Long before he became a cause célèbre of the Second Amendment Foundation, Donald Willey was already something of a celebrity in Hoopers Island, the small community off Maryland’s Eastern Shore that he calls home. A veteran in his 60s, Willey had been embroiled in disputes with his neighbors and the county’s planning department since at least 2003, and the state of his property had once earned him a spot on an episode of “Hoarding: Buried Alive.” He was also known to have guns, and for lashing out at anyone who stood in his way.
Susan Webb, an assistant director of planning and zoning in the county, had first stepped on Willey’s property in 2021. In two years, Webb heard from community members that Willey, who struggled with his mental health, intended to shoot her if she stepped onto his land again. She followed a government attorney’s recommendation to use Maryland’s red flag law and submit a petition for an extreme-risk protection order. When a judge granted it, Willey was briefly forced to surrender his firearms.
Then the Second Amendment Foundation, a radical gun rights organization of which Willey is a lifetime member, stepped in. The group sued Webb, the county sheriff, and the attorney general of Maryland on Willey’s behalf, portraying him as an innocent victim “relentlessly pursued” by government authorities and Webb as drunk on power. The lawsuit failed to acknowledge his prior feuds, his history of highly erratic behavior, and that he had effectively converted his home into a junkyard.
Now, a vast trove of documents and months of reporting reveals how the Second Amendment Foundation distorted the narrative to serve a larger objective. Just two days after filing the Willey suit, the group announced an initiative to challenge red flag laws across the country. The initiative’s name? “Capture the Flag.”
In his latest investigation, produced in partnership with Rolling Stone, The Trace’s Mike Spies tells the story.
From The Trace
Laws meant to keep firearms away from unstable people are under attack by Second Amendment radicals. Our investigation exposes the ugly campaign to undermine a bipartisan compromise to stop mass shootings.
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What to Know This Week
Reading, Pennsylvania, appears poised to become the state’s third city with a ghost gun ban on the books. The move comes after a Pennsylvania court upheld Philadelphia’s ban in February; a gun rights group has appealed that decision. Cities aren’t the only ones fighting ghost guns: Grieving families have begun taking manufacturers to court, too. [Pennsylvania Capital-Star]
A Tennessee law allowing teachers to carry guns in schools under some circumstances caused uproar and discord before legislators approved it. But as the new academic year begins, educators appear to have little interest in arming teachers: Not a single school system has indicated that it’s actively planning or working to train employees to carry a gun voluntarily under the new law. [Chalkbeat Tennessee]
An Indiana judge ruled that the city of Gary’s decades-old lawsuit against a suite of gunmakers can proceed despite a new state law designed to quash it. The law, passed by Indiana’s GOP supermajority this year, bans local governments from suing firearms manufacturers and sellers. In 1999, Gary’s mayor filed the suit against gunmakers that he believed were knowingly flooding his city with illegal firearms. [WFYI/ProPublica and IndyStar]
A new study of 33 U.S. cities found no statistically significant relationship between bail reform and crime rates, adding to previous research showing that bail reform doesn’t increase crime. As The Trace’s Chip Brownlee reported in June, cash bail is deeply connected to gun violence: Gun charges make up a significant portion of criminal charges and convictions across the country. [Brennan Center for Justice]
The city of Uvalde, Texas, released police video and other records that offer new detail about the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in 2022 — and law enforcement’s failure to engage the shooter. It was the first major public disclosure of documents by a government agency involved in the botched police response. Victims’ families and city officials say other agencies should follow suit. [The Texas Tribune]
In Memoriam
Ashawn Davis, 13, was a “kid people wanted to be around,” his uncle, an anti-violence worker his nephew was named after, told ABC7 Chicago. The rising eighth grader was always smiling, eminently loveable, and a friendly face to all. Ashawn was shot and killed a block away from his home in Chicago last weekend. He was a budding basketball star, loved ones told the Chicago Sun-Times, with a lot of potential outside the court, too: He loved writing, got good grades, and enjoyed rapping. He was also a typical teenager, per his mom, who said he’d eat all the food in the fridge and take over her room to watch TV. “He’d light up the room, just seeing his face, he always smiled,” his uncle said. “He was a kid who was always happy.”
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‘Very Disturbing’: Florida Teens Get Longer Prison Sentences Than Adults
“He was 17 when he was charged in Pinellas County with robbing a CVS pharmacy at gunpoint with his friends and selling opioid pills. Three years later, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison – a harsh sentence by any standard and longer than current laws would call for based on his offenses. … Children tried as adults were sentenced to a little more than three years in prison on average for third-degree felonies — around 50% longer than the average sentence given to adults for the same class of offense.” [Miami Herald]
Pull Quote
“The only way we’re going to know what truly happened is for everybody to release their records, put them out there. Mistakes were made. There’s no denying that. Take your lumps.”
— Former Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, now a Republican candidate for the Texas House, on why other government agencies involved in the response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School should release records related to police action, to The Texas Tribune
