The programs, policies, and people driving positive change in America’s gun violence problem.
Looking back at the stories we told, and which stuck with us, during an eventful year.
The role of the gun industry in America’s gun violence epidemic.
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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Bang for the Buck
New financial documents detail the severe erosion of the gun group's membership.
National Rifle Association
Federal data shows that the number of larger donations fell 45 percent from the 2018 midterms.
The group's most recent disclosures suggest weakening membership and costly legal battles.
Gun Policy
Since the 1990s, John Lott has provided the empirical justification for looser firearms laws. Do his claims stand up to scrutiny?
A quarter of the briefs filed in support of the NRA came from organizations and individuals who have been paid by the gun group. Only one disclosed the connection.
The gun group collected $97 million in dues in 2021, according to an annual financial report. That’s a 43 percent drop from 2018 and the lowest figure since 2006.
The annual gathering featured conspiracy theories, acres of military-style wares, and an insistence that guns are not the real reason for America’s recent carnage.
Alan Gottlieb, the leader of two smaller gun groups, is assisting an NRA board member’s quest to replace the CEO at this weekend’s annual meeting.
A year before gun rights groups sued to stop California from collecting information on firearms ownership, the NRA’s chief researcher acknowledged that its advocacy prevents accurate studies.
Attorney General Letitia James’s lawsuit against the gun group's top executives will move forward, with the judge noting that it tells "a grim story of greed, self-dealing, and lax financial oversight.”
The NRA CEO's wife threw star-studded fundraising events for Youth for Tomorrow, a Christian charity whose board she led. Invoices obtained by The Trace show the gun group paid tens of thousands of dollars in production fees, an arrangement that an expert described as "theft."
Letitia James has demanded documents and testimony related to The Trace's 2021 investigation into the LaPierres' travel and the NRA's employment of their niece.
The NRA chief's misleading statements about his yacht trip after Sandy Hook and his niece’s employment could strengthen the New York attorney general’s attempt to dissolve the gun group.
Hacked documents provide a rare glimpse into the gun group's efforts to seek influence at the Supreme Court, which is now hearing a major public carry case.
Ricochet
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.