Are the writings shooters are leaving on their ammunition and weapons replacing manifestos? Adam Lankford, a University of Alabama criminologist and an expert on mass shootings and targeted violence, doesn't think so. More likely: They're trying to make their violence seem "cool."

In the past two years, several shooters have attempted long-range assaults on politicians and government workers. Unlike many forms of public gun violence, these sorts of attacks evade most security measures, which makes preventing them exceedingly difficult.

Trace news writer @jenmascia.bsky.social debunks Trump's claims about crime:

A bill in Illinois would require gunmakers to pay into what amounts to a compensation fund for gun violence. It's sort of like workers’ comp — but for gun injuries and deaths — shifting some of the burden from victims and taxpayers back onto the industry that profits from the product.

Senior news writer @jenmascia.bsky.social compiled every active shooter swatting hoax at colleges and universities over the past two weeks, and she spoke to experts who said these incidents can be nearly as traumatizing as an actual shooting

As the Trump administration threatened to send federal troops in Chicago to fight crime, local leaders, including Governor Pritzker, responded by saying that not only is Trump not wanted, he’s flat out wrong: Chicago is experiencing a significant drop in gun violence.

Six GOP governors — MS, LA, TN, SC, OH, and WV — sent National Guard units to D.C., echoing Trump’s rhetoric about a city awash in crime. But most of those states have some of the nation’s highest gun homicide rates, with counties worse than the capital Republicans portray as especially dangerous.

In 2019, the gun industry funded a study that showed pro-gun Americans could support reforms that are vigorously opposed by gun rights groups, Republican lawmakers, and the industry itself. Those reforms include universal background checks, red flag laws, and even a gun registry.

More CDC cuts could wipe out one of the most reliable sources of gun violence data. To show what’s at stake as Congress moves to enact the agency’s next budget, @thetrace.org compiled 10 examples of how the CDC’s gun violence work has helped reveal trends, shape interventions, and inform policy.

National Guard troops in D.C. have been ordered to carry weapons. Why might that make some people nervous? Kent State.

In the 1990s, John Jay professor David Kennedy pioneered a groundbreaking violence prevention strategy. @bychipbrownlee.com spoke to him about Trump's strategy to reduce crime in D.C. and what a more effective approach might look like.

Trump claimed that D.C. has been “taken over by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals” and suggested that he might expand federal intervention to other major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Chicago. But crime is not out of control in these cities — in fact, it’s decreasing.

Gun deaths have now outnumbered motor vehicle fatalities for eight straight years, with guns killing 3,200 more people than car crashes in 2024.

June 18 was the 10-year anniversary of The Trace’s founding. To mark this milestone — a decade of covering this preventable public health crisis — we have rounded up some of the Trace stories that have had the greatest impact.

During her 20 years in the Minnesota House, Melissa Hortman had a hand in passing several pivotal gun reforms.

Trump's deployment of troops to Los Angeles harks back to May 4, 1970, when Ohio's Republican governor summoned the National Guard to quell demonstrators at Kent State, leading to the fatal shooting of students.

A Trace analysis of more than 2,000 challenges to gun laws since SCOTUS's 2022 Bruen decision found that a case's outcome now hinges on conflicting interpretations of America’s complex and often uncomfortable past.

Our reporters found police departments and sheriff's offices had resold their P320 pistols to the public after determining the gun was unsafe for officers for use.

The turmoil has caused an exodus of senior-level employees and left remaining staff feeling discouraged and destabilized, current and former ATF officials told The Trace.

The turmoil coincides with a Trump administration push to establish a process for people with criminal convictions, including those for domestic abuse, to legally own guns again.

Our investigation last year revealed that more than 52,000 former police guns had resurfaced in robberies, domestic violence incidents, homicides, and other crimes between 2006 and 2022.

Looking for data on gun violence in the U.S.? Check out our new data library:

In August, Kash Patel spoke at the inaugural summit of Gun Owners of America, a group that bills itself as a more hardline alternative to the NRA and has advocated abolishing the ATF. Patel is now in charge of the agency.

Dr. Oz had been promoter of gun safety policies supported by a majority of doctors, but during his 2022 Senate run, he refashioned himself as a staunch Second Amendment advocate. Now, doctors are worried about might happen if he's confirmed to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

We at The Trace want to know what you think about our reporting on America’s gun issue, and about how gun violence is covered in the media more broadly. If you have a few minutes, share your feedback in our annual survey:

Louisiana allows people to carry guns without permits or training, but not near schools. So, to keep guns out of the French Quarter during the Super Bowl, New Orleans moved to designate a police station as a school, saying it would host training for officers. It didn't work

Last week we updated our guns-in-circulation story with new ATF and CDC data, which puts the number of guns produced for the U.S. market since 1899 at 512 million

The Trace is hiring a News Developer for our new Gun Violence Data Hub. This person will be responsible for developing interactive visualizations, data projects, and data collection efforts. More details are in the post @thetrace.org www.thetrace.org/2024/05/hiri...

The Trace is launching a Gun Violence Data Hub! Coming in the fall, the hub aims to be a resource for journalists seeking to do in-depth, data-informed reporting. Here's the announcement: @thetrace.org www.thetrace.org/2024/04/crim...

Since the Columbine massacre 25 years ago, barriers to gun access have rapidly eroded in the majority of states. My colleagues @bychipbrownlee.bsky.social and @jenmascia.bsky.social look at the ways guns have changed the way we navigate our lives:

While the gun industry had been aggressively pushing the message that guns are the solution to an unsafe world, no one had been pushing back with the empirical truth: In an unsafe world, owning a gun makes you more vulnerable. #gunviolence www.thetrace.org/2024/04/proj...

NEWS: Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the National Rifle Association, is resigning after leading the country’s most prominent gun rights organization for more than three decades. New York Attorney General Letitia James’s case against the NRA and LaPierre is scheduled to begin next week.