Top Story
The Supreme Court will today hear oral arguments in U.S. v. Rahimi, a pivotal gun case that will determine the constitutionality of a decades-old federal policy intended to protect victims of domestic violence. The outcome of the case, which is widely viewed as a test of the limits of the 2022 Bruen decision, could have broad implications for measures ranging from bans on people with felony convictions to extreme risk protection order laws. [WPLN and ProPublica]
Red Flag Laws
In 2003, Shelley Joseph-Kordell was shot and killed on the 17th floor of the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis. The perpetrator was her distant cousin, who had stalked, harassed, and threatened Joseph-Kordell for over a year — and though her conduct was apparently well-documented, the shooter was able to purchase a revolver in an unregulated private sale at a gun show.
For two decades after Joseph-Kordell’s killing, Minnesota offered no way for law enforcement or family members to seek an emergency order to stop dangerous people from possessing a gun. That changed earlier this year, when the state Legislature approved a bill to implement an Extreme Risk Protection Order law, set to take effect in January. But whether the law is effective in preventing deaths like Joseph-Kordell’s will depend on how it is implemented and enforced. The Trace’s Chip Brownlee has the story, published in partnership with MinnPost.
What to Know Today
The father of the man accused of killing seven people at a Fourth of July parade last year in Highland Park, Illinois, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of reckless conduct for helping his son obtain a gun ownership permit when he was too young. Just before he was set to stand trial for the charges, a judge accepted the father’s plea deal, which requires him to serve 60 days in jail as well as give up his gun ownership card and surrender any weapons. [Chicago Sun-Times/The New York Times]
The Justice Department recently released two key reports on crime — and while both indicate that violent crime against young people rose last year, other trends in violent crime aren’t as clear-cut. As the 2024 election season looms, so too does the potential that candidates could cherry-pick statistics to score political points. [The Marshall Project]
Attendees browsing the expo floor at last month’s International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in San Diego got a glimpse of the future of policing technology: Alongside major players like SoundThinking (formerly called ShotSpotter), vendors hawked goods like virtual reality simulations for school shootings, tracking devices disguised as cigarettes, and license plate-recognition cameras with gunshot detection capabilities. [The Markup]
Experts say that Maine’s “yellow flag” law, a more relaxed version of popular “red flag” policies, was designed specifically for people like the Lewiston mass shooter, who exhibited clear signs of his potential for violence long before he killed 18 people in a gun rampage last month. But authorities didn’t try to use the law before the massacre — and it wasn’t the first time the law failed to prevent a shooting. [CNN/NBC]
A lawyer for the gun industry asked the 2nd Circuit to strike down New York’s “reasonable controls” law, a 2021 measure requiring firearms companies to more carefully monitor their distribution and marketing practices. The law, which makes it easier to hold gunmakers liable for crimes committed with their products and has since been reproduced in states across the country, was upheld in federal court last year. [Gothamist/Reuters]
Kimberly Mata-Rubio, a gun safety advocate whose daughter was killed in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School last year, is running for mayor of Uvalde, Texas, in hopes of helping her community move forward from the tragedy. But residents voting in today’s special election have different ideas about how to heal, and some see Mata-Rubio’s campaign as a painful reminder of a trauma they’re still recovering from. [NPR]
Data Point
5 times — the increased risk that a woman is killed in a domestic violence incident when an abuser has access to a gun. [WPLN and ProPublica]
Correction: The Trace story featured in today’s Bulletin was updated to correct the spelling of Shelley Joseph-Kordell’s name. We apologize for the error.
