In June, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a historic advisory on gun violence. After years of calls to treat gun violence as a public health issue — and actions doing so by other organizations and governmental bodies — Murthy’s warning perhaps cemented the idea that America’s high rate of shootings is, indeed, an epidemic.
One of Murthy’s hopes with the advisory was to depolarize and depoliticize the gun issue. As he told The Trace’s Chip Brownlee: “I firmly believe that if we take the issue out of the realm of politics and put it into the realm of public health, people will recognize that there are steps we can take to address gun violence.” Now, as the country speeds toward one of the most significant presidential elections in recent memory, The New Yorker reports that some public health researchers have begun to consider whether a related problem requires a public health response: political violence.
As Reuters has reported, the United States is in the most sustained period of political violence in half a century. Threats against public officials have surged; campaign offices are being shot at; assassins have attempted to kill former President Donald Trump twice since July. Just this week, Wired reported on leaked documents detailing how far-right militias planned to surveil ballot boxes during the 2022 midterms; a human rights expert told the magazine that it should be a warning for next month’s elections. It is important to note that modern political violence is overwhelmingly perpetrated in service of right-wing ideologies.
So what would a public health response look like? As The New Yorker reported, it starts with data — something Dr. Garen Wintemute, a gun violence researcher at UC Davis, began working on as early as 2022. He’s found that, among the small proportion of people who say they’d participate in a large-scale conflict, “a large percentage are saying, ‘You can talk me out of it.’” That means a public messaging campaign, à la those around smoking and seatbelts, could be effective interventions.
Joshua Horwitz and Tim Carey, experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, have offered some other thoughts, too. In an August commentary piece for The Trace, they argued that political violence and gun violence are interwoven problems, and that their solutions are essentially the same: establishing some limits on gun access. They also pointed to something everyone can do. “To counter the ideology that drives political violence, we must refrain from normalizing the permission structure that condones it,” they wrote. “By choosing words of unity rather than derision, especially in the heat of an election cycle, [voters and political leaders] can help de-escalate tensions and promote a more peaceful society.”
From The Trace
- The Straw Man: Over 18 months, a Vermont man bought 15 guns. Prosecutors say he was a shadowy soldier in a criminal enterprise designed to exploit two features of life in the state: its gun laws and its deadly struggle with opioid addiction.
- ICYMI: A Gun Law the NRA Opposes Could Have Saved Its Employee’s Life: The NRA once supported red flag gun laws, which are meant to protect people like Dawn Williams-Stewart, a staffer at the gun group who was shot and killed by her husband.
What to Know This Week
The National Rifle Association canceled an event in Savannah, Georgia, that was slated to feature former President Donald Trump as its keynote speaker. The gun group said “campaign scheduling changes” forced the cancellation, but did not go into detail about the conflict. The move comes as NRA chief executive Doug Hamlin faces heavy scrutiny over his role in the gruesome killing of his fraternity’s house cat while he was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. [The Reload/Savannah Morning News/The Guardian]
The sheriff’s race in the county around Lewiston, Maine, has become a referendum on local law enforcement action, or inaction, before the mass shooting there last fall, the deadliest in state history. For some voters, the election is a reminder of all that hasn’t changed in the time since the attack. Meanwhile, 100 survivors and victims’ family members this week notified the Department of Defense, the Army, and an Army hospital in New York that they intend to sue if the agencies don’t investigate claims that they failed to prevent the massacre. [The New York Times/Portland Press Herald]
Two federal courts are slated to grapple with 18- to 20-year-olds’ right to carry firearms: The 11th Circuit is poised to next week hear a challenge to Florida’s “raise-the-age” law, which bars people under 21 from purchasing assault-style rifles. And on Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the 3rd Circuit to reexamine a decision allowing Pennsylvania residents under 21 to carry guns in public during declared states of emergencies. [WUSF/Bloomberg]
Natural disasters often breed confusion and disarray, but the conspiracies about the government’s response to hurricanes Milton and Helene are substantial — and in North Carolina, where polls indicate a tight presidential race, they seemingly turned threatening. Over the weekend, government responders were ordered to temporarily pause their work and relocate following reports that an armed militia was “out hunting FEMA”; one man was arrested in connection to the threats. [The New Yorker/Associated Press]
The Secret Service on Wednesday released a plan to help local and state law enforcement agencies prevent mass shootings and other targeted acts of violence. The blueprint calls on police to establish dedicated threat prevention units, and provides guidelines meant to be applicable regardless of an agency’s size or funding. [HuffPost]
Nearly two decades ago, Drew Crecente’s daughter, Jennifer, was found shot to death near her home in Austin, Texas. Earlier this month, he was disturbed to find that her name and likeness had been used to create an AI chatbot without her family’s permission. He isn’t the first grieving parent to discover their child’s information manipulated by AI. [The Washington Post]
In Memoriam
Wilton Mena, 36, was a family man, in the broad sense — he was a dedicated father to his two sons, and a steady, important figure in the tight-knit community around Cibao Barbershop, where he worked. Mena, also affectionately called “Frieza,” was shot and killed while rollerblading near his home in North Miami Beach on October 1. As a barber, he was well-known and well-loved; he’s remembered as a peaceful and positive figure. His was the first face you’d see when you walked into Cibao, a friend of 20 years told CBS Miami. Mena’s barber chair is now a memorial, decorated with flowers, a shot of liquor, and a small cup of cafecito. In their last conversation, Mena told his longtime friend about his excitement to start coaching his boys in soccer. He read the Bible to his kids every night, his sister said, and always helped them with their homework. “He’s a good person,” his friend said. “A really good father.”
We Recommend
Super Bowl Rally Shooting Victims Pick Up Pieces, but Gun Violence Haunts Their Lives: “Every shooting survivor responds in their own way to gun violence and even the threat of it. … For some, getting shot ensures they will always be on guard, perhaps even armed. Others want nothing to do with guns ever again.” [KFF Health News and KCUR]
Pull Quote
“It takes quite a bit for me to be shocked, because I really have been through quite a bit. But this was a new low.”
— Drew Crecente, on discovering that the name and likeness of his daughter, Jennifer, who was murdered 18 years ago, had been used to create an AI chatbot, to The Washington Post
