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.
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Active Shooting
More Americans were killed or wounded by active shooters in 2017 than in any year since the Federal Bureau of Investigation began keeping track. All told, nearly 750 people were shot in 30 incidents, according to a newly…
Data
The national murder rate increased by 29 percent last year as gun violence surged during the pandemic.
Gunshot victims are four times more likely to die before reaching a hospital than they were a decade ago, according to a new nationwide analysis from Johns Hopkins. The findings suggest that gunshot injuries may be growing more lethal.
The United States suffers from a gun violence crisis, a problem exacerbated by misinformation and a lack of understanding of the epidemic’s dimensions and scale. Knowing the facts can be a first step toward advancing solutions and preventing some of…
An analysis of more than 800 official statements.
ATF
In the week following the Las Vegas massacre on October 1, polls showed that nearly 75 percent of registered voters in gun-owning households supported a ban on bump stocks. Yet despite the public sentiment, an analysis by The…
The Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency that oversees security at American airports, confiscated 3,957 firearms from travelers’ carry-on bags in 2017, a record high, the agency reported this week. The figure represents a 17 percent increase from…
Update: The CDC’s official tally of 2017 gun deaths has been released. Excluding most suicides, at least 15,549 people were killed by guns in the United States in 2017, according to data collected by Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a…
Community Violence
A new Chicago Sun-Times investigation into the city’s deaths by gun has a stunning statistic at its heart: not only did the city’s 2016 murder count rise to its highest level in 19 years, but fatal gunshot victims…
This year, the world took notice of one gun statistic in particular: the grim designation of “deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history,” a mantle that passed to the Las Vegas massacre in October. But for all the coverage that…
Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned that “violent crime is up in many places in the country,” especially in Baltimore, where he delivered his speech. Sessions linked the surge to illegal immigration and transnational gangs, like MS-13. But…
Two days after 26 people were massacred in a Texas church, the incident — one of the worst mass shootings in American history — had nearly vanished from the major cable news networks. The sharp drop-off in the number of…
White men who have lost financial stability — or think that they soon will — find moral and emotional solace in their firearms, more so than nonwhite gun owners or those on sound economic footing, according to a new study…
Concealed Carry
One in four handgun owners — about nine million people — have carried a loaded handgun in the last 30 days, the survey also found.
A new study found that high-capacity magazines, or guns capable of using high-capacity magazines, were disproportionately recovered in connection to violent crimes in three cities where data was available.