The ATF, charged with policing the gun industry, lets dealers get away with falsifying records and selling firearms without background checks.
The programs, policies, and people driving positive change in America’s gun violence problem.
American lives, shaped by guns.
The National Rifle Association is one of the most powerful special interest groups in America. We’re investigating how it spends its money.
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How We Fix This
The gun background check system is only as good as the records it contains. How one affable bureaucrat helped Louisiana set the standard for flagging people banned from owning firearms.
Law Enforcement
Civil liberties advocates worry the NYPD is repeating the mistakes it made with its gangs list — and that innocent people are being tracked without even knowing it.
Mental Health
A state program launched amid rising violence seeks to provide counseling on front porches and in pizza joints, instead of trying to draw residents into a clinical setting.
Ricochet
Warren Montoya guides students in New Mexico through public art projects that help them name their trauma. “I see so many things in these young people that remind me of myself,” he says.
ATF
An internal report urged the ATF to open up its exclusive contract. Instead the contract was renewed, and several ATF officials went to work for the contractor.
The former executive started to question some of the political positions he’d accepted all his life — and to feel complicit in the country's tragedies.
Natasha Christopher felt abandoned by city officials, who never solved her son’s murder. Now she works to make sure others who lose their kids know they’re not alone.
Tashante McCoy-Ham and Deion Short became friends before they realized that he had been involved in the shooting that wounded her at 15. “There’s always a deeper story about how people become who they are."
Stephanie Rudy has witnessed many shades of grief. Watching her entire community react to the King Soopers shooting felt different.
As a young child, Kathy Manis Findley witnessed the power of a firearm used to harm and intimidate others. Her experiences propelled her to commit her life to the church and her community.
A conversation with Professor Sarah Seo, whose work explores the fraught history of traffic enforcement and the problems that emerge when officers get to decide whose cars to stop.
After the killing, Tashante McCoy-Ham began advising the Stockton police chief. This summer, another family tragedy put the relationship to the test.
Domestic Violence
The Trace reviewed orders in Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, and South Dakota — and found that firearms restrictions were unevenly granted.
Rosemarie Reilly knew her ex might hurt her. But when she sought a restraining order, a judge allowed him to keep his guns.
Edwin Martinez's personal understanding of how trauma can wend its way through a home undergirds his work getting parents and children to process their grief.
2020's shooting surge was overwhelming and in many cities unprecedented. But for outreach workers and other experts, it also led to new ideas and approaches.
