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WHAT TO KNOW TODAY
In New York City, cars have killed nearly twice as many people as guns this year. New city data shows the continuance of a trend in which vehicle crashes claim more lives than shootings in the five boroughs. The only year since 2012 in which New York has recorded more firearm deaths than traffic fatalities was 2015. Police believe the city will finish 2019 with its lowest murder total since 1950, with deaths from firearms projected to decline 25 percent from 2018.
A man toting a rifle and tossing explosives was shot by law enforcement at a Washington State immigration center. Police say the man lit a car on fire and was attempting to ignite a propane tank and set buildings on fire in an ICE complex in Tacoma when officers shot and killed him on Saturday morning. The city’s Police Department has not released further details, including a potential motive.
Pennsylvania to join new system to help better track crime weapons. The new effort launched by the state’s attorney general will require police to submit guns and casings to a national ballistics database called NIBIN. The decision comes amid an uptick in gun violence in Philadelphia. Researchers have found that requiring police to submit guns and casings to a federal database can dramatically help solving gun crimes and identify the origin of illegal weapons. CONTEXT: The Trace’s Ann Givens reported in September that only a quarter of all ballistics collected nationwide are entered into the system, and only two states — New Jersey and Delaware — require it.
Two Indiana brothers were charged with trying to sell guns to ISIS. A federal grand jury indicted Moyad Dannon, 21, and Mahde Dannon, 20, for attempting to ship troves of weapons overseas to be used by the group fighting in Syria.
A 3-year old who had just celebrated her birthday was killed in a Milwaukee road rage shooting. “This cannot be the norm. Our city is better than this,” said Assistant Police Chief Raymond Banks. The shooting was the fourth fatal shooting of a small child in Southeastern Wisconsin in recent weeks.
A pregnant Virginia woman was shot five miles from where special sessions on guns ended. “My heart just dropped once again,” said Richmond Mayor Lavar Stoney about his reaction when he heard the news from his police chief that a Richmond woman had been hit by a stray bullet as she walked in her apartment courtyard. The incident came two hours after the GOP-controlled General Assembly voted to adjourn a special session on guns called by Governor Ralph Northam that ended after just 90 minutes.
ONE LAST THING
St. Louis paramedics are quitting over gun violence burnout. Of the city’s 55 positions, 20 are currently unfilled. “Quite a few of those calls are going to be very, very traumatic,” said Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson, offering a reason for the high rate of attrition in America’s murder capital. “A lot of bloodshed. And when you get into the bloodshed that involves children, it gets to you.”