Sunny Sone

Philadelphia

Senior Editor, Audience and Engagement at The Trace

audience @teamtrace. prev @theintercept, @texasobserver.

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Articles

Why Are Kids in Philadelphia Getting Charged With More Gun Crimes?

1 week ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone |Rita Oceguera

The Trace Like many other American cities, Philadelphia experienced a pandemic-era surge of gun violence. But now, even as homicides there plummet, more children and teens are wielding guns. In 2016, only three kids were charged with homicide in Philly. By 2024, The Trace’s Mensah M. Dean reports, that figure had ballooned to 26 — a nearly ninefold increase that marked four straight years of double-digit teen arrests for homicide.
Under Trump, Preventing Pregnancy-Related Homicides Could Get More Difficult

1 week ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone

The Trace For decades, epidemiologists have known that homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant women and birthing people in the United States. But a full picture of the crisis is still unfurling: As The Trace’s Fairriona Magee reported last year, it wasn’t until 2003 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began marking pregnancy status on death certificates. It took nearly 15 years before the CDC had data from each state.
The Armed Era Is All Gen Z Has Ever Known

2 weeks ago | thetrace.org | Victoria Clark |Sunny Sone

The Trace Every generation is shaped by the major events of its time. For baby boomers, there was the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War; Gen X saw the Reagan era and the end of the cold war; millennials had the iPhone and the 2008 financial crisis. Gen Z, or people born between 1997 and 2012, has grown up in an exceedingly eventful historical moment. And for them, there’s arguably another factor at play: the proliferation of guns in the United States.
The Legacy of the El Paso Walmart Mass Shooting

2 weeks ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone

The Trace Within a day of the 2019 mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart, it was clear that the gunman — who had driven hours to perpetrate an attack that killed 23 people and wounded 22 others — had been motivated by anti-immigrant hate. Law enforcement were already saying that it appeared to be an act of domestic terror; a racist manifesto had been linked to the shooter.
A Justice Department Memo Hints at a Dramatic Shift for the ATF

3 weeks ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone

The Trace The Justice Department is considering merging the ATF and the Drug Enforcement Agency as part of a major restructuring of the DOJ, according to a memo sent by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last week.
How Do We Unravel Myths About Guns?

3 weeks ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone

The Trace Firearms are one of the country’s most potent political symbols — and one of its most divisive. When an issue becomes as contentious as the debate over guns, it also becomes deeply difficult to unravel. The Trace was launched nearly a decade ago to fill the information gap around gun violence and policy. Our work is based on respectfully dispelling myth from fact, making clear what gun violence really looks like in the United States.
How Disrupting the Department of Education Could Hurt Shooting Survivors

1 month ago | thetrace.org | Fairriona Magee |Sunny Sone |Jennifer Mascia

The Trace President Donald Trump has fulfilled his years-long promise to dismantle the Department of Education. Last week, he signed an executive order instructing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps” to effectively dissolve the agency. To entirely close the Education Department, Trump would need congressional support.
In America, Gun Homicides Aren’t Solved Equally

1 month ago | thetrace.org | Josiah Bates |Sunny Sone

The Trace When someone is shot and killed, the likelihood that their case will be solved changes based on who and where they are. It’s a complicated aspect of gun violence in America — and just looking at the national numbers doesn’t correctly contextualize the problem. The FBI estimates that police departments solve 57.8 percent of homicides, but if one were to look closer at the numbers in Black communities across the country, the percentages drop dramatically.
The Significance of ‘Stopping the Bleed’

1 month ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone

The Trace The time between when someone is shot and when an ambulance arrives is critical — it’s the moment when stopping or limiting blood loss could make the difference between life and death. The primary cause of preventable death from traumatic injury is blood loss, and gunshot patients can require 10 times more blood than survivors of other traumas, according to a 2018 study from researchers with Johns Hopkins.
What Federal Funding Cuts Mean for Local Gun Violence Prevention Efforts

1 month ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone |Mensah M. Dean

The Trace The decade opened with a sea change in the country’s approach to gun violence. The coronavirus pandemic was accompanied by a surge in gun violence that took roughly 18,126 more lives than if shootings had remained at their 2019 level. The racial justice protests after the murder of George Floyd by police sparked a newfound wave of momentum for alternative approaches to public safety.