Tag: gun violence
The Legacy of the El Paso Shooting
For almost four years, residents of El Paso waited for the gunman in the Walmart shooting to be sentenced. Twenty-three people—children, mothers, fathers, and grandparents—were murdered by a man who, according to the Department of Justice, described himself as a “white nationalist, motivated to kill Hispanics.” In the course of two days in July, their relatives took the stand at the gunman’s sentencing hearing. Francisco Rodriguez, the father of Javier Amir—the youngest of the victims, who died at fifteen—wore a
Why Are So Many Black Men Shot in New Haven?
We are all products of our environments. This familiar phrase assumes that most of us spent our youth in one neighborhood, one delimited world. But I came of age in between spaces—a white kid with a single mother who filled my life with books and worried about making her salary last the month, and a father with severe mental illness in and out of institutions, I spent my adolescent nights on a rented floor of a two-family house and
The Shoddy Conclusions of the Man Shaping the Gun-Rights Debate
Lott’s emphasis on brandishing has not diminished. In a recent interview, he said, “People have the perception” that guns are not used in self-defense. Lott suggested that the media ignore such stories. “So you’re missing almost all the cases that are out there.”
On February 1, 2003, the day “The Bias Against Guns” was published, the Washington Post ran a story headlined “Scholar Invents Fan to Answer His Critics.” A staffer at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, had
What Does the Philadelphia D.A. Larry Krasner Do Now?
Larry Krasner has been at the forefront of the progressive-prosecutor movement since becoming Philadelphia’s district attorney in 2017. Which means that he has also been at the center of an unending storm.
Krasner has faced relentless battles with the police union, other local elected officials, and Republicans who control the Pennsylvania state legislature and are now making an unprecedented effort to impeach him. He’s also won support from many community leaders and criminal-justice-reform advocates. On Wednesday he reached a milestone:
The Best Hope for Fixing America’s Gun Crisis
Even if Congress does manage to pass gun legislation in the weeks ahead—still a big if—that legislation will leave much to be done. The proposed framework does not, for example, increase the minimum age for purchasing firearms, address assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, or close background-check loopholes for secondary sales, among other shortcomings.
Americans who want a more far-reaching answer to the country’s gun crisis should look elsewhere: to the nation’s tort system, which is available right now to push
How Two Internet Nemeses Became Friends
Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.
This week she talks with two former online adversaries who became friends. They met arguing in the comment section of a Facebook forum dedicated to promoting science, where each thought the other was misguided. When they started chatting privately, and eventually met up in person, they found more common ground
The Grim Journey of the Accused Brooklyn Subway Shooter
Twenty-nine hours into the citywide search for the man who shot ten people on an express train in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning, the N.Y.P.D. Crime Stoppers hotline received a tip, called in from a McDonald’s in the East Village. The tipster was the suspect himself, Frank Robert James, who then ambled off. Photos of James, who is sixty-two, had been circulating widely. They showed a heavyset Black man with a shaved or bald head, and dark circles beneath his eyes.
Responsible Gun Ownership Is a Lie
When the coronavirus pandemic struck last year, people throughout the developed world raced to buy toilet paper, bottled water, yeast for baking bread, and other basic necessities. Americans also stocked up on guns. They bought more than 23 million firearms in 2020, up 65 percent from 2019. First-time gun purchases were notably high. The surge has not abated in 2021. In January, Americans bought 4.3 million guns, a monthly record.
Last year was also a high-water mark
Instead of ‘Defund the Police,’ Solve All Murders
After George Floyd’s murder, when sweeping criminal-justice reforms seemed more possible than ever, many Black Lives Matter activists and their allies settled on a rallying cry: “Defund the Police.”
That choice was a disaster. The slogan—shorthand for cutting spending on law enforcement and redirecting it toward social services, or, for more radical proponents, moving toward eventual police abolition—is a political liability, largely due to justified fears that, if implemented, it would lead to many more murders, assaults, and other violent