Six years ago, lawmakers in Florida — then, as now, a state controlled by a Republican trifecta — united to pass the country’s sixth red flag law, giving judges the authority to order that guns be removed from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. It was a response to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, in which 14 students and three educators were killed. Seven states followed Florida’s lead that year, and another four in 2019. Then-President Donald Trump expressed his support. Even the National Rifle Association got on board.

That’s not the case today. Red flag laws, more formally known as extreme risk protection order laws, are widely seen as a Democratic policy. Gun rights absolutists and their lawmaker allies have increasingly attacked the statutes with false claims about rampant misuse. As resistance built, the NRA, still the most prominent gun rights organization in the country, reversed its position.

But long before the NRA joined the extremist chorus demonizing red flag laws, the gun rights group suffered a loss within its ranks — one that could have been prevented with an extreme risk protection order. In 2008, NRA staffer Dawn Williams-Stewart was shot and killed by her husband, a legal gun owner who had exhibited signs that he could be a threat to his wife’s life. In the years after Dawn’s death, the NRA never made a public comment about her or its connection to her.

Senior staff writer Mike Spies’s latest investigation, published in partnership with Rolling Stone, chronicles the final period of Dawn’s life. It’s the first time this account is being told, but it will ring familiar to many who have lost loved ones to intimate partner homicide — because what happened to Dawn is not unusual in America. Her story is, in many ways, an anatomy of a death foretold. It shows what can happen when, despite overt signals of impending danger, a person is left with no good options.

From The Trace

What to Know This Week

The 2023 mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville sparked an unprecedented outcry of support for gun safety laws in Tennessee. Reverberations from the attack, and its chaotic aftermath in the Legislature, persist in the state — where a majority of voters now say they support reforms like red flag laws and strengthened background checks — and they could influence state and federal elections in November. [Nashville Banner] 

Two California men filed a federal lawsuit against the National Rifle Association earlier this month, alleging that the group offers “only women deeply discounted memberships, while denying the same discounts to men,” in violation of state civil rights laws. The suit notes that women can purchase a one-year membership for $35 and a life membership for $1,000, whereas men and nonbinary persons must pay $45 and $1,500, respectively. Moreover, the suit claims that new female members are given an “NRA sherpa fleece jacket,” an item not bestowed on new male and nonbinary members. The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status for male and nonbinary NRA members in California who purchased memberships offered at a discounted rate to women. — Will Van Sant, staff writer 

The campus that will replace Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, has been named to honor the 19 children and two teachers who were killed in a mass shooting there two years ago. Legacy Elementary School is scheduled to open its doors next fall. Also in Uvalde this week, city officials released another set of videos of the police response to the massacre, largely affirming prior reporting on law enforcement’s failures to confront the gunman. [San Antonio Express-News/The Texas Tribune]

Just a few months after a shooter wielding an AR-15 rifle attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, Rod of Iron Ministries is raffling off a Trump-branded AR-15 at its fifth annual “Freedom Festival,” billed as the “largest open carry rally in America.” Rod of Iron Ministries — whose members are far from typical gun owners — is a breakaway of an ultraconservative Christian sect whose leader, Sean Moon, views the AR-15 as a divine instrument. Headliners at this year’s Freedom Festival include familiar names from the Trump administration. [Mother Jones] 

The fight over Massachusetts’s new gun reform law — which cracks down on ghost guns, broadens the state’s assault weapons ban, and expands its red flag law, among other things — is getting heated. Gun rights advocates are furious about Governor Maura Healey’s recent move to enact the law early via executive action, and firearm groups including the National Rifle Association have vowed to attack the law in court. [WBUR]

In Memoriam

Tyler Taffe, 12, was always smiling — and because he had “the most contagious smile that any young man can have,” per his middle school principal, that meant he lit up just about every room he entered. Tyler was shot and killed at a home in Edmond, Oklahoma, last month, in what officials called a “gun accident.” In the wake of his death, his school district created a program to give out free gun locks to families. A member of the football team, Tyler was a hard worker and uniquely resilient for someone his age: “Even when he was being disciplined on some things, he would just always smile and [then] always say, ‘I’ll do better tomorrow,’” his coach said. Students at his school plan to hold up his jersey before every game this season. “Tyler was a student who worked hard to be great,” his principal wrote on social media. “Tyler was loved by many. … Tyler was a typical kid who enjoyed life.”

We Recommend

Run, Hide, Fight: Growing Up Under the Gun: Stories produced by 14 student journalists from across the country illustrate how gun violence, in its various forms, has radically altered what it’s like to grow up in America. [PBS]

Pull Quote

“Even with all the great programs working to end the violence in our city, it is still easier for our young adults to get a gun than it is for them to get the resources to prevent them from picking it up.”

— Sunny Jackson, a nurse and injury prevention coordinator at Penn Medicine Trauma Center, on why a group of health care workers formed the new Pennsylvania Health Professionals to End Gun Violence, to The Trace

Sunny Sone
Sunny is in charge of our newsletters, leading the growth of existing products and dreaming up new ones. They previously worked as a copy editor at The Intercept and as digital editor for the Texas Observer, and co-published a web-only magazine under the Brick House media cooperative. Sunny has covered topics ranging from the Texas funeral industry to the life of visionary composer Pauline Oliveros. They hold a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.