Good morning, Bulletin readers, and welcome to the final edition of this newsletter of 2024. The Trace is taking our annual winter break tomorrow through New Year’s Day, and The Bulletin will similarly be on pause until Monday, January 6. (Subscribers to our Weekly Briefing newsletter will receive their first update back on Friday, January 3 — if you haven’t signed up for the Briefing, you can do so here.) For the interim period, however, we’re leaving you with compilations of our favorite stories from 2024.

While The Trace is the only newsroom in America exclusively dedicated to covering gun issues, we know that we’re far from the only ones covering it. So each year, our staff takes stock of the stories our peers have produced on the gun violence beat. This year’s library includes:

You can read the full list here.

Editor in chief Tali Woodward also took a look at stories from the past year to help make sense of the gun violence of the past year. That piece serves as a history of 2024, going over what’s changed about our country’s connection to guns, and what hasn’t; where the gun rights movement stands today; the court system’s growing power over gun policymaking; and the glimmers of hope we can look toward in 2025.

When we look at America’s gun violence, we look at ourselves. As we close out the year, a naturally reflective period, these stories help us understand where we might be headed.

— Sunny Sone, senior editor 

From The Trace

What We Learned About Gun Violence in 2024: From the maternal homicide crisis to a multimillion-dollar legal campaign against firearm regulations, our editor in chief on The Trace’s crucial reporting — and what it might mean for 2025.

The Most Memorable Gun Stories From 2024: Our staff rounds up the must-read stories from other newsrooms, including investigations that shine a light and the features and essays that show how strong and resilient people can be.

To Counter Gun Violence, He Recruits Police From the Communities Most Afflicted: As Midwestern cities reject calls for police reform, a chief deputy in Ohio is fighting for a community policing approach to gun violence.

‘Brothers in Grief’ Explores the Toll of Gun Violence on Philadelphia Youth: Black boys don’t have the time, space, or tools to grieve their losses, Nora Gross argues in a book she wrote after spending two years with a tight-knit group of teens.

When Pregnancy Makes You a Target: Pregnant people are more likely to die by homicide than any obstetric-related cause — particularly if they are young or Black. These three women are seeking justice for their daughters.

What to Know Today

Details about the shooting at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, last week have continued to trickle out. The victims killed were identified as Rubi P. Vergara, a 14-year-old student who loved music and reading, and Erin M. West, a 42-year-old teacher and mother who liked going camping with her family. Authorities are still investigating information about the shooter, who was reportedly in contact with a man who planned to attack a government building. [The Washington Post/NPR/Associated Press/CNN] 

Federal prosecutors unsealed a murder case against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The complaint includes a count of using a firearm to commit murder — for which the maximum sentence is death — two stalking counts, and a gun offense. Mangione also faces state murder and terror charges in New York. [The New York Times] 

Threats and harassment are driving local officials to quit, and are scaring off some would-be candidates, according to a new study focused on Southern California. Although research indicates that political violence this year was at its lowest level since 2020, threats against public officials, many of which involve guns, have risen in recent years and are now routine. [The Conversation] 

Baltimore is shuttering its original community-led police oversight board. The announcement came as a surprise to the board’s members, and stoked already-high tensions around police accountability in the city. [The Baltimore Banner] 

Guiding Rage Into Power, a California program to reduce recidivism, is remarkably successful at keeping its graduates — most of whom are people convicted of violent crimes — out from behind bars. A profile of one group, led by a man who was himself incarcerated for an attempted murder charge involving a gun, shows why it works. [Mother Jones] 

After trekking thousands of miles from her home in Venezuela, Arelis Coromoto Villegas finally arrived in Texas in September 2022. Less than two months later, she was killed in the back seat of a car in Dallas, a victim of a road rage shooting. Then, without her family’s consent or knowledge, county officials donated her body to a medical school, which harvested parts that hadn’t been damaged by the bullet. Villegas isn’t the only vulnerable person whose body has been treated this way. [NBC] 

Via The Weekly Briefing newsletter: An audit and tax filing obtained by a government watchdog group shows that the National Rifle Association’s revenues continued to plummet last year, reaching historic lows. The gun group has seen its clout diminish in recent years, as it’s suffered from shrinking membership and costly legal battles. [CREW] 

Data Point

$43.1 million — the amount of money the National Rifle Association spent on “legal, audit, and taxes” in 2023, according to financial documents. That’s more than 20 percent of the more than $214 million the organization spent that year. [CREW] 

Non Sequitur

The Artist Exposing the Data We Leave Online: “With projects like ‘IMG_0001,’ an online compendium of YouTube home videos, Riley Walz is calling attention to the hidden deposits of personal information that power our digital lives.” [The New Yorker]

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.