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Chicago Police Make an Arrest in Only 20 Percent of Fatal Shootings
Kisha Nelson and her son, Zaire, were kindred spirits. Like Nelson, Zaire, 22, had a bright personality, enjoyed shopping, and loved spending time with family and friends. Before going out, he would always ask Nelson to pray with him. On March 16, those special moments ended in an instant. As...
The Gun Industry Has a Suicide Problem
One Saturday night in April 2017, Jenn Jacques and Bob Owens stayed up late drinking at an outdoor bar in Atlanta. They had worked together for more than two years, and Owens had become like an older brother to Jacques. On this Saturday, Owens seemed relaxed and was looking forward to the future; he talked about an upcoming family vacation. “That was such a special night,” Jacques told me. “I can say that there was no warning.”
Philly’s Highest-Crime Neighborhoods Are Seeing a Significant Decline in Gun Violence
From the triangle-shaped store she manages in North Philadelphia where 7th Street, Erie Avenue, and Rising Sun Avenue intersect, Margarita Collado has seen her share of gun violence, including when three men broke through the store’s basement door three months ago and engaged in a shootout with her husband.
Can Veteran-Led Training Make Suicide Prevention More Effective?
This edition is focused on suicide. If you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts or depression, help is available: You can call or text 988 toll-free; veterans can contact Veterans Crisis Chat, or receive support over the phone at 1 (800) 273-8255 or by text at 838255. Find more resources here. Many...
Israel-Hamas War Feeds a Rise in Bigotry-Fueled Gun Crime in the U.S.
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, three Palestinian college students were shot while walking home from a birthday party in Burlington, Vermont. They had been speaking a mix of English and Arabic, and two of them wore a keffiyeh, a traditional scarf worn across the Middle East that’s become a symbol of Palestinian pride and political resistance.
After an Emergency Mental Health Hospitalization, Few States Block Gun Purchases
This story was published in partnership with The New Republic. The perpetrator of the October 25 shooting in Lewiston, Maine, who killed 18 people and wounded 13 others, was admitted to a psychiatric facility in New York state for two weeks this past summer. He was still able to legally buy guns afterward, officials have said.
In Indianapolis, Drugs and Guns Converge, but Solutions Remain Disjointed
After a day spent observing a courtroom trial at the Community Justice Campus, Anthony Beverly sat on his living room couch and shuffled through handwritten notes from the day’s proceeding. The community activist felt a pang of hopelessness; he believed that the young man on trial was innocent, but he was uncertain that the jury would see it that way.
How 30 Years of Federal Background Checks Changed Gun Buying, by the Numbers
On November 30, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, establishing a system of background checks for firearm purchasers. The legislation, colloquially known as the Brady Bill, brought about a significant shift in the way firearms are bought and sold in the United States.
I’ve Told Hundreds of Stories About Gun Violence. It’s Time to Tell My Own.
Produced by WBUR in partnership with The Trace, our new podcast The Gun Machine looks into the past to bring you a story that most Americans never learned in history class. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts. Edris Thomas lives in Dallas....
How Will Philadelphia’s New Mayor Drive Down Shootings?
Cherelle Parker won’t be sworn in as Philadelphia’s 100th mayor until the first week of January, but her critics and supporters are already debating what she’ll need to do to combat the city’s gun violence crisis. Parker, 51, a single mother born into poverty who earned...
The Ubiquity of Guns Colors Nearly Every Police Interaction. Could Gun Regulations Prevent Police Shootings?
Last week, during the pre-dawn hours of what would turn into a balmy Monday morning, police executed a search warrant on a home in Mobile, Alabama, looking for marijuana. The 18-year-old subject of the warrant wasn’t there, police said, but after bursting through the doors, officers from a SWAT team and a narcotics division shot and killed a 16-year-old boy, Randall Adjessom. They claim he was armed with a “laser-sighted pistol.”
To Pressure Lawbreaking Gun Dealers, California Cities Want Police to Shop Elsewhere
Three of California’s major cities are moving to impose new restrictions on firearms purchases by police. The strategy is aimed at preventing millions of taxpayer dollars from going to gun dealers who have broken the law and could be fueling the black market for firearms. The measures being considered...
Samantha Storey Joins The Trace as Managing Editor
Samantha Storey has joined The Trace as managing editor. Storey will run our editorial calendar, guiding a steady flow of news and data stories, shorter features, and explainers. She will help shape coverage of many aspects of the gun violence beat, and will manage reporters and editors who are particularly focused on the news.
This Is What the NRA Looks Like in Decline
This story was published in partnership with Rolling Stone. While the public knows the National Rifle Association chiefly as a lobbying and campaign juggernaut, the Internal Revenue Service classifies the group as a “social welfare organization” whose firearms training, recreational shooting, and hunting programs support the common good. A partner nonprofit, the NRA Foundation, awards grants to law enforcement, gun clubs, and school shooting programs that benefit the “public interest.” These less explicitly political activities have boosted the NRA brand and sustained its soft power apparatus, a diffuse network of NRA-tied entities that includes gun ranges, Boy Scouts Councils, and 4H Clubs.
In This Maximum Security Facility, Prisoners Learn to Heal From One of Their Own
From the time he turned 5, Darnell Lane has been enmeshed in the cycle of gun violence. Whether witness, recipient, or perpetrator, he said the acts of violence he experienced made him believe he didn’t have any options but to continue that pattern. In 2006, Lane was convicted for...
The Gun Industry’s Federal Watchdog Never Stood a Chance
Produced by WBUR in partnership with The Trace, our new podcast The Gun Machine looks into the past to bring you a story that most Americans never learned in history class. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,...
When You’ve Been on Both Sides of a Gun
This special edition of The Trajectory was published in collaboration with The Appeal, a nonprofit newsroom that exposes the harms of the criminal legal system and elevates solutions that keep all people safe. Sign up for their newsletter here. In the cold winter months of November 2019, I sat with...
Minnesotans Will Soon Be Able to Disarm Dangerous People. Will it Save Lives?
Gun safety advocate Rachael Joseph knows the lasting toll of gun violence. Twenty years ago, Joseph’s aunt, Shelley Joseph-Kordell, was being stalked, harassed, and threatened for more than a year by her distant cousin, Susan Berkovitz. On September 29, 2003, on the 17th floor of the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis, Berkovitz opened fire outside of a hearing room where harassment cases were being heard, killing Joseph-Kordell and wounding her attorney.
The ATF’s Gun Tracing Database Is a Black Box. A Lawsuit Could Change That.
On October 20, a California federal judge heard arguments in a lawsuit seeking to compel the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to turn over data about guns smuggled from the United States into Mexico and Central America. The data, if released, would represent just the second time in two decades that the ATF has offered a detailed glimpse inside its firearms tracing database, which has been a black box to the public since Congress restricted its disclosure in 2003.
Shoot, Don’t Kill
The crackle of handgun fire sounded like static from a dead channel and beneath it rumbled the heavy concussion of rifles as people picked off targets up to a half mile away. The sky looked ominous, but the thousands of gun enthusiasts bustled about with the enterprise of ants at a picnic.
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