What To Know Today
A photo essay documents the scars gun violence leaves on its surviving victims. Since 2015, about 75 percent of the almost 11,000 people shot in Philadelphia have survived their injuries. In the third part of a series looking at the challenges of surviving after a shooting, The Philadelphia Inquirer focuses on the emotional and physical scar tissue of 39-year-old Bruce Nash. In 2017, Nash was shot eight times, and he’s still working through his recovery process. The father of three has rededicated his life to fostering a community among gunshot survivors, hoping that getting people to talk about alleviating trauma and can prevent further violence. “I had to reinvent myself to survive the survival,” he said. “Now that I got shot, it’s like, ‘This is what I’m supposed to do.’” Related from The Trace: Our “Aftershocks” series looked at the roadblocks facing gun violence survivors in Chicago, while a 2019 story focused on people who survived being shot and formed a resilient New York City artists’ collective that forges new identities through poetry, music, and design.
More than statistics: Gun violence victims of color deserve equal care and dignity in media coverage. In an op-ed for The Baltimore Sun, gun violence prevention advocate Greg Jackson urges journalists to carve out more time and space for the Black and brown people who constitute the vast majority of gun violence victims but don’t always earn the same coverage. “In majority-minority communities, Black and brown gun violence victims are seen as statistics. Their deaths or injuries are reported without emotion,” writes Jackson, who is executive director of the Community Justice Action Fund. “In more affluent suburban communities, victims are described with care and dignity. Stories highlight their achievements and the impact they had on those who loved them.” Related: A study last year of media in three cities — Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Rochester, New York — found that more than 50 percent of shooting victims don’t receive news coverage at all.
Will Texas’s abortion law open the floodgates for gun reform laws? Probably not, Duke University law professor and Second Amendment expert Jake Charles argues in The Los Angeles Times. Last weekend, California Governor Gavin Newsom called on state lawmakers to craft a new law allowing private citizens to sue manufactures, distributors, or sellers of assault weapons and ghost gun kits. The idea was modeled after a recent Texas law, just upheld in part by the Supreme Court, that restricts abortion in the state but outsources legal enforcement to private citizens in an attempt to evade legal challenges. But there’s a key difference between the efforts, Charles says: “In short, the Newsom proposal — unlike the Texas law — would not outlaw conduct clearly protected by the federal courts’ reading of the Constitution.” He goes on: “If Democrats really wanted to show the Supreme Court the full implications of its ruling on the Texas scheme, they would have to enact a law directly flouting the right to keep a gun in the home (as the Heller case declared) or perhaps enact a complete ban on the sale or carrying of all firearms — and allow only private citizens to sue anyone who kept a gun in the house or sold or carried firearms.”
Florida school district agrees to $26M settlements with Parkland families. Board members of the Broward County school district approved two settlements: a $25 million one which will go to 51 plaintiffs, including families of the 17 people killed and injured students and staff, and a separate $1.25 million dollar payment for a victim who suffered particularly severe injuries. Both come a month after the FBI agreed to a $127 million settlement with survivors and victims’ families over not acting on tips about the perpetrator before the 2018 massacre.
Data Point
15 — the number of juveniles who have been charged with murder this year in Hamilton County, Ohio, where Cincinnati is. That’s more than in the last four years combined. [Cincinnati Enquirer]
