Choose your location
The Trace
Why Is It Easier to Buy Bullets Than Cold Medicine?
Technically speaking, guns don’t kill people — bullets do. Yet we rarely hear about “bullet control.” Ammunition regulation hasn’t been a top priority for gun reformers and lawmakers, and public opinion polls and surveys rarely include questions about it. But a reader recently asked us:...
Studying Gun Violence Is Hard. But Intervention Programs Need Research to Survive.
One morning last June, Alderman Michael Murphy walked into a public safety committee meeting in Milwaukee with a plan to challenge the city’s funding of community violence intervention. The city’s Office of Violence Prevention, with a budget of about $5.6 million, mostly from grants and philanthropy, was due to...
Gun Violence in 2022, By The Numbers
Data can help us understand the contours of a gun violence crisis that kills thousands of people a year and injures — both physically and mentally — tens of thousands more. This year showed that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us: gun deaths remain...
The Trace’s Best Stories From 2022
The past year has been monumental for American gun violence in many ways: For the first time, young people ages 1 to 24 are more likely to die from guns than car accidents, according to data dating back to 2017; the U.S. Congress passed the first federal gun reform legislation in three decades as the Biden administration injected at least $300 million into community groups working to reduce violence; and the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Second Amendment confers a constitutional right to carry a gun outside the home, directing lower courts to change their methodology to look solely at historical analogues, which in many cases is loosening restrictions on who, when, and where a gun may be present in American spaces.
The Most Memorable Gun Violence Journalism of 2022
For years, The Trace has served as the country’s only news outlet exclusively covering gun violence. We pay constant attention to the crisis — spotlighting mass shootings that fall under the radar, promising solutions, and attempts at reform — and keep you updated on rolling statistics like the numbers of guns people are buying and the National Rifle Association’s revenues.
Climate Change Is Warming Cities. Could the Trend Affect Gun Violence?
On the heels of another year of higher-than-average temperatures and alarming increases in shootings, a new study examines the link between two of the biggest issues threatening American cities: climate change and gun violence. The paper, published on December 16 in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that...
Philadelphia Surpasses 500 Homicides for the Second Year in a Row
Less than a week before Christmas, Philadelphia recorded its 500th homicide of 2022, marking the second year in a row that the city has reached this deadly milestone. While this year’s murder toll will likely not surpass 2021’s record 562 killings, no one is celebrating the modest decline. 2022 is on pace to mark the second deadliest year in the city’s history.
Philly’s Top Cop Ducks Criticism for Rising Violence
Earlier this month, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw stood before a larger-than-usual gathering of journalists from local and national outlets. She’d summoned them to discuss a topic that has come to define the city: murder. It had been a particularly bloody week, with eight killed by the time Outlaw,...
Top Doctors Ask Biden for Surgeon General’s Report on Gun Violence
A group of the country’s former top doctors have taken the unprecedented step of asking President Joe Biden to green-light a Surgeon General’s Report on gun violence. They say the move is long overdue, and that it would generate a renewed push to treat gun violence as a public health issue.
Gun Violence Has Shaped Their Lives. These Philly Teens Made a Documentary Series About It.
Over the last few years, as Philadelphians endured an increase in gun violence, Shameka Sawyer was contending with a loss of her own. Philly’s crisis claimed her younger brother Allen Taylor, a.k.a. Tanch, in 2020, just one week before his 35th birthday. So she took matters into her own hands, and set out to create an arts-centered program designed to deter the city’s youth from picking up guns.
How Often Are Guns Involved in Accidental Deaths?
Accidental gun deaths aren’t as common as firearm suicides or homicides. But they generate public concern because they’re so preventable, and often involve children. But exactly how much of a problem are unintentional shootings? And who are they hurting the most?. A reader wants to know: “How often...
They Lost Their Kids at Sandy Hook 10 Years Ago. Their Fight Is for Life.
This story was published in partnership with The 74, a nonprofit newsroom covering education. Sign up for its newsletters here. Seven-year-old Daniel Barden’s slow, steady drumbeat held together the fledgling family band. The quartet’s intimate performance brought life to the Best Western hotel in Monticello, New York, where Mark...
Who Gives a House to a Gun Researcher?
In July 2020, John Lott, the economist who for three decades has provided the statistical veneer for the gun rights movement, received a house in a hilly, picturesque neighborhood in Missoula, Montana. The previous owner, an isolated man named David Strom, had recently died at the age of 79, and left the property to Lott in a trust.
How the Death of a Japanese Exchange Student Changed the U.S. Gun Debate
Holley Haymaker lived in Louisiana for more than two decades before she realized she was in gun country. A family doctor and reproductive rights activist, Haymaker kept the company of like-minded liberals at her church and in the academic community that her husband, a professor of theoretical physics, had joined when they moved from upstate New York in 1970. As a high school health consultant in North Baton Rouge, Haymaker cared for Black students who had been traumatized by violence in their communities, and who couldn’t sleep at night because the sound of gunfire kept them awake. But she didn’t know anyone who had guns, and she didn’t consider them a danger to her family.
In Colorado Springs, Local Officials Resisted the State’s Red Flag Law
The Colorado Springs shooting, in which a gunman killed five people and wounded more than a dozen at a queer nightclub on November 19, has already been framed as a failure of red flag laws, policies designed to allow law enforcement to disarm people considered a clear risk to themselves or others.
NRA Revenues Plummet, Tax Filings Confirm
The National Rifle Association saw revenue continue to decline in 2021, when it collected $227 million, the lowest figure in a decade and a 20 percent drop from the year before, according to the group’s most recent IRS filing. Back in 2016, the organization took in a record $367 million.
In Uvalde, a Community Struggles for Reform Amid Grief
This story was published in partnership with The Guardian. It took most of the summer for the Uvalde school district to fire Pete Arredondo, the chief of the district police department whose blunders were largely blamed for the high number of casualties at the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. The families of the victims acknowledged that it was the first real response to community demands for accountability, but parents, grandparents, and siblings have not stopped organizing to oust — by protest or by election — those who were in charge on May 24. Now, they’re fighting to change gun laws in Texas, a Second Amendment Sanctuary State.
Gas Stations Become a Magnet for Violence in Philadelphia
This story was published in partnership with The Philadelphia Inquirer. Just after 9:30 a.m on March 22, Rasheen Naseeb Robinson pulled his car into the Liberty gas station in East Kensington and stopped in its convenience store. When Robinson, 22, headed back to his car, a gunman shot him five times, including once in the head. He died minutes later.
Young, History-Making Candidates Ran on Gun Violence Prevention — and Won
Nabeela Syed grew up in a generation intimately familiar with active shooter drills. Third grade was the first time she remembers a police officer rattling the handle of her classroom door, checking to see if she and her classmates would react. Now, at age 23, Syed was just elected as the youngest member of the Illinois House of Representatives. She is one of several young candidates who made gun violence a focus of their campaigns.
Why Don’t Restrictions on Guns Cover the Police?
In January 2013, responding to the Sandy Hook massacre, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed firearms restrictions through the state Legislature that were touted as the nation’s toughest. But an omission soon caused alarm. Harried lawmakers had failed to exempt police from a measure that limited magazine capacity. The press treated this as an embarrassing gaffe and the Cuomo administration immediately moved to carve out a magazine exemption for active-duty and retired police, while arguing that a law already on the books made such tweaks redundant. The more carve-outs for cops, it seemed, the better.
The Trace
784+
Posts
3M+
Views
The Trace is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to expanding coverage of guns in the United States.
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments. It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency: our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. We strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation. Join us in shaping the news narrative together.