A number that is both good and bad:

The number of people stopped from buying guns through the U.S. background check system hit an all-time high of more than 300,000 last year amid a surge of firearm sales, according to new records obtained by the group Everytown for Gun Safety.

The FBI numbers provided to The Associated Press show the background checks blocked nearly twice as many gun sales in 2020 as in the year before. About 42% of those denials were because the would-be buyers had felony convictions on their records.

The bad part: They won't stop trying, and will eventually succeed through private gun sales. Which means, among many other things, that law enforcement won't have a record of the purchase if they need to serve a warrant, or respond to a domestic disturbance. Pretty soon every encounter will be assumed "armed and dangerous," even if there's no record or evidence a gun is present. And you can expect to see this more often:

Because doing the job has never been a top priority for either:

Sen. Richard Burr praised North Carolina's former GOP governor, Pat McCrory, as “the only one in the race that can win the general election" for the seat Burr is vacating. “Pat McCrory has a commanding advantage," Burr added.

Behind the scenes, Burr is even less subtle about next year's Senate battle. One Republican senator said Burr is “telling everyone that McCrory is the only one that has a chance to win.”

McCrory was nothing more than a rubber stamp for Legislative Republicans, and his former Budget Director Art Pope. The boldest thing he did was sign bills as a lame duck that stripped Roy Cooper's powers after the 2016 Election. Half of McCrory's short gubernatorial career was dedicated to cheerleading the ConnectNC Bond, but when BergerMoore stripped out the actual connect part (roads & broadband), McCrory folded like somebody holding a pair of threes. Here's more, if you can stomach it:

I'll see your raise, and call. Show me your hand:

Luebke is part of a small group of republicans who've found something that didn't exist before now: republicans on city council supportive of gay rights and protections. They've been working with councilman Tariq Bokhari to put forward their own non-discrimination ordinance, based on conservative values of individual liberty and personal freedom. "I was tired of being caught flat-footed and not being brought to the table as a republican in town," Bokhari said.

Bokhari says the group is pursuing broader and more inclusive protections than the current democratic proposal. It would include protections for accommodations, employment, and housing, and it would also extend protections based on a person's natural hairstyle.

Trying to get a hold of their ordinance proposal itself before commenting further...Okay, here is the proposed ordinance:

A story that should have been told a long time ago:

This brutal insurrection is a rare instance of a violent overthrow of an elected government in the U.S. It halted gains made by blacks and restored racism as official government policy, cementing white rule for another half century. It was not a “race riot,” as the events of November 1898 came to be known, but rather a racially motivated rebellion launched by white supremacists.

In Wilmington’s Lie, Pulitzer Prize winner David Zucchino uses contemporary newspaper accounts, diaries, letters and official communications to create a gripping and compelling narrative that weaves together individual stories of hate and fear and brutality. This is a dramatic and definitive account of a remarkable but forgotten chapter of American history.

In order to "forget" something you would have to have known it, and I'm not sure this qualifies. I attended public school in NC, then community college, then became a history major at a fairly reputable private University (Campbell), and the first I heard of this was about 12 years ago. This isn't David Zucchino's first Pulitzer; he was instrumental in exposing Apartheid to the world: