The Supreme Court tends to release its most consequential opinions toward the end of its session, which means that this week — the last full week of Gun Violence Awareness Month — has been full of significant rulings, including two seismic gun decisions. Thursday marked 17 years since the court decided District of Columbia v. Heller, the 5-4 ruling that established for the first time that gun ownership is an individual right. And Monday marked three years since New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the ruling that changed it all.
Bruen, which The Trace has written about at length, instituted a new test for the constitutionality of gun laws. Gun rights advocates pounced. In the six months after the Supreme Court handed down the decision, pro-gun groups filed nearly three dozen federal lawsuits challenging firearm restrictions, and the same number in 2023. But lately, The Trace’s Chip Brownlee and Will Van Sant report, the pace has markedly slowed. Their latest story investigates why.
From The Trace
Inside the GOP’s Tax Bill, a Return to Prohibition-Era Gun Regulation: Republicans are pushing to erase restrictions on silencers and curtail enforcement of federal gun laws.
What’s Behind the Decline in Pro-Gun Lawsuits?: While filing fewer lawsuits against gun restrictions, gun rights groups are still touting their litigation efforts to rally supporters — and raise money.
‘Fearless’ Minnesota Lawmaker Melissa Hortman, Assassinated by Firearm, Leaves a Legacy of Gun Reform: The former state House speaker had a role in passing several bills to curb violence.
Takeaways From The Trace’s Panel on Gen Z and Gun Violence: Trace reporters moderated a virtual discussion with a Parkland survivor, the executive director of March For Our Lives, and political leaders. Here’s what they said.
What We’re Reading
From gangs to college: A grant-supported program found success as it steered young people connected to gangs into higher education — until the money stopped coming. [The Hechinger Report]
Utah’s gun laws and the factors at play as prosecutors mull charges after ‘No Kings’ shooting: Utah gun law experts weigh in on the shooting that killed bystander Arthur “Afa” Ah Loo at Salt Lake City’s No Kings protest earlier this month. [Utah News Dispatch]
Carolyn McCarthy, Who Turned a Gunman’s Massacre Into a Crusade, Dies at 81: After a shooter killed her husband and wounded her son on a Long Island commuter train in 1993, she went to Congress on a mission to curb gun violence. [The New York Times]
Remembering One of America’s First Modern School Shootings, 50 Years Later: A teacher at Olean High School, located in a small town in New York state, pieces together the story of a shooting that killed three people in 1974. More than half a century later, what happened there remains hauntingly relevant. [LitHub]
The Marines Did Not Sign Up to Police LA: A veteran and military law expert on “being used against your neighbor” while in uniform. [Mother Jones]
In Memoriam
Charles Smith, 55, was “one of those men that, to have known him, you loved him,” his godson said. Smith, a Navy veteran, was shot and killed earlier this month in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over his 25 years at the Cincinnati Veterans Affairs Medical Center, he was a tireless champion for fellow veterans. As the union president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2031, he advocated for fair, equitable workplaces. Smith was also a dedicated family man, and a lifelong member of a local church. He loved to sing. “To know Charles was to witness integrity in action,” his family said in a statement, “a man who carried the weight of others with humility and stood firmly for what was right, even when it wasn’t easy.”
Spotlight on Solutions
In 2021, COMPASS Youth Collaborative, a violence interruption nonprofit in Hartford, Connecticut, decided to build its own case management solution. The organization came up with Navi, a custom, secure, mobile-first platform designed by the organization’s Peacebuilders themselves and engineered with the help of a contractor. Today, the app is the digital backbone of COMPASS’s entire operation.
Navi is a real-time intelligence hub that transforms how the organization’s Peacebuilders engage with young people at risk of being involved in violence, giving the violence interrupters access to live data wherever they are. The app also helps COMPASS comprehensively track the efficacy of their programming, a barrier other grassroots anti-violence programs often struggle with. It’s showing promising results. More on COMPASS and Navi in the latest edition of The Trajectory newsletter.
Pull Quote
“It’s all about accessibility. If they try to call us, and we don’t come through, then you’re building barriers. If you say you’re going to be there for them, you’ve got to follow through.”
— Diamond Cooper Jenkins, a COMPASS Peacebuilder, on the importance of providing the kids in COMPASS’s program with a reliable “someone” to lean on, to The Trace
