What to Know Today

A morphology of gun violence in New Haven, Connecticut. Newhallville, a Black neighborhood adjacent to Yale University, used to be a place where nobody locked their doors, Nicholas Dawidoff writes in The Atlantic. For decades, the main economic driver of the community was the Winchester Arms factory — but then jobs started drying up, and the company moved much of its work out of the city. The closure contributed to New Haven’s decline, and in the ’80s it was the country’s seventh-poorest city. Violence spiked and Newhallville residents started locking their doors. Some recalled sleeping on the floor to avoid bullets. “One of the most troubling social ironies I can fathom,” Dawidoff writes, “is the demise of a gun factory leading to an epidemic of neighborhood gun violence.”

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ShotSpotter didn’t activate during a mass shooting over the weekend. Five people were shot in Durham, North Carolina, on Sunday in an area where the gunshot-detection technology was installed, but it didn’t notify police of the shooting. A city official told WRAL the technology may not have activated because it is not designed to detect drive-by shootings. ShotSpotter has faced mounting scrutiny in recent years, as evidence suggests the technology is ineffective and activists say it leads to deadly over-policing.

New York AG, gun owners, and firearms dealers ask Supreme Court to intervene on restrictions. The state’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act, passed just after Bruen, has been the subject of a dramatic legal back-and-forth since it was enacted in July. Now, the Supreme Court may soon weigh in: Late last month, a group of gun owners asked the court to reverse a decision that allowed the law to remain in effect while challenges play out. A group of firearms dealers joined them on Tuesday, requesting an administrative stay that would block parts of the law. Also on Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James on Tuesday petitioned the high court to allow the restrictions to remain in place while legal challenges play out. 

Shooter pleads guilty for Brooklyn subway attack, waives trial. The gunman, who shot 10 people on a rush hour train last April, pleaded guilty to 10 terrorism charges and one firearm charge. According to Gothamist, prosecutors recommended a sentence of 32 to 37 years on the condition that he took responsibility for the shooting. What Eric Adams hasn’t learned: After the subway attack and a troubling surge in shootings, the New York mayor faced pressure to reduce gun violence. But as The Trace’s Chip Brownlee reported in June, advocates worry his crime reduction strategy ignores the lessons of the past.

The biggest roadblock to addressing domestic terrorism might be semantics. Terrorism analysts told The Washington Post that government action has been stymied by GOP attempts to downplay the threat of violent right-wing extremism through bad-faith arguments about language. As Republicans take control of the House in the new session, the analysts expect the discourse to intensify and focus on “radical leftists” — belying data showing that other categories of violent extremists are much more active and lethal.

Data Point

634 — the number of shootings in New Haven between 2015 and November 2021. Fewer than 100 have been solved. [The Atlantic]