From Sandy Hook to Buffalo and Uvalde: Ten Years of Failure on Gun Control
The Washington PostPresident Biden has played a central role in the unsuccessful efforts to enact significant gun control legislation amid thousands of mass shootings.
Read when you’ve got time to spare.
Another day, another devastating spasm of gun violence in America. If you look back through what Pocket readers have saved and read in the aftermath of such tragedies, you’ll find that while names and places change, and motives may differ, one variable is always constant: guns.
These are some of the key articles that Pocket readers have turned to in recent years to try to make some kind of sense of the scourge of gun violence in America. It’s a grim record, because there have been so, so many words written, and yet so little has changed. But there are reasons to see the faintest glimmers of hope in this reading list. One thing we’ve observed at Pocket is that often when people sit down to read something—not to post something to their feed, but actually read something—they are looking for answers. We can see from these stories that people want to understand why things are the way they are. They want to learn about possible solutions. They want to know how they can change things. So many people see what’s happening and they refuse to look away. That may not always feel like much in a world that can feel so broken, but it’s something to hold onto.
President Biden has played a central role in the unsuccessful efforts to enact significant gun control legislation amid thousands of mass shootings.
We guarantee that crazed man after crazed man will have a flood of killing power readily supplied him. We have to make that offering, out of devotion to our Moloch, our god. The gun is our Moloch. We sacrifice children to him daily.
After coming of age in a world wholly unprepared to deal with the aftermath of mass school shootings, an early wave of survivors is now in their 30s and 40s, grappling with the present.
Guns aren’t going away in America. But studies have found several ways to reduce the current annual toll of 30,000 gun deaths — from universal background checks to smart policing.
A mass shooting occurs nine out of 10 days in America. Stephen Marche explores America’s dueling gun cultures, from the world’s largest arms show to a family who helps victims cope.
The gun debate would change in an instant if Americans witnessed the horrors that trauma surgeons confront every day.
America’s hidden toll of gun violence: shooting victims face lifelong disabilities and financial burdens.
Lenny Pozner used to believe in conspiracy theories. Until his son’s death became one.
I grew up in a gun-loving town in Alabama. My grandfather’s store sells firearms. But only after I was shot did I begin to understand America’s complicated relationship with guns.
Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun crime in the world. In 2014 there were just six gun deaths, compared to 33,599 in the US. What is the secret?
America has nearly as many guns as it has people, yet our relationship with guns is more complicated than the data suggest.
Two summers ago, Allen Ivanov purchased a rifle and slapped a limited-edition Supreme sticker on the side. He would later tell police that he bought it to target shoot. But it was also, he admitted to detectives, a “symbol of power.”
Just after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, NRA leaders agonized over what to do. NPR obtained recordings of the calls, which lay out how the NRA has handled mass shootings ever since.
Firearms makers have resisted Silicon Valley-sponsored digital innovation that could transform public safety.
“District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized an individual right to possess a firearm under the Constitution, is unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench.”
The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. It's a common refrain touted by gun rights advocates, who argue that using guns in self-defense can help save lives. But what is the actual number of defensive gun uses?
The question is no longer "should we arm teachers?" Now, it's "how many armed teachers are already out there?"
Massacres are frequently carried out by killers using military-grade equipment that’s easier to obtain when buying on credit.
Billions are being spent to protect children from school shootings. Does any of it work?
Upping security at schools makes students paranoid and miserable; it doesn’t make them safe.