Good morning, Bulletin readers. Call it a sign of the times: a civil rights marker in Mississippi has been fortified against gunfire. That story leads your Monday roundup.
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WHAT TO KNOW TODAY
A bulletproof Emmett Till memorial was erected in Mississippi. The steel monument marks the spot where the 14-year-old was pulled from the Tallahatchie River after his 1955 murder, which became a watershed event in the civil rights movement. It’s the fourth iteration of the memorial: Earlier versions were stolen or defaced by bullet holes. Most recently, in July, a photo emerged of a group of Ole Miss students posing in front of the sign with shotguns and rifles.
Nearly a million women in the U.S. have reported being shot or shot at by an intimate partner. That’s one of several findings from a new report on the intersection of domestic violence and guns by Everytown for Gun Safety. Other topline findings: Gun-related intimate partner homicides rose 15 percent between 2008 and 2017 while domestic homicides involving other weapons decreased; on average, 52 women are fatally shot by an intimate partner each month in the united States. Domestic gun violence also features a stark racial disparity: Black women are twice as likely than white women to be fatally shot by an intimate partner. (Everytown provides grants to The Trace through its nonpolitical arm. Here’s our list of major donors and our policy on editorial independence.)
Smart guns might get a boost from the U.S. military. While many gun owners are hesitant to spend money on firearms that operate only for their owners, the military is soliciting bids for gun technology that could be adapted for civilian safety, Reuters reports. One such bidder said people he’s spoken with at weapons manufacturers “actually love the technology. They’re worried about political backlash.”
Researchers found a link between gun violence and elevated blood lead levels. A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study found that more than half of the people shot in Milwaukee between 2005 and 2015 had elevated lead levels in their blood.
The Florida commission investigating school safety wants to make verbal shooting threats a crime. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Commission has backed a bill that would make it a second-degree felony to threaten an attack with weapons or destructive devices.
Viral footage shows football coach hugging armed student. In May, Oregon high school football coach Keanon Lowe grabbed a shotgun from an 18-year-old student, then wrapped the teen in an embrace. A surveillance video of the moment was released last week. “I felt compassion for him,” Lowe told KOIN. “A lot of times, especially when you’re young, you don’t realize what you’re doing until it’s over.”
Idaho will use a CDC grant to track violent deaths. State officials decided to join the federal Violent Death Reporting System because of Idaho’s high suicide rate, which is fifth in the nation. “Before this program, we could tell you the who, the what, the when, the where, but now with this program we’re hoping to explain the why,” Chris Wilson, the program’s manager, told Idaho Press.
A 2-year-old girl was killed in Philadelphia. Someone fired into the toddler’s home in the Kensington neighborhood on Sunday, wounding two others. The killing occurred a day after an 11-month-old baby was found critically wounded by a shooting in the same neighborhood.
DATA POINT
Concealed handgun permit holders have fatally shot 24 law enforcement officers since 2007. [Violence Policy Center]
