Every year, we at The Trace take stock of what our colleagues in other newsrooms are covering under the umbrella of the gun violence beat. This year produced an impressive library of features, essays, and investigations. We like the kinds of stories that hold power to account, or surprise us with a new point of view. It’s hard to read about gun violence. After all, these stories by their nature are deeply sad and traumatic. But the journalism collected here shines a light on dark areas that need illuminating, and illustrates just how strong and persistent people can be.
—Samantha Storey, managing editor
Why 1,000 Homicides in St. Louis Remain Unsolved, by Alysia Santo for The Marshall Project; Tom Scheck and Jennifer Lu, APM Reports; Rachel Lippmann, St. Louis Public Radio
The frequency of shootings in the United States can make gun violence a fast-paced beat, and this project was a reminder to slow down and center the lack of closure many people are grappling with daily. The reporters use powerful personal narratives, detailed maps, and strong contextualization to explain how one city can become an epicenter of unsolved violent deaths.
— Fairriona Magee, reporter
Gun Without a Trace, by Jamaal Abdul-Alim for Washington Monthly
Jamaal Abdul-Alim attempted to trace the path of a gun from its manufacture to its use in the killing of a 13-year-old Milwaukee girl named Sandra Parks. While that ultimately proved impossible, instead of abandoning the story, Abdul-Alim turned his frustrations into an indictment of the policies and politics that have long shielded the firearms industry from accountability for the crimes committed with their products. The result is a personal and compelling story that underscores why tragedies like Sandra’s have become a daily occurrence in the United States.
— Brian Freskos, news editor
Hacked Data Reveals Which US Gun Sellers Are Behind Mexican Cartel Violence, by Nick Penzenstadler for USA TODAY
This story reveals details about 78,000 American guns recovered south of the border: the careless gun stores, the most popular weapons, and the people who help get them into the hands of Mexican cartels. This sort of information is intentionally obscured by our own government, so it comes courtesy of a massive leak of Mexican military intelligence, made possible by the Latin American hacktivist group Guacamaya.
— Agya Aning, editing fellow
The Hardest Case for Mercy, by Joe Sexton for the Marshall Project
Thousands of stories have been written about the 2018 Parkland school shooting, but you won’t read another like this one. Friend of The Trace, Joe Sexton treats the killer’s criminal defense team as narrative vehicle and investigative subject, while detailing how addiction, abuse, and violence can lead to catastrophic harm.
— Will Van Sant, staff writer
Run, Hide, Fight: Growing Up Under the Gun, A documentary by PBS NewsHour
In this short documentary from PBS NewsHour, 14 student journalists chronicle the burden their generation carries in an era of seemingly unending gun violence. Across 30 minutes and five states, they profile young people who share stories of “growing up under the gun,” and shine a spotlight on others who are working to create a safer future for their peers.
— Craig Hunter, executive editor
The Crash of the Hammer, by Mira Ptacin for The Atavist
Christopher Pohlhaus, a white supremacist influencer known as Hammer, wanted to build a training center where he and his followers would “plant the seed of a white ethnostate, and they would engage in violence, if necessary, to nurture it.” He went to rural Maine, a predominantly white state that attracted his attention because of its “cheap property, geographical isolation, and lax gun laws.” Rural Mainers, however, didn’t want him there — and they weren’t quiet about it. This piece paints a portrait of Maine — ugliness, beauty, and all — and, importantly, shows how everyday Americans can drive change in their communities and beyond.
— Sunny Sone, senior editor, audience and engagement
He was shot in the throat. Now he saves gun victims as a trauma surgeon in Baltimore, by Simar Bajaj for The Guardian
This profile follows a trauma surgeon in Washington, D.C., documenting the relentlessness of the gun violence cycle and its human toll in one 24-hour period. The story is deepened by intimate, black-and-white photography and the personal experience of the doctor, who entered the medical field after he himself was shot. It is an intensely humanizing story about the crisis that is quickly — often quietly — touching us all.
— Selin Thomas, senior editor
I Used a Bullet Vending Machine. It Taught Me Something Grim About America., by Maddy Keyes for Slate
Maddy Keyes, a 22-year-old journalist who has never received gun training, describes in vivid detail what it was like to buy bullets from a grocery store vending machine in Noble, Oklahoma — one of the first cities to have installed them in local grocery stores. It took her less than two minutes, and a few taps of the screen to purchase a pack of 12-gauge slugs for $7.50. The transaction was easy, maybe too easy, she writes. Her story serves as a microcosm of the broader national debate on gun control.
— Alma Beauvais, editorial assistant
Lessons From a Mass Shooter’s Mother, by Mark Follman for Mother Jones
We don’t often hear from a perpetrator’s family. This piece from veteran gun violence reporter Mark Follman reveals that the mother of the Isla Vista, California, shooter made “the grueling choice to become a student of her son’s case,” something Follman “had never before heard of in a decade-plus of investigating mass shootings.” The result is a gut punch.
— Jennifer Mascia, senior news writer
The hero, by Dan Zak for The Washington Post
Gripping long read (84 minutes!) about the Iraq war veteran who tackled the Club Q shooter, and his attempts to process the trauma after his daughter lost her boyfriend there.
— Jennifer Mascia, senior news writer
Here Are the Secret Locations of ShotSpotter Gunfire Sensors, by Dhruv Mehrotra and Joey Scott for WIRED
For years, SoundThinking, the company behind Shotspotter, has kept the locations of its gunshot detector sensors hidden from both the public and its police clients, but reporters at WIRED were able to obtain leaked data that not only revealed the locations, but also validated longstanding criticisms: ShotSpotter is in fact disproportionately deployed in Black and Latino communities. A striking part of the story was how the magazine visualized the data, allowing readers to see where the sensors are in their specific city.
— Justin Agrelo, community engagement reporter, Chicago
The Gun Lobby’s Hidden Hand In the Second Amendment Battle, by Mike McIntire and Jodi Kantor for The New York Times
This is a story about William English, a political economist, whose results from a fraudulent survey on defensive gun use have influenced court decisions on guns at all levels of the federal court system, including the Supreme Court. The reporters revealed exactly how English manipulated his findings on guns and self-defense, providing courts that have in recent years overturned restrictions on assault weapons and the carrying of firearms with an empirical justification for their rulings.
— Mike Spies, senior staff writer
When Haiti’s gangs shop for guns, the United States is their store, by Widlore Mérancourt and Amanda Coletta for The Washington Post.
This gripping story draws the connection between our country’s permissive firearms laws and the cataclysmic violence being experienced overseas as a result of these laws. It’s essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the far-reaching reverberations of political decision-making on guns in the United States.
— Champe Barton, reporter
Even When a Cop Is Killed With an Illegally Purchased Weapon, the Gun Store’s Name Is Kept Secret, by Vernal Coleman for ProPublica
In 2003, new federal legislation barred the police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from disclosing the names of gun shops during gun-tracing investigations. The law, known as the Tiarht Amendment, “created a knowledge gap on a pressing public safety issue and allowed retailers to escape scrutiny,” according to gun safety advocates and researchers. This expertly reported article by Vernal Coleman for ProPublica reveals the name of a retail shop that sold a gun used in the high-profile 2021 murder of Chicago police officer Ella French, and speaks to the efforts that can be taken by agencies like the ATF to investigate and track gun crimes.
— Rita Oceguera, reporter, Chicago
An ER Doctor’s Cure for America’s Gun Epidemic, by Cedric Dark for WIRED
Dr. Dark is a gun-owning emergency medicine doctor and the cousin of a man who was shot to death. In the emergency room, he has seen first hand what happens to the body when it’s wounded by a bullet. His goal is to save lives, and gun violence makes it hard to do his job. But he is an optimistic person because he believes that if certain policies were to change, he’d have less patients to tend to — a noble goal. His essay goes into what needs to happen at the local, state and federal level to stop gun violence from happening in the first place. It’s easy to read and parse, especially if you have a hard time absorbing information that is usually quite dry.
— Samantha Storey, managing editor
