Sunny Sone

1 week ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone |Chip Brownlee

The Trace More than three dozen Democrats in Congress signed a letter pressing the Trump administration to reverse its sudden cancellation of more than $150 million for community violence prevention programs, The Trace’s Chip Brownlee reported on Friday. The cuts have jeopardized at least 65 community-based programs across 25 states, forcing some organizations to consider laying off employees or closing down entirely.

1 week ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone |Jennifer Mascia

The Trace In late April, hundreds of organizations across the country were notified that the Justice Department was yanking back grant funding they’d been promised during the Biden administration. The cancellation is “highly unusual,” Amy Solomon, former assistant attorney general who oversaw the Office of Justice Programs, told the Associated Press.

2 weeks ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone

The Trace After years of convoluted legal battles, an ATF rule regulating guns equipped with pistol braces is likely close to an end. In a recent article from the Duke Center for Firearms Law, Second Amendment expert Andrew Willinger writes that the Trump administration’s Justice Department appears likely to stop defending the rule in court. The about-face means that the rule is probably going to quietly fade from view rather than go out with an uproar. Here’s what you need to know.

3 weeks ago | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone |Jennifer Mascia

The Trace A couple years ago, The Trace’s Jennifer Mascia and I worked on a piece about how mass shootings overlap. It was just after the shooting at Michigan State University, and it was prompted by the startling fact that alumni of Oxford High School — where a mass shooting had taken place just 15 months earlier — were on campus, amid gunfire once again. A Sandy Hook survivor was there, too. They are not the only survivors to have found themselves at the scene of another tragedy.

1 month 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.