In 2011, a federal appeals court voted 2-1 to uphold D.C.’s assault weapons ban. The lone dissent came from Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who argued that a gun restriction could only be constitutional if it fit with the nation’s history and tradition of gun regulation. Such a test, he wrote, would be “much less subjective” — i.e., judges would have less room to inject their personal policy views.

In June 2022, Justice Kavanaugh and his GOP-appointed allies on the Supreme Court incorporated that test into their landmark Bruen decision, upending gun laws across the country. But rather than remove ideology from the equation, an analysis of more than 1,600 Second Amendment rulings over the past two years by The Trace’s Chip Brownlee found that it appears to be as big a part of judicial decision-making as ever. 

Post-Bruen, judges appointed by Republican presidents are more likely to strike down gun restrictions, while Democratic appointees are more likely to uphold them. The analysis shows that instead of limiting judges’ discretion, Bruen has made federal courts even more of a political battleground, where gun laws rise and fall along partisan lines.

From The Trace

What to Know This Week

For years, some of America’s most iconic gunmakers — including Glock, Smith & Wesson, and Remington — gave the National Shooting Sports Foundation sensitive information on hundreds of thousands of customers without their consent, a blockbuster investigation revealed. Political operatives at the NSSF, in turn, secretly used the details to rally support for pro-gun politicians running for federal office. The sharing of gun buyers’ names, addresses, and other private data marks a stark departure for an industry that has railed against tracking such information on American firearm owners. [ProPublica] 

For Vice President Kamala Harris, gun violence was a central issue long before she entered the race for the White House — countering the crisis has been one of her priorities since her days as a prosecutor. Nine people who have seen Harris’s work on gun violence prevention over the past 20 years explain the evolution of her approach. [The 19th] 

A decade ago, a Chicago police officer shot and killed Laquan McDonald, a Black 17-year-old who grew up on the West Side. The murder spurred an investigation into the city’s policing practices that uncovered a pattern of racism and abuse — and forced Chicago onto a path toward reform. [WBEZ] 

Mass shooting survivors and families of victims are seeking justice through an unusual route: copyright law. The idea is to take control over media narratives they consider damaging, prevent outside actors from making money off tragedies, and provide oversight on the distribution of harmful materials, like shooters’ writings or video footage of attacks. [The Guardian] 

It’s well known that the massacre of 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, five years ago was a hate crime. The shooter believed in the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory and targeted people based on Latino identity. What’s less discussed, however, is how the shooter used the climate crisis as justification for his attack and extremist beliefs — and he’s not the only one. [ProPublica]

In Memoriam

Breaja Jones, 21, put her daughter at the center of her world — Jones called her 2-year-old “dream,” a loved one told ABC 30, and she was determined to make things happen for her. “As soon as she had her daughter,” the loved one continued, “she’s like, ‘I got to get it done, I got to make something shake for my baby.’” Jones was shot and killed in her Clovis, California, home last weekend, the victim of a suspected domestic violence homicide allegedly perpetrated by her daughter’s father. She had recently graduated from a charter school, and planned on pursuing an interest in phlebotomy. Jones is remembered as an eminently caring person: “Loving, kind, and no matter how much she wanted to do for herself, she always, always, always made sure her family was good.”

We Recommend

‘Take Back the States’: The Far-Right Sheriffs Ready to Disrupt the Election

“Constitutional Sheriffs are duly elected lawmen who believe they answer only to God. They’ve spent the last six months preparing to stop a ‘stolen’ election — by any means necessary.” [Wired]

Pull Quote

“There was a lot of litigious healing. That was the only power that we had.”

— Coni Sanders, whose father, Dave, was shot and killed while protecting students at Columbine High School in 1999, on her fight for justice and how mass shooting victims’ families seek retribution today, to The Guardian

Sunny Sone
Sunny is in charge of our newsletters, leading the growth of existing products and dreaming up new ones. They previously worked as a copy editor at The Intercept and as digital editor for the Texas Observer, and co-published a web-only magazine under the Brick House media cooperative. Sunny has covered topics ranging from the Texas funeral industry to the life of visionary composer Pauline Oliveros. They hold a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.