Top Story
Like thousands of other Afghans, Nasrat Ahmad Yar came to America after the 2021 Taliban takeover, fleeing his country after spending a decade working as an interpreter for the U.S. military. He envisioned a new life where he and his family could live safely — but instead, earlier this month, Ahmad Yar was found shot to death in his car in Washington, D.C. [Al Jazeera]
From Our Team
“Let’s think about the future,” Javon Lomax told a group of teenagers sitting in a nondescript second-floor office in New York City’s Brownsville neighborhood one night in April. Lomax was facilitating a healing circle — a space to share the highs and lows of the week, blow off steam, and think about how to respond to conflict — for young men with histories of involvement in domestic violence or community violence, either as a witness, a victim, a perpetrator, or, sometimes, all three.
The circle is part of Heal the Ville, a pilot program that believes it may have a solution to two of the most common forms of gun violence. The program, among the first of its kind, operates with the central belief that domestic violence and community violence are closely intertwined — and that by approaching them as a combined problem, the two forms of violence can be interrupted together. The Trace’s Chip Brownlee has the story, reported in partnership with WNYC’s Samantha Max. Read more →
Gun deaths fell by about 1.5 percent in 2022, according to provisional data from the CDC, but they still haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. Firearm homicides led the decrease, with a 6.5 percent drop from 2021; gun suicides, however, were up 2.5 percent over the prior year. The Trace’s Jennifer Mascia has the breakdown of the statistics. Read more →
What to Know Today
San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said his deputies arrived at the scene of the April mass shooting in Cleveland, Texas, in 11 minutes. But a new investigation reveals that they took much longer to get there — and that under Capers, the Sheriff’s Office has been dogged by complaints of corruption and dysfunction for years. [Associated Press]
A small community hospital in South Baltimore treated 19 people with gunshot wounds, most of them teenagers, after a mass shooting at an annual block party over the July 4 holiday weekend. All of the patients lived. [The Baltimore Banner]
Dozens of gun violence survivors, law enforcement officers, policymakers, faith leaders, businesspeople, and union members signed on to a letter calling on Congress to pass a national ban on all military-style assault weapons and ammunition magazines greater than five rounds. “Our nation’s citizens should be provided the same respect and consideration our hunting laws currently provide to protect populations of game animals,” read the letter. [The Boston Globe]
After the attack at Michigan’s Oxford High School in 2021, the school district brought in James Henry, a well-respected trauma and child welfare expert, to help students and their families recover from the shooting. There was just one problem: He had recently been sanctioned for practicing social work without a license. [Detroit Free Press]
New Mexico has one of the highest rates of gun violence and suicide in the country. It’s also had a red flag law since 2020 — so why aren’t people using it? [CNN]
Conservative politicians and pundits were quick to falsely claim that the man suspected of carrying out one of the deadliest shootings in Philadelphia’s history is transgender. But records show that the alleged shooter was a fan of far-right media personality Tucker Carlson and former President Donald Trump, and made numerous social media posts about gun rights. [VICE/The Philadelphia Inquirer]
Data Point
34 — the total number of red flag petitions filed in New Mexico since the state enacted the law in 2020. Nearly half of those were filed during the first five months of 2023. [CNN]
