The Trace

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Our country's current state of anxiety at large public events can be traced back to a day 25 years ago that left us reeling, Jennifer Mascia writes: Since then, even though a majority of Americans continue to favor stricter gun laws, barriers to gun access have rapidly eroded in the majority of states.

It was an honor to work on this story with Rita Oceguera. Especially in this moment, as we process a different kind of mass shooting, it feels important to read this and reflect on how we think about gun violence in America — why some shootings feel more surprising than others, how we distribute resources in the wake of tragedy, and why some residents who are accustomed to daily violence feel like the world is numb to their pain.

Saturday's attack was both an assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump and a mass shooting — one of nearly 300 in the United States so far this year, under the Gun Violence Archive's definition of four or more victims shot. Jennifer Mascia reports on the latest:

Our collaboration with Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, months in the making and released this weekend, includes a segment adapted from The Gun Machine, an award-winning podcast from WBUR in collaboration with our team, also hosted by Staff Writer Alain Stephens.

Tens of thousands of former police guns have surfaced at crime scenes in recent years, records released as part of a lawsuit against the federal government show. The Trace’s Alain Stephens explains in a new episode of Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting — which details our reporting in collaboration with their team and CBS News.

"Last year, Chicagoans weathered almost 3,000 shootings, mostly concentrated in the South and West Sides of the city. So why weren’t their losses enough to move the needle in the same way the Highland Park shooting did?" When Trace reporter Rita Oceguera learned that three Highland Park survivors were ready to talk about their experiences, she was curious to hear how they thought about gun violence in Chicago more broadly, she writes in the Weekly newsletter:

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NEW: Two years after surviving the Highland Park parade shooting, Jason Rotter, Martin Rossen, and Scott Tinkoff remain haunted by the tragedy. The experience opened their eyes to just how many Americans’ lives have been irrevocably changed by gun violence — and how much more support affluent communities like theirs seem to receive in its aftermath.

Instead of the youth curfews common in response to gun violence, advocates have long urged cities to instead invest in creating safe spaces for young people. In Jackson, Mississippi, officials are considering how to do both. Reporting from The Marshall Project's Daja E. Henry leads today's Bulletin — which also features stories from Marin Cogan for Vox, Phoebe Petrovic for Wisconsin Watch + ProPublica, and Libor Jany for the Los Angeles Times.