Featured Story
YouTube is toughening its policies around videos featuring guns. Google, the platform’s parent company, announced Wednesday that it will ban content demonstrating how to remove safety devices from firearms and restrict videos showing the use of homemade guns, automatic guns, and some gun accessories to users 18 and older. Critics say the rules are a welcome change, but question if they will be effectively enforced. The new policies are scheduled to take effect on June 18. [Associated Press]
Law
President Joe Biden’s son Hunter is on trial in Delaware over allegations that he lied on background check forms when buying a revolver in 2018. The case has drawn breathless media attention, but it has also offered an unusually public window into the intricacies and constitutional framework of American gun law.
In his latest piece, The Trace’s Champe Barton explains what you need to know about the charges — and how the Supreme Court’s landmark Bruen decision plays into the case.
Chicago Bureau
The Mychal Moultry Jr. Funeral and Burial Assistance Program is supposed to give Illinois families with severe financial needs up to $10,000 to help bury children under 17 who were killed by gun violence. But as The Trace’s Rita Oceguera reported last week, it’s reaching just a few applicants: Almost a year after the measure went into effect, only eight people across the state have applied. Just two of them have received funds.
Because so few people know about the program, Oceguera created a guide to applying for state funeral and burial assistance. Her latest piece breaks down everything you need to know about getting support from the program.
What to Know Today
The New York Police Department is preparing to revoke Donald Trump’s license to carry a gun, according to a senior police official. The former president’s license was suspended in 2023 after his indictment on criminal charges; at the time, he turned two guns over to the NYPD and “lawfully moved” another to Florida. As a convicted felon, Trump can’t have guns; it’s not yet clear if he still possesses the gun in Florida. [CNN]
The San Diego City Council unanimously passed a measure that requires gun dealers doing business with the city to complete inspections without violations, implement security measures to prevent theft, and be uncited for selling to straw buyers, traffickers, or others prohibited from buying guns. As The Trace reported in November, San Diego’s strategy is aimed at preventing millions of taxpayer dollars from going to gun dealers who have broken the law and who could be fueling the black market for firearms. [CBS8]
The National Rifle Association got a deal when it rented space for its annual meeting in Dallas’s city-owned convention center. According to documents the city fought to keep secret for three months, the rental cost the gun group just $5,000, thanks to a $482,000 discount on the $931,990 rental, and a $445,000 subsidy to cover the remaining balance. [KERA]
A year and a half ago, Philadelphia secured millions in state funding to construct a new and improved forensics lab where police could process evidence — a project officials have pitched as a way to stem shootings. But the city has yet to choose a location, and the lab won’t be completed for at least 18 months. Gun violence prevention advocates are publicly criticizing the city as their frustrations with the slow pace grow. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
Three firearm companies — Blackhawk Manufacturing, GS Performance LLC, and MDC Corporation — have been permanently barred from making and selling ghost gun kits and parts in California, as part of a settlement with the state over allegations that the manufacturers and retailers weren’t following firearm sales laws and were misleading customers’ about the legality of ghost guns. [Los Angeles Times]
Archive
Cities, States, and Now Grieving Families Are Taking Ghost Gun Makers to Court: Polymer80, the nation’s largest manufacturer of controversial ghost-gun kits, has been sued by a victim’s parents on the heels of settling lawsuits with three cities. (April 2024)
