The role of the gun industry in America’s gun violence epidemic.
Do you have questions about guns or gun violence in America? This is Ask The Trace, a question series driven by readers.
The National Rifle Association is one of the most powerful special interest groups in America. We’re investigating how it spends its money.
A newsletter spotlighting the people, policies, and programs grappling with the gun violence crisis.
Our team, our mission, our partners, and more. Plus: How to contact us.
We report stories that would go untold. Generous readers sustain our work.
Sign up now to get our latest stories and eye-opening briefings.
The Business of Guns
Update, August 28: All content has been removed from IvanTheTroll’s Tumblr account. Tumblr has not responded to a request for comment. Banned by the major social media platforms, the 3D-printed gun community migrated this summer to less-trafficked corners…
Dozens of online retailers sell de facto silencers, making it easy for gun owners to avoid federal screening and registration.
Mass Shooting
Google Shopping has a policy against posting gun accessories. But we identified multiple listings for high-capacity magazines.
The Russian-developed 8M3 rifle round is known for its ability to expand and fragment on impact, creating catastrophic wounds.
Ghost Guns
Bans on sharing 3D gun blueprints have proven porous, but the community that makes them is migrating to platforms more amenable to the cause.
In 2017, Honor Defense was called out by the gun community for making weapons that can fire when dropped. Now a police officer is suing the company after he was shot by his.
Three Democratic senators sent a letter to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Department of Commerce urging them to adopt new regulations requiring toy and replica guns to look markedly different from their real-life counterparts. The inquiry follows…
The new products can reliably fire 40 or more rounds before requiring reloading. They’re ending up in the hands of mass shooters.
Three weeks after The Trace reported that Twitter users were freely distributing design files for 3D-printed guns, the social media platform rolled out a new policy prohibiting the practice. The rule change is part of a wide-ranging update…
The platforms say they don’t allow users to post blueprints or how-tos for building ghost guns. But the files continue to circulate.
Community Violence
Feds say nearly a third of firearms recovered in the state are homemade, unserialized, and untraceable.
Gun Policy
The proposal comes after an investigation by The Trace and The New Yorker found that thieves are exploiting lax security and stealing thousands of weapons that end up on the black market.
Some replica firearms are virtually indistinguishable from deadly weapons, adding peril to encounters with police. Can you tell the difference?
Manufacturers cut lucrative licensing deals that allow toy companies to make replicas of their products. Since 2015, police have killed more than 150 people who were holding look-alike weapons.
RW Arms, a Texas-based gun accessory company, is suing the government for $20 million in compensation after surrendering its inventory of bump stocks for destruction in compliance with federal regulations. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. Court of Federal Claims…