Featured Story
Preliminary FBI data released this month indicates that crime and violence are falling nationwide, continuing a nationwide post-pandemic drop in homicide and other crimes. A new analysis shows that three major cable news networks, including CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, have each spent less than 12 minutes covering the FBI report. The coverage on Fox News, which lasted five minutes over two segments, came mostly from opinion programming that argued the statistics are incorrect. [Media Matters]
From The Trace
In thousands of communities across America, children are subject to a disturbingly common form of school gun violence: shootings that take place just outside school walls. Between 2014 and 2023, a Trace analysis found, there were at least 188,080 shootings within 500 yards of a school. That averages to 57 shootings a day occurring near a school in the United States.
The Trace looked at data from the Gun Violence Archive, as well as other sources, for shootings that took place within 500 yards of all public and private K-12 schools identified by the National Center for Education Statistics — more than 148,000 public and private schools. In her latest piece, Data Editor Olga Pierce explains how we did it.
What to Know Today
A federal law that prohibits domestic abusers from possessing guns while under a restraining order is constitutional, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday. The court’s 8-1 decision in United States v. Rahimi puts to rest a constitutional challenge that threatened to invalidate a key protection for domestic violence victims. [The Trace]
The toll of a mass shooting lingers long after the news cycle has moved on. In Kansas City, Missouri, where gunfire broke out during a Super Bowl parade in February, survivors’ medical bills, along with the costs of everyday necessities like rent, continue to pile up — a strain one expert calls “victimization debt.” [KCUR and KFF Health News]
Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, introduced legislation to bar federal agencies and departments from doing business with gun dealers whose firearms are often linked to violent crimes. The nature of the bill is similar to an effort by large California cities to stop police from buying guns or ammunition from dealers who were cited for serious legal violations during inspections. [The Hill]
A shooter killed four people and injured nine after opening fire at a grocery store in Fordyce, Arkansas. The bloodshed has left the town, home to just 3,400 people, in disbelief. [The New York Times]
Violence prevention programming is expanding in four Chicago neighborhoods where gun violence is prevalent, nonprofit leaders announced at an event last week. During the same event, a representative for Scaling Community Violence Intervention for a Safer Chicago, an effort by a group of businesses to raise $100 million in private funding to fund a five-year expansion of the programs, said the initiative was nearing its goal. [Chicago Sun-Times]
Data Point
Nearly $30,000 — the increase in average medical spending for gunshot victims in the first year after they’re wounded. For children, that figure is $35,000. [KCUR and KFF Health News]
