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How Firearm Thefts in Mississippi Compare to Other States | Mississippi

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www.thecentersquare.com – Samuel Stebbins, 24/7 Wall St. via The Center Square – 2023-05-24 08:31:21

U.S. firearm sales have surged in recent years, a trend that has coincided with a steep increase in gun violence. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a record number of Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021. While law-abiding citizens with no intention of engaging in criminal activity account for the vast majority of gun purchases, the influx of guns in American households increases the likelihood of firearms falling into the wrong hands, particularly through theft.

According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, more than 1 million firearms were reported stolen by private citizens in the five years from 2017 to 2021. Stolen guns are most commonly burgled from homes and vehicles, but some are also taken directly from a person. Though many stolen guns are ultimately linked to crimes, they are typically first sold on the black market.

Semi-automatic pistols are by far the most commonly stolen firearm type, accounting for over 70% of all reported firearm thefts in the U.S. in the last five years. And all of the top five stolen calibers – .45, .22, .380, .40, and 9mm – are widely available in semi-automatic handguns. (Here is a look at the gun calibers most likely to be used for crime in every state.)

ATF records show that an average of 5,460 firearms were reported stolen from private citizens in Mississippi each year between 2017 and 2021. Adjusting for population, this comes out to about 185.1 stolen firearms annually for every 100,000 residents, the most among states.

An estimated 24.3% of all the firearms reported stolen between 2017 and 2021 were ultimately recovered in-state.

All data in this story is from the ATF’s report National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment (NFCTA): Crime Guns – Volume Two. Firearms stolen from gun stores and gunmakers were not considered in this ranking.

 

Rank State Annual firearm theft rate (per 100,000 people) Avg. num. of firearms stolen from private citizens annually Stolen firearms recovered in state (%)
1 Mississippi 185.1 5,460 24.3
2 Alabama 165.7 8,353 28.4
3 Louisiana 155.1 7,170 30.5
4 South Carolina 150.8 7,825 27.3
5 Georgia 132.3 14,288 26.2
6 Arkansas 131.8 3,989 33.0
7 Alaska 130 953 36.2
8 Missouri 117.9 7,270 28.3
9 Tennessee 116.7 8,143 27.3
10 Oklahoma 111 4,426 27.0
11 New Mexico 106.8 2,260 23.8
12 Kentucky 103.9 4,684 36.5
13 North Carolina 103.9 10,961 28.9
14 West Virginia 97 1,730 19.7
15 Montana 88.7 980 30.3
16 Texas 85.6 25,270 24.6
17 Nevada 83.1 2,614 24.7
18 Indiana 77.3 5,260 26.3
19 Kansas 76 2,230 25.8
20 Arizona 70 5,090 27.9
21 Wyoming 64.7 374 29.5
22 Michigan 64.3 6,462 26.5
23 Florida 64 13,940 29.4
24 Virginia 60.4 5,224 26.5
25 Colorado 57.4 3,336 24.4
26 Oregon 57.1 2,423 26.8
27 Ohio 56.8 6,697 26.0
28 Idaho 53.6 1,018 28.0
29 South Dakota 53.2 476 31.1
30 Washington 52.6 4,074 29.1
31 North Dakota 45.8 355 26.8
32 Pennsylvania 45.3 5,870 26.9
33 Utah 42.1 1,406 33.5
34 Maine 40.8 559 13.8
35 Iowa 39.1 1,249 27.3
36 Vermont 39.1 253 19.3
37 Delaware 37.8 379 24.0
38 Nebraska 37.3 733 35.7
39 Illinois 33.7 4,265 30.0
40 Minnesota 27.3 1,559 29.2
41 New Hampshire 26.8 372 28.9
42 Connecticut 24 866 18.8
43 California 21.7 8,509 14.7
44 Wisconsin 21.3 1,255 0.1
45 Maryland 18.3 1,130 22.8
46 Hawaii 12.1 174 13.6
47 Rhode Island 10.7 117 21.4
48 New York 8.9 1,766 14.6
49 New Jersey 6.8 629 25.3
50 Massachusetts 5.4 378 22.0

 

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Essayli resigns from CA State Assembly to accept appointment as U.S. attorney | California

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www.thecentersquare.com – Dave Mason – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-02 17:18:00

(The Center Square) – A legislator known for his conservative stance on illegal immigration and other issues has been nominated for U.S. attorney for a district that includes Los Angeles County.

Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Corona, resigned Tuesday night from the California State Assembly to accept President Donald Trump’s appointment to the U.S. District for Central California. The appointment will require the Senate’s confirmation.

During a Fox interview, Essayli said his top priorities as U.S. attorney would include prosecuting illegal immigrants and those who aid and support them.

In January, Essayli sought answers from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom about whether bills introduced to “Trump-proof” the state would hinder the president’s mass deportation efforts. Essayli told Fox News Digital he believed money from a $50 million initiative would be used to defend illegal immigrants with criminal records. Newsom’s office later said no funds would be used for “immigration-related services for criminals.”

In 2024, Essayli amended his Assembly Bill 2641 to end sanctuary protections for illegal immigrants convicted of sex crimes against minors. 

After Trump’s nomination, Essayli said he felt honored by the trust placed in him by the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“I intend to implement the President’s mission to restore trust in our justice system and pursue those who dare to cause harm to the United States and the People of our nation,” the former Riverside County legislator said in a statement. 

The Central District consists of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The district serves about 20 million people.

Essayli, a former Riverside County prosecutor and former assistant U.S. attorney, became the Assembly’s first Muslim member when he was elected in 2022.

“In just over two years, we have achieved major victories to restore common sense in Sacramento,” Essayli said. “When I joined the Assembly, parental rights, illegal immigration and voter ID were peripheral issues; we’ve made them centerpieces of our party. This past election we added true fighters, and I am confident they will continue the important work needed in the Legislature to make Republicans start winning in California.”

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Analysis: ‘Valley’ of AI journey risks human foundational, unique traits | National

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-02 14:21:00

(The Center Square) – Minority benefit against the majority giving up “agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills” in what is described as a valley of an artificial intelligence journey is likely in the next few years, says one voice among hundreds in a report from Elon University.

John M. Stuart’s full-length essay, one of 200 such responses in “Being Human in 2035: How Are We Changing in the Age of AI?,” speaks to the potential problems foreseen as artificial intelligence continues to be incorporated into everyday life by many at varying levels from professional to personal to just plain curious. The report authored by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie of Elon’s Imagining the Digital Future Center says “the fragile future of some foundational and unique traits” found only in humans is a concern for 6 in 10.

“I fear – the time being – that while there will be a growing minority benefitting ever more significantly with these tools, most people will continue to give up agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills to these still-primitive AIs and the tools will remain too centralized and locked down with interfaces that are simply out of our personal control as citizens,” writes Smart, a self-billed global futurist, foresight consultant, entrepreneur and CEO of Foresight University. “I fear we’re still walking into an adaptive valley in which things continue to get worse before they get better. Looking ahead past the next decade, I can imagine a world in which open-source personal AIs are trustworthy and human-centered.

“Many political reforms will reempower our middle class and greatly improve rights and autonomy for all humans, whether or not they are going through life with PAIs. I would bet the vast majority of us will consider ourselves joined at the hip to our digital twins once they become useful enough. I hope we have the courage, vision and discipline to get through this AI valley as quickly and humanely as we can.”

Among the ideas by 2035 from the essays, Paul Saffo offered, “The first multi-trillion-dollar corporation will employ no humans except legally required executives and board, have no offices, own no property and operate entirely through AI and automated systems.”

Saffo is a futurist and technology forecaster in the Silicon Valley of California, and a consulting professor at the School of Engineering at Stanford.

In another, Vint Cerf wrote, “We may find it hard to distinguish between artificial personalities and the real ones. That may result in a search for reliable proof of humanity so that we and bots can tell the difference.”

Cerf is generally known as one of the “fathers of the internet” alongside Robert Kahn and for the internet protocol suite, colloquially known as TCP/IP.

Working alongside the well-respected Elon University Poll, the survey asked, “What might be the magnitude of overall change in the next decade in people’s native operating systems and operations as we more broadly adapt to and use advanced AIs by 2035? From five choices, 61% said considerable (deep and meaningful change 38%) and dramatic (fundamental, revolutionary change 23%) and another 31% said moderate and noticeable, meaning clear and distinct.

Only 5% said minor change and 3% no noticeable change.

“This report is a revealing and provocative declaration to the profound depth of change people are undergoing – often without really noticing at all – as we adapt to deeper uses of advancing AI technology,” Anderson said. “Collectively, these experts are calling on humanity to think intentionally and carefully, taking wise actions now, so we do not sleepwalk into an AI future that we never intended and do not want.”

In another question, respondents answered whether artificial intelligence and related technologies are likely to change the essence of being human. Fifty percent said changes were equally better and worse, 23% said mostly for the worse, and 16% said mostly for the better.

The analysis predicted change mostly negative in nine areas: social and emotional intelligence; capacity and willingness to think deeply about complex concepts; trust in widely shared values and norms; confidence in their native abilities; empathy and application of moral judgment; mental well-being; sense of agency; sense of identity and purpose; and metacognition.

Mostly positive, the report says, are curiosity and capacity to learn; decision-making and problem-solving; and innovative thinking and creativity.

Anderson and Rainie and those working on the analysis did not use large language models for writing and editing, or in analysis of the quantitative data for the qualitative essays. Authors said there was brief experimentation and human realization “there were serious flaws and inaccuracies.” The report says 223 of 301 who responded did so “fully generated out of my own mind, with no LLM assistance.”

Results were gathered between Dec. 27 and Feb. 1.

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Medicare, Medicaid coverage of rural telehealth services could expand | National

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Thérèse Boudreaux | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-02 13:59:00

(The Center Square) – Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in rural regions may soon get better coverage for telehealth services if newly introduced bipartisan legislation passes.

The Equal Access to Specialty Care Everywhere Act would amend the Social Security Act to allow the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to work with provider networks and nonprofit health centers to expand telehealth services to people living in rural areas.

“The lack of specialty care for rural Americans has resulted in worse outcomes and higher costs,” Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner Tuesday. “I’m proud to introduce the EASE Act, which leverages technology to close the health care gap in rural and underserved communities with greater access to specialty and integrated care.”

Currently, Medicaid coverage for telehealth varies by state. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, all qualified Medicare providers have provided telehealth services, while federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics have served as Medicare distant site providers.

Medicare coverage of telehealth is set to expire in September, and roughly 13% of Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services in 2023, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The EASE Act, introduced in both the House and Senate, would help Medicare and Medicaid recipients facing geographical restrictions to continue accessing telehealth services.

Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., joined Arrington in sponsoring the House version of the bill, while Sens. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., and Alex Padilla, D-Calif., sponsored the companion bill in the Senate.

The federal government spent roughly $848 billion on Medicare in 2023, about 14% of total federal spending that year.

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