In just a few hours, Donald Trump will officially enter his second term as president. It’s a big day — but, as important as the inauguration is, each year we also recognize the third Monday of January for a far different reason: the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On this day, we remember and attend to his legacy, and I’d like to look at it through the lens of gun issues in particular.
King was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. His death was one in a spate of political assassinations in the 1960s, all carried out by gun, including that of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and Fred Hampton, the leader of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers.
The assassinations sparked the Gun Control Act of 1968, which imposed stricter licensing and regulation on the gun industry, and prohibited the sale of firearms and ammunition to prohibited persons, including people with felony convictions. The debate over the landmark bill inspired a jolting ad campaign in support of it, a strategy today’s gun violence prevention advocates are pursuing again. The act has since been modified, but aspects of it remain enshrined in federal law.
King himself had a complicated relationship with guns. He was a firearm owner; after his house was firebombed in 1956, he applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama. He was denied, and afterward got rid of his gun.
In the immediate aftermath of King’s death, white people rushed to arm themselves. Less than 48 hours after the legendary leader was murdered, leading members of the National Rifle Association warned against the Gun Control Act at the group’s annual conference. Their collective fear helped push the bill through Congress. As The Trace has covered, some of America’s gun laws were passed with the intention of disarming Black and brown people, a history that has informed what guns represent to many marginalized people today. The narratives are messy, and the gun industry has used all of them to sell their wares and further their agenda.
Of his decision to deny guns, King said: “I was much more afraid in Montgomery when I had a gun in my house. When I decided that I couldn’t keep a gun, I came face-to-face with the question of death and I dealt with it. From that point on, I no longer needed a gun nor have I been afraid.”
From The Trace
The Secret Plan to Strike Down U.S. Gun Laws: How did an undercover cop-turned-evangelical pastor become the middleman for a dark-money scheme to take down the country’s firearm regulations?
Why Gun Violence Dropped in Philadelphia Last Year — And What Happens Next: City officials credit multiple factors for the historic declines in shootings, homicides, and other firearm-related crimes.
Joe Biden’s Evolution on Guns: (From 2020) Early in his career, Biden said gun regulation was ineffective. Several decades — and one notorious crime bill — later, he’s pushing the most expansive reform platform in history.
What to Know Today
In the Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods of Los Angeles, where fires have decimated thousands of structures, armed residents are defying orders to evacuate from what’s left of their homes. Some say they want to “defend” their property, but officials counter that residents who try to stay behind are putting themselves in danger while public safety officers look for the remains of those who didn’t make it out. [The Wall Street Journal]
On Thursday, more than a dozen Democratic state attorneys general asked to join a legal fight to preserve two Biden-era gun safety policies: one that expanded background checks for gun sales, and another that restricts conversion devices known as “forced reset triggers.” [The New York Times]
The Oklahoma Military Department is asking for millions to fund a state “militia,” an idea suggested by Governor Kevin Stitt, according to Major General Thomas H. Mancino, the commander of the Oklahoma Army and Air National Guard. Mancino said the militia would be a “state guard function,” or one that can’t be called to service by the federal government. The move echoes Governor Ron DeSantis’s reactivation of the Florida State Guard, whose mission included “protect[ing] its people and borders from illegal aliens and civil unrest.” [Oklahoma Voice]
The Baltimore Police Department is finally under the city’s control, after operating as a state agency for 160 years. Now that the battle for local control is over, elected officials face another challenge: transforming the force from one that some community members view as a source of harm into one with greater oversight and accountability. [Baltimore Beat]
It’s been almost a year and a half since the gun massacre in Lewiston, Maine, and survivors and families who lost loved ones are going through a familiar struggle. After an initial outpouring of community support, some are struggling financially, because of ongoing medical and counseling bills, and loss of income related to the shooting. One survivor, who was permanently disabled by his gunshot wounds, put it plainly: “We’ve been forgotten.” [News Center Maine]
Forensic firearms analysis, in which gun experts link crime scene bullets to a specific weapon, has been criticized as junk science and ruled too unreliable to be used as evidence by multiple courts. But following a bizarre series of events, a Chicago judge invalidated a landmark opinion by his predecessor that barred prosecutors from putting such analysts on the stand. [The Watch]
Last week, the U.S. State Department designated the Terrorgram Collective, a largely online white supremacist group that’s been linked to transnational attacks and threats, including a shooting at an LGBTQ+ bar in Slovakia and a plot targeting New Jersey energy facilities, and as global terrorists. Three of its leaders also fell under the designation. The move could have a significant effect on the prosecutions of Americans linked to transnational terror groups, and adds to the debate about the pervasiveness of global white supremacist threats. [Lawfare]
Data Point
6,678 — the number of firearms the Transportation Security Administration intercepted at airport security checkpoints in 2024. Almost all were loaded. In 2023, TSA stopped 6,737 guns; the minor decrease represents the first year-over-year drop since at least 2015, with the exception of 2020, when the pandemic stalled air travel. [Transportation Security Administration]
Non Sequitur
See 6 Planets Align on January 21
“While conjunctions of two planets are somewhat common, alignments of five or more are quite rare.” [Wired]