The Trace (website)

Last updated
Formation19 June 2015 (2015-06-19)
47-4175513
Location
  • New York City
OwnerTrace Media Inc.
Managing director
James Burnett [1]
Editor in chief
Tali Woodward [1]
Executive editor
Craig Hunter [1]
President
 John Feinblatt [2]
Staff (2023)
26 [1]
Website www.thetrace.org

The Trace is an American non-profit journalism outlet devoted to gun-related news in the United States. It was established in 2015 with seed money from the largest gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, which was founded by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and went live on 19 June of that year. The site's editor in chief is Tali Woodward, and it shares its president, John Feinblatt, [2] with Everytown for Gun Safety.

Contents

History

John Feinblatt said the idea for The Trace stemmed from the difficulties faced by Everytown for Gun Safety, where he serves as President, to obtain "information about gun violence". He used the example of the Tiahrt Amendment (named after its author U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt (R-KS)), a provision of the 2003 DOJ appropriations bill that prohibited the ATF's National Tracing Center from sharing its firearms trace database with anyone besides law enforcement agencies or prosecutors in a criminal investigation. [3] [4] The Amendment also "blocks any data legally released from being admissible in civil lawsuits against gun sellers or manufacturers," and was supported by the National Rifle Association of America (NRA). [5] Everytown for Gun Safety, and other organizations say that gun trace data is "important information needed for solving crimes such as "tracing guns from the point of sale to their use in violent crimes". [6]

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg had founded Everytown for Gun Safety "which was created after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 where more than 20 people died, most of them young children. [7] The editorial news director at the time, James Burnett said, "We do bring a point of view to the issue of gun violence: We believe there is too much of it. But our focus is on a related problem: the shortage of information on the subject at large." [7]

Partners

The Trace partners with other national and local media organizations, including The Atlantic , [8] Slate , [9] Lenny [10] The Daily News, [11] Vice , [12] The Guardian , [13] Tampa Bay Times , [14] Newsweek , [15] The Huffington Post , [16] TIME [17] Fusion, [18] The Undefeated, [19] Politico Magazine , [20] Essence , [21] The Chicago Sun-Times , [22] and The New Yorker . [23]

In a partnership with The Atlantic, The Trace investigated the reasons the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has an annual budget of over $11 billion, stopped doing research on gun violence. In a Trace interview, Mark L. Rosenberg, a founder of the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the division of the agency responsible for doing gun violence research, Rosenberg said that it was "the leadership of the CDC who stopped the agency from doing gun violence research. The Injury Center, established by Rosenberg and five colleagues in 1992, had an annual budget of c. $260,000 focused on "identifying the root causes of firearm deaths and the best methods to prevent them". [8] Rosenberg told The Trace in 2016, "Right now, there is nothing stopping them from addressing this life-and-death national problem." [8] It was previously assumed that the research was not being done because of a sentence in the 1996 Dickey Amendment, which was supported by the NRA, and inserted into the 1996 appropriations bill which stated "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control". [24] In 1997, "Congress redirected all of the money previously earmarked for gun violence research to the study of traumatic brain injury." [8] David Satcher, who was the CDC head from 1993 to 1998, [25] advocated for gun violence research until he left in 1998. In 1999 Rosenberg was fired. [8] Over a dozen "public health insiders, including current and former CDC senior leaders" told Trace interviewers that CDC senior leaders took an overly cautious stance in their interpretation of the Dickey amendment. They could have done much more. [8]

Themes

The Trace keeps track of NRA spending on elections. The NRA broke its own record of $31.7 million in 2014 with $36.3 million in 2016 in support of Donald Trump's candidacy for president. [26]

Dispute with Students for Concealed Carry

An investigation by Adam Weinstein, published in The Trace in 2015, described Students for Concealed Carry (SCC), an organization that supports campus carry, as being backed and influenced by the Leadership Institute (LI), an organization sponsoring conservative student activism, and Gun Owners of America, a gun-rights lobbying organization. [27] [28] [29] SCC, in turn, denied being founded by or receiving regular funding from outside groups, claiming that the organization is student-run while also acknowledging ties to other gun-rights organizations and saying that some campus chapters received grants from the Leadership Institute. [28] [29] [30]

The Gunfighters

NPR described The Trace as an independent journalism organization "dedicated to covering America's gun violence crisis." [31]

Mike Spies, who has been reporting on the gun lobby since 2015, wrote a series called "The Gunfighters", which investigated the influence of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) on state gun policy and politics, [31] including the NRA's promotion of a grading system for lawmakers from A+ to F (published in an article with the New York Daily News), [32] and the role of the NRA and NRA lobbyists such as Marion Hammer in opposing proposed legislation requiring the safe storage of weapons and in promoting "stand-your-ground" legislation. [33] [34]

In articles in 2016, Spies described how the NRA began to use their scoring system to influence judicial nominations. The first attempt was during the confirmation proceedings of Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2009 at the request of Mitch McConnell and again in 2010 with Elena Kagan. In 2011, the NRA opposed Caitlin Halligan's nomination to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and as a result, Senate Republicans blocked her confirmation. In 2016, the NRA opposed the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court because he did not "respect the individual right to bear arms" - in 2007, Garland had "cast a vote in favor of allowing his court to review a crucial opinion by a three-judge panel that had found D.C.'s handgun ban unconstitutional." [35] This article was cited in The Second Amendment and Gun Control: Freedom, Fear, and the American Constitution which presented both sides of the debate between those who "favour more gun controls and those who would prefer fewer of them." [36]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</span> United States government public health agency to people

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Rifle Association</span> American nonprofit organization

The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent gun rights lobbying organization while continuing to teach firearm safety and competency. The organization also publishes several magazines and sponsors competitive marksmanship events. According to the NRA, it had nearly 5 million members as of December 2018, though that figure has not been independently confirmed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gun politics in the United States</span> Political concern

Gun politics is defined in the United States by two primary opposing ideologies concerning the private ownership of firearms. Those who advocate for gun control support increasingly restrictive regulation of gun ownership; those who advocate for gun rights oppose increased restriction, or support the liberalization of gun ownership. These groups typically disagree on the interpretation of the text, history and tradition of the laws and judicial opinions concerning gun ownership in the United States and the meaning of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. American gun politics involves these groups' further disagreement concerning the role of firearms in public safety, the studied effects of ownership of firearms on public health and safety, and the role of guns in national and state crime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jay Dickey</span> American politician (1939–2017)

Jay Woodson Dickey Jr., was a Republican U.S. Representative for Arkansas's 4th congressional district from 1993 to 2001. The amendment known as the Dickey Amendment (1996) blocks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from funding injury prevention research that might promote gun control, and the Dickey–Wicker Amendment (1995) prohibits federal funds to be spent on research that involves the destruction of a human embryo.

The Violence Policy Center (VPC) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eddie Eagle</span> Program and character developed by the National Rifle Association of America

The Eddie Eagle GunSafe program and its namesake character were developed in 1988 by the National Rifle Association of America for children who are generally considered too young to be allowed to handle firearms. The Eddie Eagle program is intended for children of any age from pre-school through fourth grade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Hunters and Shooters Association</span> American non-profit organization

The American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA) was a United States-based non-profit 501(c)(4) organization which operated from 2005 to 2010. The group described itself as a national grassroots organization for responsible gun ownership and advocated for increased gun control. The organization's president, Ray Schoenke, said the AHSA was intended to bridge the gap between urban liberals and rural gun owners, but closed down due to a lack of support from the Obama administration.

Marion P. Hammer is an American gun advocate and lobbyist who was the first female president of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), from 1995 to 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1999 Missouri Proposition B</span>

Proposition B in Missouri was a failed 1999 ballot measure that would have required local police authorities to issue concealed weapons permits to eligible citizens. It was a contentious issue and was narrowly rejected at the time by the electorate, but the legislature later approved similar legislation in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gun violence in the United States</span> Phenomenon of gun violence in the United States

Gun violence is a term of political, economic and sociological interest referring to the tens of thousands of annual firearms-related deaths and injuries occurring in the United States. In 2022, up to 100 daily fatalities and hundreds of daily injuries were attributable to gun violence in the United States. In 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics reported 38,390 deaths by firearm, of which 24,432 were suicides. The national rate of firearm deaths rose from 10.3 people for every 100,000 in 1999 to 11.9 people per 100,000 in 2018, equating to over 109 daily deaths. In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicides, and 11,078 firearm-related homicides in the U.S. In 2010, 358 murders were reported involving a rifle while 6,009 were reported involving a handgun; another 1,939 were reported with an unspecified type of firearm. In 2011, a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were committed with a firearm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Everytown for Gun Safety</span> United States gun control advocacy organization

Everytown for Gun Safety is an American nonprofit organization which advocates for gun control and against gun violence. Everytown was formed in 2013 due to a merger between Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Giffords is an American advocacy and research organization focused on promoting gun control. The organization draws its name from one of its co-founders, Gabby Giffords, a former Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Giffords was shot along with 18 others at a constituent meeting in Tucson in 2011. The organization has three parts: a 501(c)(4) lobbying arm, a 501(c)(3) research arm, and a super PAC. It was previously known in a different configuration as Americans for Responsible Solutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shannon Watts</span> American gun violence prevention activist (born 1971)

Shannon Watts is an American gun violence prevention activist and the founder of Moms Demand Action. Watts has campaigned for a number of gun control candidates across the country, including President Joe Biden. In 2016, Watts became a board member of Emerge America. Watts also serves on the board of Advance Peace and Urban Peace Institute.

Mark L. Rosenberg is an American physician and public health researcher. He joined the Task Force for Global Health in 1999, retiring as president and CEO in 2016. Rosenberg also served as Assistant Surgeon General and as Rear Admiral in the United States Public Health Service from 1995 to 2000. He has served on the faculty at Morehouse School of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, and the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. He previously worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for approximately 20 years, dealing with eradication of smallpox, HIV/AIDS and enteric diseases. He also helped oversee research on gun violence through the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC).

The Dickey Amendment is a provision first inserted as a rider into the 1997 omnibus spending bill of the United States federal government that mandated that "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control." In the same spending bill, Congress earmarked $2.6 million from the CDC's budget, the exact amount that had previously been allocated to the agency for firearms research the previous year, for traumatic brain injury-related research.

A child access prevention law makes it illegal for an adult to keep a gun in a place and manner so that a child can easily access and fire it. Proponents of these laws, such as the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in the United States, argue that they are effective at reducing accidental gun deaths among children, since they reduce accessibility and thereby risk. The National Rifle Association of America has lobbied against such laws, arguing that they are ineffective and infringe on the rights of gun owners to protect their homes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red flag law</span> American gun control law that permits temporary seizure of firearms

In the United States, a red flag law is a gun law that permits a state court to order the temporary seizure of firearms from a person who they believe may present a danger. A judge makes the determination to issue the order based on statements and actions made by the gun owner in question. Refusal to comply with the order is punishable as a criminal offense. After a set time, the guns are returned to the person from whom they were seized unless another court hearing extends the period of confiscation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 United States gun violence protests</span>

In 2018, protests against gun violence in the United States increased after a series of mass shootings, most notably at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14 that year. An organized protest in the form of a national school walkout occurred on March 14. March for Our Lives was held on March 24. Another major demonstration occurred April 20, 2018.

The Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) is the political action committee (PAC) of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA). The Fund contributes money to political campaigns of candidates endorsed by the NRA.

Gays Against Guns (GAG) is a direct action group of LGBTQ people committed to ending gun violence through nonviolent means, civil disobedience, and activism. The group was founded by Kevin Hertzog, Brian Worth and John Grauwiler in 2016, as a result of the Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando, Florida which had killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a mass shooting. It is the deadliest incident of violence against LGBTQ people in U.S. history and the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "About The Trace". TheTrace.org. Retrieved 22 June 2023.
  2. 1 2 McCambridge, Ruth (5 June 2019). "An Exposé of the Evident: Conservative Blog Takes On "The Trace"". NonProfit Quarterly. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  3. ↑ Knight, Heather (19 June 2007). "Mayors Fight Gun Measure". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 20 October 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  4. ↑ Grimaldi, James V.; Horwitz, Sari (24 October 2010). "Industry pressure hides gun traces, protects dealers from public scrutiny". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on 4 November 2010. Retrieved 24 May 2023.
  5. ↑ "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - Series | Comedy Central Official Site". The Daily Show. 30 September 2016. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  6. ↑ Calderone, Michael (16 June 2015). "The Trace, Bloomberg-Backed Journalism Startup, Tackles Gun Violence 'Epidemic'". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 21 February 2018. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  7. 1 2 Haberman, Maggie (19 June 2015). "Bloomberg's Gun-Control Group Funds News Site After Shooting". New York Times. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Masters, Kate (5 April 2016). "Why Did the CDC Stop Researching Gun Violence?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 21 February 2018. The agency's former leaders say it could do more to explore the subject, but its officials fear political—and personal—retribution.
  9. ↑ Kirk, Chris; Yablon, Alex (31 December 2015). "There Have Been 32,000 Reported Shootings in the Past Year. How Many Happened in Your Neighborhood?". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  10. ↑ Li, Olivia (17 February 2016). "Will the Supreme Court Let These Domestic Abusers Get Their Guns Back?". Lenny Letter. Archived from the original on 16 March 2016. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  11. ↑ Ryley, Sarah (19 May 2016). "NRA is now almost entirely a pro-Republican group, spending more money than ever to ensure Congress doesn't enact any gun safety laws". New York Daily News . Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  12. ↑ Stephens, Alain; Hamilton, Keegan (24 March 2022). "Tiny 'Glock Switches' Have Quietly Flooded the US With Deadly Machine Guns". Vice . Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  13. ↑ Brocklin, Elizabeth Van (17 October 2016). "'Scared straight' programs divide parents as kids see gruesome results of violence". The Guardian . ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  14. ↑ Spies, Mike (18 April 2016). "Swiftmud dropped gun club lawsuit one day after lawmaker sent NRA-crafted dismissal plan, records show". Tampa Bay Times . Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  15. ↑ Spies, Mike (10 October 2016). "When Kids Pull the Trigger, Who is Responsible?". Newsweek . Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  16. ↑ Kasana, Mehreen (11 December 2015). "What Kind Of Person Calls A Mass Shooting A Hoax?". HuffPost . Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  17. ↑ Rowell, Leighton; Chambers, Dustin (6 October 2016). "The Little Superheroes of Townville". TIME . Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  18. ↑ Yablon, Alex (5 December 2016). "America's obsession with powerful handguns is giving criminals deadlier tools". Fusion. Archived from the original on 7 February 2017. Retrieved 29 February 2024.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  19. ↑ Yablon, Alex (7 September 2016). "Watched By 2,000 Cops, Rattled By Two More Fatal Shootings, J'ouvert Revelers Take Stock". Andscape. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  20. ↑ Obbie, Mark (7 September 2017). "Why Jeff Sessions' Recycled Crime-Fighting Strategy Is Doomed to Fail". Politico Magazine . Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  21. ↑ Dukmasova, Maya (27 October 2020). "A Young Chicago Woman Has Lost 23 Loved Ones to Gun Violence and Wants You To See Their Faces". Essence . Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  22. ↑ Givens, Ann (17 February 2017). "Remaining violence interrupters still trying to make a difference". Chicago Sun Times . Archived from the original on 18 February 2017. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  23. ↑ Kohrman, Miles (4 October 2017). "The Las Vegas Shooter's Accessories". The New Yorker . Retrieved 27 February 2018.
  24. ↑ "Public Law 104–208" (PDF). Congressional Record. 30 September 1996. ... none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.
  25. ↑ Office of Public Health and Science (January 4, 2007). "David Satcher (1998-2002)". U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Archived from the original on 5 December 2007. Retrieved 17 January 2008.
  26. ↑ Friedman, Dan (12 October 2016). "The NRA Has Broken Its Record for Election Spending". The Trace. Retrieved 20 February 2018. The gun group's 2016 outlay in support of Republican candidates has already surpassed what it spent two years ago.
  27. ↑ "The Secret History of the Campus Carry Movement". The Trace. 5 July 2015. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  28. 1 2 Max Kutner (17 January 2016). "Texas universities are bracing for the start of campus carry". Newsweek.
  29. 1 2 Flynn, Meagan (4 April 2016). "War Between Pro, Anti-Campus Carry Groups Gets Personal". Houston Press. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
  30. ↑ "SCC makes anti-campus carry conspiracy theorists an offer they can't refuse". concealedcampus.org. 3 March 2016. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  31. 1 2 Gross, Terry; Spies, Mike (5 October 2017). "NRA-Backed Gun Laws Have Found Success In State Legislatures Across The U.S". NPR. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  32. ↑ Spies, Mike (4 November 2016). "The NRA's Straight-A Student". The Gunfighters. Archived from the original on 5 November 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  33. ↑ Spies, Mike (13 October 2016). "Academic Who Helped Design the NRA's Child Gun Safety Program Says the Group Is Misusing It". The Gunfighters. The Trace. Archived from the original on 16 October 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  34. ↑ Spies, Mike (10 October 2016). "MaKayla Dyer Lost Her Life Over a Puppy. Her Grieving Mother Lost to the NRA". The Gunfighters. The Trace. Archived from the original on 29 January 2017. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  35. ↑ Spies, Mike (17 March 2016). "The NRA's New Playbook for Making Gun-Grabbers Out of Democratic Nominees". The Trace. Retrieved 20 February 2018. The gun-rights group mines the histories of the president's judicial nominees for anything that resembles a stance on firearms, and finds a way to use it against them.
  36. ↑ Yuill, Kevin; Street, Joe (12 September 2017). The Second Amendment and Gun Control: Freedom, Fear, and the American Constitution. Routledge. p. 159. ISBN   9781351783347.

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