On May 18, at its annual meeting in Dallas, the National Rifle Association formally endorsed Donald Trump’s campaign to retake the White House in the 2024 election. Less than two weeks later, a New York jury found the former president guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records — meaning that Trump, now a convicted felon, can’t have guns.
But as The Trace’s Jennifer Mascia and Chip Brownlee reported this week, whether anyone would enforce the felon gun ban against Trump, who has long described himself as a gun owner, wasn’t immediately clear. Federal procedure around post-conviction gun surrender is lacking, and according to the trial transcript, Judge Juan Merchan did not immediately ask Trump to surrender any firearms after the jury returned its verdict.
On Wednesday, however, an unnamed New York City Police source gave CNN some clarity: The department was set to revoke Trump’s concealed carry license, and he’d reportedly turned over two pistols in New York shortly after he was indicted there in 2023. A third gun was legally relocated to Florida at the time; if he continued to possess it after his conviction, the former president would be violating federal law.
Trump wasn’t the only high-profile figure who made headlines over his relationship with guns this week. On Monday, the trial against Hunter Biden got underway. Unlike Trump’s predicament, the case against the president’s son revolves around a gun he no longer has: Biden is charged with three felonies related to the October 2018 purchase of a Colt Cobra revolver, which found its way to a trash can in Delaware shortly after he bought it. While the case has drawn breathless media attention, The Trace’s Champe Barton explains, it’s also offered an unusually public window into the intricacies and constitutional framework of American gun law.
Trump, for his part, appears to have little to say about the younger Biden’s trial. But the cases against the former president and the current president’s son will inevitably play into the November election — whether that’s a family drama that gives new potency to President Joe Biden’s proclamation that “no one is above the law” or far-right extremists making a “call to arms” over Trump’s conviction.
From The Trace
A roundup of our latest stories.
Trump’s Conviction Bars Him From Having Guns. Will He Hand His Over?
The situation underscores the lack of procedure for how recently convicted felons should relinquish their firearms.
What to Know About the Gun Charges Against Hunter Biden
The president’s son faces three felony counts after allegedly lying on federal gun-buying forms. His trial is underway.
‘This Is Our Lane:’ Health Experts to Lead First-Of-Its-Kind Anti-Violence Council
Brady United, a national gun violence prevention group, hopes the newly appointed advisers will reframe gun violence as a matter of public health.
New Jersey Ditched Cash Bail. Research Shows the Reform Didn’t Increase Violence.
Bail reform is often blamed for spikes in gun violence. A new study on one of the first states to adopt the policy doesn’t support that narrative.
Apply to The Trace’s Second Survivor Storytelling Workshop in Chicago
A paid opportunity for Chicagoans affected by gun violence to learn to tell their own stories.
How to Apply for Funeral and Burial Assistance in Illinois
The state offers financial help to families of children killed by gun violence. Here’s our guide to the program.
What to Know This Week
YouTube is toughening its policies around videos featuring guns. Google, the platform’s parent company, announced that it will ban content demonstrating how to remove safety devices from firearms and restrict videos showing the use of homemade guns, automatic guns, and some gun accessories to users 18 and older. Critics say the rules are a welcome change, but question if they will be effectively enforced. [Associated Press]
In 2021, two Chicago police officers seized Lakisha German’s small purple handgun. They let her go, but kept the gun and told her, “This never happened.” When German filed a complaint, she set off an investigation that has now resulted in the city’s top cop moving to fire four officers, including the two who stopped German, suspected of lying about gun seizures and stealing drugs and cash. [Chicago Sun-Times]
St. Louis consistently has one of the nation’s highest homicide rates. Nearly 90 percent of victims are Black, yet between 2014 and 2023, police there solved fewer than half the homicides of Black people but two-thirds of cases involving white victims. An analysis by news organizations found that the department struggled to clear cases, many involving guns, due in part to poor community relations, staffing shortages and tight budgets, and apparently shoddy investigations by detectives in an overwhelmingly white homicide division. [St. Louis Public Radio, APM Reports, and The Marshall Project]
Bank of America has backed off its blanket ban on lending to companies that make assault-style weapons for civilians. The bank reversed course amid pressure from politicians in Republican-led states like Texas and Florida that have targeted financial institutions for adopting policies that restrict business with the firearms or fossil fuels industries. [Bloomberg]
Americans purchased an estimated 1.22 million guns in May 2024, according to an analysis of FBI data. That’s about 8 percent fewer guns sold compared to the same period last year. [The Trace]
In Memoriam
Aariah Henry, 16, had a distinctive laugh: It would start with a giggle, her mother told NOLA.com, and then grow louder by the second. Aariah was killed in a drive-by shooting at a convenience store in Reserve, Louisiana, early Sunday morning. She was a shy, goofy, and generous kid, her father said, who had developed a passion for beauty and fashion. And she was a great cook, he added: He loved Aariah’s brownies and chicken pasta. She aspired to join the Air Force someday, and to become a nurse. “That was my princess,” her dad said. “She had a heart of gold.”
We Recommend
“Some of the worst brain injuries soldiers face come from their own weapons, and North Carolina is at the epicenter of this growing crisis.” [City View and The Assembly]
Pull Quote
“All of us mothers are tired of the excuses. We just want answers.”
— Erica Jones, whose daughter Whitney Brown was killed in St. Louis in 2015, on homicides in the city, like her daughter’s, continuing to go unsolved, to St. Louis Public Radio, APM Reports, and The Marshall Project
