Top Story
Safe storage laws, which require adults to secure firearms to prevent children from accessing them, are gaining traction. The guilty verdict of Jennifer Crumbley, who was charged with four counts of manslaughter in connection with a 2021 school shooting in Michigan carried out by her child, underscores why: Part of the case focused on the Crumbley parents purchasing the firearm their son used in the attack and leaving it unsecured in their home. Last year, the state passed a safe storage law; it takes effect tomorrow. [The 19th]
Bang for the Buck
In 2021, as the National Rifle Association pursued a doomed bankruptcy bid, the IRS claimed that the gun group owed an estimated $3.4 million in taxes and penalties. The figure suggested that the agency was applying additional scrutiny to the NRA, which it regulates by virtue of the group’s nonprofit status. After that revelation, however, the trail on IRS interest in the NRA went cold — until last month, when, midway through week two of the group’s ongoing civil corruption trial, the organization’s chief financial officer testified that she had received “an inquiry from the IRS” about its annual tax filing “just recently … right before the holidays.”
A previously unreported document provides more clues. The same year that the IRS claimed the gun group owed millions, a grand jury sent a subpoena to Craig Spray, the NRA’s CFO at the time — suggesting a federal probe was then underway. The Trace’s Will Van Sant has the story.
What to Know Today
ICYMI: The Trace put together a 12-question quiz to help you test your knowledge of U.S. gun laws. After you’ve taken the quiz, let us know how you fared: Were you surprised by any of the answers? Did you get more right than you anticipated, or more wrong? Just reply to this newsletter with your thoughts, and we might feature your answer in an edition of The Bulletin.
The Hawaii Supreme Court unanimously decided that a man can be prosecuted for carrying a gun in public without a permit, in an apparent rebuke of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision. The ruling cited a quote from the television series “The Wire” conveying that the country’s “old days” shouldn’t dictate contemporary life. [Associated Press]
Houston Police are investigating a Sunday shooting at celebrity pastor Joel Osteen’s church. Officials say a woman accompanied by a young child entered Osteen’s megachurch armed with a long gun and began firing; two people were injured, including the child. [CNN]
Researchers with the University of Pennsylvania’s Crime and Justice Policy Lab found it was “highly likely” that Baltimore’s flagship gun violence reduction strategy drove down shootings in the city’s Western District, which has historically experienced high levels of violence, without increasing arrests. The team’s preliminary findings show that the “group violence reduction strategy,” launched in 2022, was responsible for a nearly 25 percent drop in shootings in the district. [The Baltimore Banner]
For more than a year, the FBI has been searching for the person who experts say is the most prolific perpetrator of “swatting” — a term for falsely reporting an emergency to elicit a violent police response — in American history. Amid a dramatic rise in these incidents, law enforcement believes they finally arrested the person responsible: a 17-year-old from California. [WIRED]
Data Point
76 percent — the proportion of school shooters who acquired their firearms from the home of a parent or close relative. [Department of Homeland Security via The 19th]
