The lives of our kids are at stake, and we’re putting everything on the table to respond to this crisis.”