The year 2025 has not had a particularly auspicious start in the United States. In the early hours of January 1, a Texas man drove a vehicle loaded with guns and an apparent explosive device through a crowd celebrating the new year on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 people before he died in a shootout with police. The FBI called the attack an act of terrorism. Less than an hour later, in Kankakee, Illinois, two brothers were killed and five others were injured in a mass shooting at a New Year’s house party. In Queens, New York, that night, 10 young people were wounded by gunfire outside an event celebrating the birthday of Taearion Mungo, a 16-year-old who was shot and killed months earlier.
These events, like all instances of violence, are tragedies. That they occurred on the first day of the year, a highly symbolic moment, perhaps does not inspire confidence for 2025. But as Americans’ fears of crime continue to be persistently high, it’s especially important to put them into perspective.
In 2024, The Trace’s Chip Brownlee reports, mass shootings and gun deaths fell significantly — dropping 24 percent and 12 percent, respectively. The number of children and teenagers killed or wounded in shootings plummeted nearly 17 percent compared to 2023. Vehicle attacks like the one in New Orleans are relatively rare in the United States, and according to the nonprofit ACLED, extremist violence and mobilization in the country dropped last year.
Still, even as shootings decline, tens of thousands of lives continue to be lost or permanently changed by guns. The toll, as ever, remains.
— Sunny Sone, senior editor
From The Trace
Gun Violence by the Numbers in 2024: As firearm sales have fallen, so have deaths and mass shootings. Trace reporter Chip Brownlee breaks down this year’s gun violence trends.
The Bruen Era: In New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court issued the biggest gun rights decision in a generation. Our database tracks Bruen’s sweeping legal ramifications, case by case.
‘Brothers in Grief’ Explores the Toll of Gun Violence on Philadelphia Youth: Black boys don’t have the time, space, or tools to grieve their losses, Nora Gross argues in a book she wrote after spending two years with a tight-knit group of teens.
It Took 25 Years to Put Together the Missing Pieces of My Siblings’ Murders: From the Survivor Storytelling Network: “I have so few memories of our lives before, and I don’t have anyone left to fill in the gaps. I’m the last one. Instead of memories, I have documents.”
Behind the Stories: NBC News4, Shootings Near Schools: In December, NBC News4 aired a segment about the toll of gun violence on Washington, D.C.’s youngest residents. This story is a collaboration with The Trace’s Gun Violence Data Hub.
What We’re Reading
Guns are the leading cause of youth deaths in Oakland. These young people believe change is possible: Young people in Alameda County, California, explain how gun violence has touched their lives, and what they’d like policymakers to do about it. [The Guardian]
‘It’s been a struggle’: A year after the Perry school shooting, community seeks normalcy: “That day kind of brought everybody closer together, and so we’re more understanding of each other. We think about it every single day. … When we walk through the building, we relive it every day.” [Des Moines Register]
As feds link Lil Durk’s lyrics to murder-for-hire case, experts cry foul: “A criminal proceeding — whether it’s about detaining someone or about their ultimate conviction — is really about something that someone has done, or a specific action they take,” said Ed Yohnka, spokesperson for the ACLU of Illinois. “It’s not about content that they’ve created.” [Chicago Sun-Times]
How a European industrial rock band opposed to violence got tied to school shootings in America: In 1999, KMFDM’s lyrics were cited by the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. Though their music is intended to be a statement against violence, the German band has since been associated with school shootings — a link members say is misplaced. “In a culture that is obsessed with guns, people will always try and blame someone or something else for these tragic events, rather than the abundant and easy access to firearms.” [CNN]
Philly Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel has been trying to bring change to a stubborn department: Bethel’s first year in charge has been marked by a striking decline in gun violence and a multipronged attempt to effect change in the Philadelphia Police Department. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
The Three Death Row Prisoners Biden Chose Not to Spare: On December 23, President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 men on federal death row. Of the three he chose not to spare, two are mass shooters convicted of hate crimes. [The New York Times]
In Memoriam
Tyeisha Colley, 35, “just made everyone feel like sunshine,” a friend told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution — a devoted educator and faith leader, Colley is remembered as a nurturing spirit who cared deeply for everyone in her life. She was killed in Monroe, Georgia, the evening of December 25, in a shooting that also injured her husband, Jermaul Colley. Colley and her husband were high school sweethearts, per her father, and the parents of four. They’d adopted three of their kids after dealing with health issues around having children; Colley gave birth to their youngest, described by the friend as a “miracle baby,” in the summer of 2023. The family was scheduled to leave for a trip to Walt Disney World after Christmas. “We lost a great daughter. We lost a great mother. We lost a great friend,” her father said. “Everybody loved her, just truly.”
Spotlight on Solutions
On New Year’s Eve, in a warehouse near Seattle, about a hundred young men spent their final hours of 2024 playing basketball, eating snacks, and honoring those lost to gun violence. At “Hoop to Heal” — organized by youth outreach specialist Jeremy Winzer, a worker with the community-based violence prevention group Progress Pushers — attendees dribbled balls marked with the names of people killed in shootings and, to the side of the court, added the names of people they’d lost last year to a memorial for young victims of gun violence. The idea, Winzer told The Seattle Times, was to provide not only a safe and joyful space to ring in 2025, but also “safe ways to talk about gun violence prevention, acknowledge young people that have lost their lives to gun violence, and then let those young people kind of let their hair down.”
Pull Quote
“For a school that’s trying to get low-income Black boys through high school and on to college, they feel this urgency. They have no time to waste because these kids have been underserved by their schools for years, and there isn’t time for them to sit and grieve, or process, or heal.”
— Nora Gross, a researcher and the author of “Brothers in Grief,” an account of the two years she spent studying grief that stems from gun violence affects Black adolescent boys’ school engagement, on the types of disparity that Black boys face, to The Trace
