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A rarity among local law enforcement agencies, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office employs a staff of round-the-clock mental health and threat assessment experts who continuously seek intelligence from the community on people they believe could pose a threat of violence. When a tip comes in, the team assesses the risk and intervenes if warranted. In the wake of back-to-back shootings in Ohio and Texas this month, red flag gun laws have emerged as a potentially bipartisan method of curbing the nation’s escalating number of mass murders. But the infrastructure that Palm Beach County has in place may be necessary to make the laws work. (Vestal, 8/26)

Sen. Chris Murphy on Friday said any attempt by Congress to approve a bill expanding FBI background checks of gun purchasers has a “less than 50-50” chance of success. During a press conference in Hartford, Murphy said he spoke with White House legislative staff several times, most recently on Thursday evening, about support for new gun laws in the wake of mass shootings earlier this month in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. (Radelat, 8/23)

She came to Jamaica from the United States about four years ago, sneaking in illegally, stowed away to avoid detection. Within a few short years, she became one of the nation’s most-wanted assassins. She preyed on the parish of Clarendon, carrying out nine confirmed kills, including a double homicide outside a bar, the killing of a father at a wake and the murder of a single mother of three. Her violence was indiscriminate: She shot and nearly killed a 14-year-old girl getting ready for church. (Ahmed, 8/25)

A gun show might not be the first place you would expect to talk about suicide prevention — especially in a place like rural northeast Utah, where firearms are deeply embedded in the local culture. But one Friday at the Vernal Gun & Knife Show, four women stood behind a folding table for the Northeastern Counseling Center with exactly that in mind.Amid a maze of tables displaying brightly varnished rifle stocks, shotguns and the occasional AR-15 assault-style rifle, they waited, ready to talk with show attendees. (Neumann, 8/26)

The chairman of a state school safety commission says the panel will take a close look at contracts public schools have in place to train school “guardians.” The spotlight on the contracts comes after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission learned that Palm Beach County school officials hired a private company to train armed school guardians for charter schools in the county. (8/23)