Featured Story
The Biden administration paused most gun exports last October because of the risk of weapons being diverted to drug cartels and other criminal groups. On Friday, the Commerce Department announced that the ban would be lifted on May 30, but with new restrictions and increased scrutiny of transactions. This follows the Trump administration’s 2020 decision to shift oversight of firearm exports from the State Department to the Commerce Department, a move widely seen as beneficial to the firearms industry. [Reuters/Associated Press]
Ricochet
Alexis Jackson was braiding each of her three daughters’ hair on a warm spring Sunday evening two years ago when dozens of bullets ripped through the house. She called out to each of them, but her eldest, Abe’bre’anna, didn’t answer. The 14-year-old was fatally shot in the head as she lay in bed.
That night, inconsolable, Jackson went to her godsister’s home. There she met a stranger who would save her life — the founding director of a trauma recovery center that provides grief counseling and financial assistance following a violent crime, in addition to other forms of holistic care.
Few Americans who’ve experienced violence or the trauma related to it have access to the kinds of resources Jackson did. Though research has shown that the likelihood of psychiatric diagnoses goes up 52 percent after a shooting, 96 percent of violent crime victims don’t get financial help, and 74 percent don’t receive counseling or mental health support.
Although Abe’bre’anna’s killing remains unsolved, Jackson has fought her way toward healing. Now, she’s founded a collective to help others do the same.
What to Know Today
The state of Wyoming doesn’t regularly report people who’ve undergone mental health adjudication to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System. That means someone can be deemed dangerous, be committed to the state mental hospital for severe mental illness, leave, and go directly to a store to buy a gun. [WyoFile]
Three North Texas school communities have been shaken by gun violence in the last two weeks. These attacks happened despite the raft of security mandates following the shootings at Sante Fe High School in 2018 and Robb Elementary in Uvalde in 2022. [The Dallas Morning News]
Former National Rifle Association president and feared Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer has stopped receiving payments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from the gun rights group. Last week, she wrote an email to the NRA’s general counsel complaining about being “dumped” after “40 years of dedicated service and work.” This comes two months after the organization and its former CEO Wayne LaPierre were found liable in a civil corruption case. [Florida Bulldog]
After viewing the video, a man is suing the Kansas City Police Department to release body camera footage that he says will show police shot his brother, Jon Anderton, in the back as he ran away unarmed in Kansas City, Kansas. Anderton was 50 years old. [The Kansas City Star]
Data Point
$600 million — the average annual revenue from international sales made by U.S. gun manufacturers. [Associated Press]
