What To Know Today

ICYMI: The NRA’s tax filings reveal that it paid improper benefits to Wayne LaPierre. It was the second straight year the gun group disclosed excess benefits paid to executives. The NRA’s latest annual 990 tax filing, which became public last week, newly reveals $44,000 in chartered flights taken by LaPierre, hair and makeup services for his wife, Susan LaPierre, and reimbursement for gifts that the couple gave to vendors and donors. The Wall Street Journal has a useful overview of the latest filings here. My colleague Will Van Sant notes that NRA President Charles Cotton warned board members last week when the 990 went public, saying: “We expect the disclosures to be reported upon without the benefit of context or perspective — all part of a coordinated effort to contrive a narrative opposed to the NRA.” He added that the NRA “operates with full transparency,” “meets all its reporting obligations,” and “is financially sound.” More from The Trace: This year’s filing confirms our reporting from this June: The NRA ended 2020 in the black by slashing costs, after posting an operating deficit for four straight years.

He couldn’t find a therapist who understood trauma like his. So he decided to become one. Fellonte Misher grew up in Washington, D.C., well aware of the trauma of gun violence. He lost friends and family members to shootings, including his father, who was killed when Misher was just 5. Football became his outlet: He was a star defensive player at Old Dominion University. But as The Washington Post reports, an experience in a D.C. classroom where Misher was assistant teaching led him to reckon more forcefully with his own trauma — as well as that of his community. After finding that few therapists had direct experience with the trauma of gun violence, Misher decided to become one — he’s now pursuing a master’s degree in social work. He also co-founded a nonprofit that recruits people from within communities facing elevated trauma to be the ones offering support for their peers. The need is particularly acute in D.C., which this year recorded 200 homicides — the highest total since 2003.

There have been nearly 650 mass shootings so far this year. That’s far and away the highest total ever recorded by the Gun Violence Archive, which started tracking shooting incidents with four or more victims in 2013. Last year’s final total of 611 was already a significant spike over 2019’s 417 mass shootings. As we reported last year, the increase in mass shootings has disproportionately occurred in Black neighborhoods.

Six members of one family were shot in Tennessee. Two brothers were killed — ages 15 and 18 — and four others were wounded when two armed men entered the family’s apartment in Nashville on Friday night. A suspect in the shooting was also killed. Police suspect robbery.

Nevada officials warn of threat posed by “sovereign citizens” to law enforcement. Members of the loose extremist movement reject federal and state legal authority, and have been known to engage in deadly conflicts with police. One former senior Las Vegas cop told The Las Vegas Review-Journal that sovereign citizens are the top threat to uniformed officers in the state. Just last month, a self-described sovereign citizen was the alleged perpetrator of the fatal shooting of a police officer in Georgia.

Data Point

10 — the number of states where attorneys general have the legal authority to launch “pattern or practice” investigations in civil rights abuses by local police agencies. Four state legislatures moved to grant their state AGs that power since the murder of George Floyd. [The Washington Post]