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A man wearing a COVID mask giving a passionate speech

Philadelphia's Fight Against Gun Violence, Poverty, and Crime

For decades, Philadelphia has struggled with poverty and gun violence. Social uplift organizations of the past have demonstrated that racial equity is the key.
1937 Assessment Grades from the Homeowners' Loan Corporation

Mapping the Legacy of Structural Racism in Philadelphia

An interactive data report presents the impact of structural racism on Philadelphia, mapping 2019’s homicides and present day disadvantage with 1930s redlining maps.

Presidents and Mass Shootings

How Consoler-in-Chiefs respond to senseless gun violence.

The Lessons of a School Shooting – in 1853

How a now-forgotten classroom murder inflamed the national gun argument.

Americans Don't Really Understand Gun Violence

Why? Because there's very little known about the thousands of victims who survive deadly shootings.

A Brief History of the Assault Rifle

The genealogy of a killing machine.
Pilgrims going to church armed with guns.

God and Guns

Patrick Blanchfield tracks the long-standing entanglement of guns and religion in the United States. Part 1 of 2.
A photograph of an AR-15 rifle, a pistol, and a knife in camoflage print, as well as bullets and a pair of gloves.

Give Your Mom a Gun

America’s favorite gun.
AR-15 with the American flag attatched.

The Curse of the AR-15

How the gun became a cultural icon—and unmade America.
AR-15 trigger, with banner of AR-15 on Confederate monument behind

How the AR-15 Became an American Brand

The rifle is a consumer product to which advertisers successfully attached an identity—one that has translated to a particularly intractable politics.

Jason Aldean Can’t Rewrite the History His Song Depends On

That history has nothing to do with culture wars, and everything to do with what real justice looks like in the United States, and who has access to it.
Collage showing people gathering at the site of school shootings.

The Second Generation of School Shootings

The fear that overtook us that day in 1988 was unfamiliar to most Americans. Now all too many know how it feels.
Revolutionary War reenactors shooting muskets.

“Originalist” Arguments Against Gun Control Get U.S. History Completely Wrong

Gun control is actually an American tradition.
Image of an AR-15

The Gun that Divides a Nation

The AR-15 thrives in times of tension and tragedy. This is how it came to dominate the marketplace – and loom so large in the American psyche.
Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, left, and former Chicago Public Schools chief executive, Paul Vallas. (Erin Hooley/AP; Nam Y. Huh/AP)
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Chicago’s Mayoral Election Feels Like 1983 All Over Again — But It Isn’t

Decades of failed promises have left voters apathetic or pessimistic.
Employees of print shop

Who Owns the Narrative? Texas Law Enforcement Versus Tejano Journalists

At the turn of the century, Mexican American publications paid a price for challenging the local sheriff and elements of the Texas Rangers.
Kids splash at the Rec pool on June 30, 2022. Heather Khalifa / Staff Photographer.

Philadelphia Had a Radical Vision for Its Public Pools. What Happened?

A century of battles over a neighborhood pool reveal a complicated picture, about who matters, and who gets the chance to live well in a segregated city.
Reenactment of Old West gun fight

American Gun Culture Ignores How Common Gun Restrictions Were In The Old West

A scholar of gun culture looks at the roots of Americans’ love affair with firearms – and their willingness to accept gun violence as a price of freedom.
Kyle Rittenhouse waves to cheering fans as he appears at a panel discussion at a Turning Point USA America Fest event on Dec. 20, 2021.
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Bernhard Goetz and the Roots of Kyle Rittenhouse’s Celebrity on the Right

Why vigilante violence appeals politically.
A picture of an assault rifle on a red background.

The Rifle That Ruined America

As an NRA-approved icon and the mass shooter’s weapon of choice, the AR-15 has done untold harm.
Man in American themed boxers, carrying a semiautomatic rifle

How Did Guns Get So Powerful?

Decade by decade, firearms have become deadlier—and tightened their grip on our collective imagination.
Gun rights advocates holding Second Amendment rally at which police officer Dick Heller spoke, at the State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, January 31, 2020.

The Remaking of the Second Amendment

The Supreme Court’s expanding interpretation of the Second Amendment threatens longstanding democratic authority to enact gun safety measures.
People looking down at words written in chalk on the street as a makeshift memorial of the Buffalo shooting.

The Terrifying Familiarity of the Buffalo Shooting Suspect’s Extremist Screed

The new fascists don’t wear uniforms; they make memes.
A picture of armed militias

What the Term “Gun Culture” Misses About White Supremacy

The rise of tactical gun culture among civilians reveals a new front in the U.S. battle against nativist authoritarianism.
Seized guns on a table in front of a police press conference.
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Gun Capitalism — Not ‘Ghost Guns’ or Other Trends — Is to Blame for Gun Violence

There are more than 400 million guns in Americans' hands.
Kyle Rittenhouse

Kyle Rittenhouse Is an American

Our country's legal history renders the teen's case familiar if not inevitable.
Charlton Heston (left), then president of the NRA, meets with fellow leaders Wayne LaPierre (far right) and Jim Baker (center) on April 30, 1999, ahead of the NRA's annual meeting in Denver. Around the same time, leaders discussed how to respond to the shooting at Columbine High School in nearby Littleton, Colo. More than 20 years later, NPR has obtained secret recordings of those conversations.

A Secret Tape Made After Columbine Shows the NRA's Evolution on School Shootings

In 1999, NRA leaders agonized over what to do about Columbine, paving the way for the group's approach to mass shootings ever since.
Illustration of 1844 Philadelphia riots

When Philadelphia Became a Battlefield, Its Surgeons Bore Witness

The surgeons’ observations survive thanks to a remarkable document: an eleven-page published report presented to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

How the Modern NRA Was Born at the Border

A conversation between a historian and the creator of a new documentary short about NRA leader Harlon Carter.
A man holding a gun in a gun shop.
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The Gun-Control Effort That Almost Stopped Our Addiction to ‘Weapons of War’

The 1968 Gun Control Act had the right idea — but it came too late.

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