Since former and future President Donald Trump began announcing his cabinet picks this month, there’s understandably been a lot of focus on many of the nominees’ alleged histories of sexual misconduct, lack of experience, and denial of science and legal precedent. His nominees, if confirmed, will control the day-to-day levers of power across a massive federal bureaucracy. That includes power over most of the federal government’s gun violence prevention efforts, research, and policymaking.
Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the onetime presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist who has falsely alleged that antidepressants cause mass shootings — to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS and its various agencies, including the CDC and National Institutes of Health, collect and distribute important data about gun violence, support survivors, fund gun violence research, and work to prevent suicides. Much of that is discretionary. Also under HHS is the surgeon general — who needs department support and money to do things like issue an advisory on gun violence, as Dr. Vivek Murthy did this summer — and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the insurance program for older and low-income Americans; the White House recently announced that the agency was crafting a plan to reimburse providers for firearm safety counseling, a change one expert told me could be “transformational.” Trump has selected TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead that agency.
Trump’s campaign told the National Rifle Association’s magazine last month that he planned to appoint a pro-gun attorney general “who will stop the weaponization of government against lawful gun ownership.” The president-elect initially named Matt Gaetz, as the man for the job, but the scandal-plagued former House representative withdrew from the running on Thursday; hours later, Trump announced former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as his new nominee.
The next leader of the Justice Department will be in charge of the ATF, which regulates firearm manufacturers, gun dealers, and more. Under President Joe Biden, the DOJ and ATF have cracked down on ghost guns and gun trafficking, and stepped up enforcement of lawbreaking gun dealers. The DOJ also plays a bigger role than any other department in enforcing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first federal gun reform law in 30 years. The Justice Department is also responsible for defending the federal government’s gun laws and regulations in court. Those laws and regulations are being challenged in court now more than ever before.
The attorney general also oversees hundreds of millions in funding for gun violence prevention through the Justice Department’s Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative, as well as billions annually for other law enforcement programs, gun violence research, and crisis interventions like red flag laws. Much of that funding is allocated through the BSCA and mandated by Congress to continue through 2026, but there may be ways to redirect that money or make it more difficult for groups on the ground to access. It’s also possible, perhaps even likely, that Trump simply ignores or seizes Congress’s power of the purse. The Impoundment Control Act prevents presidents from “impounding” funds — i.e. refusing to spend money allocated by Congress — but Trump has repeatedly promised to violate it. “Impoundment is vitally important, not just to save the country fiscally. It is vitally important to be able to rest control of the bureaucracy,” Trump’s new nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, said on a podcast this week.
Billionaire Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street executive and Trump loyalist, has been tapped to lead the Commerce Department, the agency that oversees firearm exports. Federal regulation of small arms exports was already in shambles when, during his first term, Trump shifted oversight of international gun sales from the State Department to Commerce, handing the U.S. gun industry a long-sought victory, dramatically reducing restrictions on who can sell weapons internationally, and gutting watchdogging of where guns end up. While the Biden administration this year implemented new rules on gun exports, American-made guns are still linked to violent crimes across the globe.
There’s more — for one, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, has a long record of voting with the gun industry’s priorities and against gun violence prevention — and more still to come. As Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told The Trace last month: “You have to open up your imagination about what a second Trump presidency is going to look like. This isn’t going to be normal.”
From The Trace
- She Lost Her Sons to Shootings. She Now Carries Their Legacy: A photo essay documents the grief and memorializations of Titiana Bogar-Curry, whose sons were killed within three years of each other in Rochester, New York.
- Facing Another Trump Presidency, Philadelphia Vows to Maintain Momentum Against Gun Violence: City leaders are optimistic they can make further progress in reducing shootings after Trump takes office.
- To Battle the Bullet, Baltimore Goes After the Bottle: Alcohol is an overlooked factor in many shootings. Baltimore has tried harder than any other American city to disrupt the link.
What to Know This Week
The National Rifle Association’s financial collapse continued in 2023, with expenses exceeding revenue by $33 million, according to the group’s most recent IRS filing. The filing echoes details of an NRA financial summary that The Trace reported in May: In 2023, the group collected $62 million in member dues, a 63 percent drop from 2018, when dues revenue hit $170 million, and the lowest amount in at least two decades. — Will Van Sant, staff writer
The proportion of Americans who own guns has hovered around 30 percent since at least 2007 — but that steady figure masks a dramatic change in who those gun owners are. Personal gun ownership among Republican women has spiked, offsetting declines among men who identify as Democrats or independents. [Gallup]
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected another attempt by Philadelphia to overturn the state’s “preemption” law — a type of measure, championed by the NRA, that prohibits local governments from enacting gun restrictions stricter than their state’s — ruling the city hadn’t proved that its inability to regulate firearms had caused its gun violence. Philly officials have tried for years to pass their own gun restrictions, but have never succeeded in overcoming the legal hurdle. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
The Justice Department notified officials in Sangamon County, Illinois, that it has opened a civil rights investigation into its police agencies over the killing of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who reportedly struggled with her mental health, citing “serious concerns” about the Sheriff’s Office’s behavior toward Black people and people with disabilities. Sean Grayson, a sheriff’s deputy with a long history of problematic behavior at previous police jobs, shot Massey after she called police for help. Meanwhile, community members in Springfield have formed a commission dedicated to driving change that could help prevent deaths like Massey’s in the future. [The New York Times/IPM News/The Washington Post]
The Chicago Police Department has been under federal oversight for five and a half years, but it’s made little progress on court-ordered, and taxpayer-funded, reforms. Residents are losing faith that change will come, a feeling exacerbated by the death of Dexter Reed, who was killed after being shot 13 times during a traffic stop in March. [WTTW News and ProPublica]
In Memoriam
Elijah Smith, 12, had the “ biggest heart ever,” his sister said — he cared about everyone, and he was good at making people laugh. Elijah was killed at a house party in National City, California, last Friday, the victim of a shooting that injured four other young people. He was a relatively sheltered kid: His mom said she only let him go to the movies, the mall, or his friends’ houses, and she always shepherded him to and from those places. She was out of town that night, and Elijah snuck out, just as any seventh-grade boy might. A classmate said Elijah’s loss has left a mark on their middle school, and that she’d remember her friend as a “kind and a big-hearted person.” Elijah was the youngest of three siblings, one of whom, his sister, liked to call him “Road Dawg.” “He’s just [an] innocent soul,” she said. “Beautiful, happy, loving, and cared about everybody.”
We Recommend
“The border as we know it is a modern invention. Arizona did not become a state until 1912, and the US did not make it a crime to cross its borders without permission until 1929. As late as 1980, during a Republican primary debate, Ronald Reagan summarily dismissed the idea of a border ‘fence.’ Even before the border was built, however, there were border vigilantes.” [The New York Review of Books]
Pull Quote
“As their mom, it is my job to continue to carry that full potential for them. It is like they have a legacy — that everyone needs to understand who they were, not just a gunshot victim.”
— Titiana Bogar-Curry, who lost her teenage sons to shootings within three years of each other in Rochester, New York, on her continued memorializations of her children, to The Trace
This newsletter was compiled by senior editor Sunny Sone.
