What to Know Today
NEW from THE TRACE: In a survey, nearly one-third of Gen Zers say they have experienced gun violence personally. The advocacy group Project Unloaded today released a report on how gun violence has impacted Gen Z, public health reporter Fairriona Magee writes in her first story for The Trace. More than half of respondents reported thinking about mass shootings at least once a week. The survey also found that younger people of color particularly have more experience with gun violence: Sixty percent of Black and Latino respondents reported having some personal experience, compared with 30 percent of all respondents. And more than 70 percent of Black respondents said that gun violence is an issue where they live. Read Magee’s full story here.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney bans guns at city recreation centers. The ban, delivered via executive order Tuesday, is likely to be challenged in court because of Pennsylvania’s preemption law, which prevents local governments from enacting gun laws stricter than the state’s. In 2020, Philadelphia sued the state over the preemption rule; a Pennsylvania appeals court rejected the challenge earlier this year, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Hours later, a 14-year-old was fatally shot near a high school in the city’s Roxborough neighborhood. Four other people were wounded when at least two shooters ambushed a group of students leaving a football scrimmage, police told WHYY.
Gunman in 1997 Paducah school shooting will serve full sentence. Michael Carneal was 14 years old when he was given a life sentence for killing three classmates and injuring five others at Heath High School, and, under Kentucky state law, was eligible for parole after serving 25 years. On Monday, LEX 18 reported, the state Parole Board decided Carneal would finish the remainder of his sentence in prison, where his public defender says he is under treatment for paranoid schizophrenia. Carneal told the two-person parole panel that he has long heard voices that encourage him to harm himself or others, including during the shooting. Survivors and victims’ family members named concerns about his mental health when they argued against his release.
Trial begins for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. Jury selection began Tuesday for the case against Rhodes, who along with several other members of the militant group faces charges of seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to the January 6 insurrection. Last week, The Las Vegas Review-Journal published an article detailing the Oath Keepers’ beginnings in Nevada as well as the group’s apparent decline, as membership dwindles and some members say Rhodes seems more concerned about dues payments than political aims. The Oath Keepers have not been accused of bringing firearms to the Capitol on January 6, but the Justice Department, in its indictment, alleges that Rhodes purchased tens of thousands dollars’ worth of guns and equipment in the days prior to and following the insurrection, and that teams of Oath Keepers outside D.C. were prepared to quickly transport an arsenal of guns and other weapons into the city in the event of a government takeover.
The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes special issue on gun violence. On Tuesday, JAMA, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Medical Association, dedicated an issue to the health implications of firearm violence. Gun violence in the U.S. “is an unrelenting clinical, public health, societal, and political concern of major proportion,” the publication’s editor in chief and executive editor wrote in an introductory editorial. Other articles in the issue focus on the need for more comprehensive data on firearm injuries, approaches to preventing suicides by firearm, how Black communities bear the brunt of the gun violence epidemic, and the implications of the Bruen decision for public health.
Data Point
$557 billion — the estimated annual cost of firearm injuries to the U.S. The amount is equal to 2.6 percent of the GDP. [Journal of the American Medical Association]
