Good morning, Bulletin readers. Less than a week after The Trace revealed disparities in survival rates for New York City gunshot victims, our reporting is getting results: Candidates for Queens borough president pledged to address “trauma deserts” that leave some people injured by bullets miles from life-saving treatment.
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WHAT TO KNOW TODAY
More than 2,600 Floridians have been disarmed under the state’s red flag law. The gun owners who have been ordered to temporarily surrender their weapons in the 18 months since the law was created include police officers, military veterans, children, people with mental disturbances, and disgruntled employees, according to an investigation from the Tampa Bay Times. At least half didn’t contest the gun seizures. Implementation across the state varied widely: Polk County, whose sheriff is a vocal Second Amendment supporter, has issued the most orders, while 12 Florida counties have issued none.
Fearful of shootings, public schools are monitoring millions of student emails, chat logs, and documents. The Guardian’s Lois Beckett revealed that schools across the country are enlisting tech companies to sift through students’ information and send out automated alerts to administrators within minutes of certain phrases being detected. Critics question the privacy implications, and note that both human and computer analysis is prone to error — and could unnecessarily expose students to law enforcement.
Gun violence is listed as a top concern for American women, poll finds. That’s according to a National Geographic/Ipsos survey, which found that 86 percent of women over 18 cited the topic as a big or moderate problem. The issue ranked fourth after health care costs, health care access, and general violent crime.
NEW from THE TRACE: Queens must improve access to trauma care, say candidates. The pledges from the six contenders for Queens borough president came after reporting last week by The Trace — in partnership with THE CITY and Measure For America — that Queens faces higher gunshot mortality rates than the rest of the city while also enduring a shortage of trauma centers. “That a shooting victim might have to travel more than three miles to a hospital, when every single second matters, is unconscionable,” Councilmember Costa Constantinides, one of the candidates, told THE CITY’s Christine Chung and The Trace’s Champe Barton. Read our follow-up here.
Anti-extremism activists have been blocking efforts to revive 8chan. HuffPost reports that the owner of the now-defunct message board, where three recent mass shooters posted screeds prior to their rampages, has been stymied in his attempts to relaunch the service by activists who’ve been convincing internet service providers to steer clear of the platform.
A concealed carry group was fined for marketing self-defense-shooting insurance. Washington State’s insurance commissioner ordered the Wisconsin-based United States Concealed Carry Association to pay $100,000 for violating the state’s law against insuring criminal activity. The group was also barred from selling insurance in the state. A similar fate befell the National Rifle Association’s Carry Guard insurance, which was yanked from the market in July after scrutiny from state regulators and numerous lawsuits.
In a reversal, armed teachers in Florida will be covered under the state’s liability insurance. The Florida Department of Education made the unannounced policy change in August. It applies only to full-time teachers. The lack of insurance coverage has been cited by critics of the Armed Guardian program, which was created after Parkland.
A Washington State judge ruled that a town can’t enforce its gun storage requirement. In a partial victory for the gun lobby, the judge ruled that Edmonds’s safe storage law violates the state’s pre-emption statute. But the judge also found that the NRA-backed plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the part of the law that exacts civil penalties if a child or a prohibited possessor gains access to someone’s legally owned firearm. Washington is one of 45 states that bar local governments from passing gun ordinances stricter than those passed by their state legislatures.
A youth football coach in Louisville has lost four players to gun violence in the last three years. The most recent victim, Christopher Fields, 15, was killed Saturday. “How can this keep happening to these kids who are just young men, not even getting their lives started?” asked Lamont Griffin, coach of the Germantown Thoroughbreds.
A Pokémon Go player was killed after stumbling onto a robbery. Cayla Campos, 21, was playing the game in an Albuquerque park last weekend when a pair of thieves opened fire on her car. People have been fatally shot while playing the mobile game at least two previous times: In 2017, a Virginia man was killed by a private security guard; and in 2016, a San Francisco man was killed by an assailant who remains at large.
DATA POINT
In the year since the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, at least 12 white supremacists have been arrested for threatening Jewish houses of worship, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League. [ABC News]
