Longtime gun violence researchers are used to precarity. For decades, it was the norm: From 1996 to 2019, Congress had a de facto ban on funding gun violence research, even as shootings remained a leading cause of death. A little more than four years after federal dollars started going toward gun violence scholarship, these veteran researchers are clear-eyed about what’s happening now.
Less than two weeks into his second term as president, Donald Trump has thrown the field into another period of uncertainty. The White House has shuttered its Office of Gun Violence Prevention, directed public health agencies to stop communicating with the public, and indicated through an erratic series of actions that the administration by no means guarantees continued funding for any program.
“These actions are a direct attack on science — not just health, but science in general,” Joseph Richardson, an anthropologist and epidemiologist at the University of Maryland who has studied gun violence for more than 20 years, told The Trace’s Fairriona Magee this week.
As Magee reports, the funding passed in 2019 led to a more diverse pool of researchers, who began studying long-ignored aspects of the gun violence epidemic. Those at the forefront of this work are anxious about the future — but they remain committed to the field. As Richardson told Magee: “Every conversation is about how we move forward.”
From The Trace
‘A Direct Attack on Science:’ Trump’s Return Is Rattling Gun Violence Researchers: Days after the inauguration, White House directives and pledges to cut public health funding are already causing chaos and uncertainty. Experts say this is just the beginning.
Gun Sales Are Plummeting. Here’s Why: A Trace analysis found that Americans purchased 6.5 million fewer guns last year than in 2020, when the pandemic pushed demand for firearms to record levels.
Philly’s Police Watchdog Board Hasn’t Conducted Any Investigations. Its Head Blames the Union: Philadelphia’s Police Department has a troubled history with use of force, especially in the Black community.
Can Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioters Face New Gun Charges?: The Trace analyzed the court records of some 1,500 clemency-eligible defendants to find an answer.
Chicago Emergency Response Times Are Worsening. A Slain Rapper’s Mom Wants to Know Why: A Trace analysis found that between Jan. 2021 and Nov. 2024, the rate of incidents with response times longer than six minutes grew by 4.6 percentage points.
What We’re Reading
Madison and Nashville School Shooters Appear to Have Crossed Paths in Online Extremist Communities: A month after a student opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School, another killed a classmate at Antioch High School. Extremism researchers who have tracked their social media activity say both were active in online communities that glorify mass shooters. [ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch]
Reform Rollback: How Philly’s vision of juvenile justice reform unraveled, and prosecutors took up a practice DA Larry Krasner once derided as “coercive”: Ahmad Tyler, 16, was accused of pointing a gun. After becoming embroiled in a juvenile justice system that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner promised would “treat kids as kids,” Ahmad took a plea deal — even though it’s an open question of whether a firearm was present in his alleged crime at all. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
Kash Patel’s Political-Persecution Fantasies: “By November, 2024, the most militant arm of the MAGA movement may have appeared, to an outsider, to be defanged compared with what it was four years ago. … But Trump’s victory marked a great triumph for the persecution narratives that his acolytes, Patel included, worked hard to construct since January 6th.” [The New Yorker]
UW-Madison researchers find alcohol sales increase following mass shootings: The study, published in PNAS Nexus, found that communities that experienced public mass shootings had a significant increase in alcohol sales that persisted for at least two years following the event. [Wisconsin Public Radio]
Trump Admin. Axes Newly Created School Safety Board: Some members of the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse External Advisory Board confirmed that they’d received termination notices. But the board’s future remains unclear: It was codified into law as part of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. [Education Week]
The Trial at the Tip of the Terrorgram Iceberg: The co-founder of an influential neo-Nazi group is on trial for an alleged plot to knock out Baltimore’s power grid and start a race war. His case offers a unique look at how federal law enforcement have policed racist domestic terror plots — an approach that’s all but guaranteed to disappear under the Trump administration. [Wired]
Civilian police oversight in Florida crumbles after new law kicks in: The law assures that only law enforcement agencies will investigate reports of misconduct by law enforcement officers. [Tampa Bay Times]
In Memoriam
Vincent Buckles, 35, was a family man — those close to Buckles called him a dedicated father to his three children, and someone who always prioritized the people he loved. Buckles, better known as “Vinny,” was shot and killed in his home in Port Huron, Michigan, this week; his eldest daughter, whom he’d recently gained custody of, was at the house at the time, hiding in a closet. He was a parent to more than just his kids — a cousin described him as a father figure — and he was a steadfast provider. According to a GoFundMe campaign, Buckles continued “working tirelessly to provide a better life for those he loved” while he recovered from injuries sustained during a car wreck last year. “There’s so many things I could say to describe him, but he is loving,” an aunt told the local ABC station. “This is devastating to our family.”
Spotlight on Solutions
In 2024, homicides in Lexington, Kentucky, dropped to their lowest level in nearly a decade: Police data showed a total of 22 homicides last year, down from 44 in 2022 and the fewest since 2015. Nonfatal shootings decreased, too, going from 84 in 2023 to 65 in 2024, continuing a downward trend. How did the city do it?
Devine Carama, the director ONE Lexington, the mayoral agency that coordinates gun violence reduction efforts in the city, said there’s no one reason for the progress. Rather, there’s a multitude. In practice, ONE Lexington’s approach looks like collaborating with a wide swath of partners — including fellow government agencies, local nonprofits, and neighborhood leaders — to address the root causes of violence. But while the overall numbers are declining, those involved in efforts to reduce shootings say the work isn’t done.
“I absolutely believe that we’re trending in the right direction,” Doyle Lee, assistant administrative director for the Voyage Movement, a local youth outreach group, told LEX18. “I just think that we need more involvement with the community. We have to take an all-hands-on-deck approach.”
Pull Quote
“You can slowly see the pendulum shifting back towards treating [gun violence] as a law enforcement problem.”
— Joseph Richardson, an anthropologist and epidemiologist at the University of Maryland who has studied gun violence for more than 20 years, on the threat to federal funding for his field, to The Trace
