What to Know Today

Child gun deaths hit a five-year high in Houston — reflecting a national crisis. Fifty-three children and teenagers have died from gunshot wounds in Harris County so far this year, the Houston Chronicle reports. Deaths of children in the county because of gun violence have been steadily increasing since at least 2018, and Black and Hispanic young people are disproportionately impacted — they make up 88 percent, or all but five, of the homicide gun deaths among children in the Houston area this year. Firearm injuries have been the leading cause of death for American children and teenagers since 2017.

New York AG cracks down on online ammo sellers. Letitia James’s office announced Monday that the attorney general had sent cease-and-desist orders to 39 online sellers that were illegally shipping ammunition to New Yorkers and failing to keep sales records. New York’s SAFE Act requires ammo purchases be conducted in person. James has previously gone after companies that sell ghost gun kits, and the AG is currently suing the NRA.

Across the country, communities grappling with gun violence are training kids to treat gunshot wounds. A pastor in Ohio organizes first-aid training for children as young as 3, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Fire Department in Durham, North Carolina, has helped run “Stop the Bleed” classes. A group in Chicago teaches young people how to stanch bleeding until help arrives with any materials they may have on them, including credit cards and socks. “I can’t take guns away from people,” the Ohio pastor said. “I’d rather train the next generation to be healers.”

American Medical Association to form gun violence task force. The AMA’s House of Delegates directed the association to create the task force at its 2022 interim meeting. “We cannot continue to live this way,” AMA president Dr. Jack Resneck Jr. said. “In movie theaters, houses of worship, hospitals, big cities and small towns, firearm violence has shattered any sense of security and taken lives.” The task force will focus on prevention of gun deaths, including suicides. Delegates also directed the AMA to support grants for violence prevention efforts in schools and hospitals, and to participate in legal action around firearm safety. Follow the money: In the 2016 election cycle, even medical associations that proclaimed an interest in reducing gun deaths were more likely to support pro-gun politicians, including the PAC for the AMA, Alex Yablon wrote for The Trace. 

Pennsylvania House committee approves impeachment effort against Larry Krasner. The chamber’s Judiciary Committee voted 14-8 on Tuesday, along party lines, to move articles of impeachment to the full Republican-controlled House. The articles are scheduled for consideration today, according to a caucus spokesperson, and impeachment would require a simple majority. It’s unclear whether the GOP will maintain control of the state House after the current session ends. Republicans in the Pennsylvania Legislature have tried to tie the reform-minded Philadelphia district attorney’s policies to the city’s gun violence crisis. Charging cops with murder: Krasner and his supporters believe that the impeachment effort was fueled in part by his prosecutions of police, The Trace’s Mensah M. Dean writes.

Data Point

1,466 — the number of American children and teenagers shot and killed in 2022. [Gun Violence Archive]

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