GOOD MORNING, CONSORTIUM MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE CONSORTIUM,

As detailed in our updates below, Consortium-developed and recommended approaches to preventing gun violence have been receiving attention on the national stage, including extreme risk protection orders and lethal means safety counseling. The job’s far from finished, but these latest updates are the products of years of research, policy development, consensus building, advocacy, and more, and that’s worth celebrating. Thank you for your continued dedication, engagement, and support of our work!

Before we dive in further, a welcome update to an ongoing story from California: The California Department of Justice announced it would once again provide the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center with access to California’s gun violence data, including full access to Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO) petitions. Background: In 2016, the California legislature established the Center and ensured its access to data for research purposes. DOJ provided the Center with data until January 2017 when then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra took over and researchers found the data increasingly difficult to access. Starting in January 2020, the Center was no longer provided critical identifying information for GVRO respondents despite no change in the statute and no explanation from DOJ. This latest update to resume data sharing comes less than a week after Attorney General Rob Bonta took over the Department and is an exciting development for gun violence prevention researchers and advocates alike.

Congressional/Federal updates

• President Biden announces executive actions: During National Public Health Week, President Biden announced initial actions to address gun violence as the public health crisis it is, including a requirement that the Justice Department (DOJ) create a model extreme risk protection order law for states to enact. Other actions included requiring DOJ to issue: an annual report on firearms trafficking, a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of “ghost guns,” and a proposed rule clarifying when a device marketed as a stabilizing brace effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle subject to the requirements of the National Firearms Act. He also announced historic investments for community violence interventions and prevention programming.
• President Biden nominates ATF Director: Consortium contributor David Chipman was nominated by President Biden to be the next director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Congratulations, David!
• The Lethal Means Training Act is re-introduced: Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (D-IL) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) re-introduced the Lethal Means Safety Training Act, based on Consortium recommendations outlined in our 2017 Breaking Through Barriers report. The  Act would require that the Department of Veterans Affairs update its existing training on lethal means safety and expand the people in and outside the VA who will be required to complete the course. Many of you signed on to an endorsement letter of this bill and Vicka Chaplin (Consortium Managing Director) and Dakota Jablon (formerly CSGV’s Director of Federal Affairs) also submitted a letter of endorsement.
• Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearing on extreme risk laws: Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Executive Director, Josh Horwitz, who also serves as Executive Director to the Consortium, testified at the Senate Judiciary hearing Stop Gun Violence: Extreme Risk Order / “Red Flag” Laws on the importance of extreme risk laws. His written testimony is available here.

New resources

• EFSGV hosted a virtual briefing on extreme risk laws. Panelists included Consortium Steering Committee members Richard Bonnie and Jeff Swanson, Consortium contributor Kim Wyatt, and Congressman Salud Carbajal.
• Center for American Progress released A National Policy Blueprint To End White Supremacist Violence. Among other things, the policy blueprint includes extreme risk protection orders.
• Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Injury’s webinar recording, Policing the Second Amendment
• The Joyce Foundation’s lunch & learn webinar series resources and recordings – the most recent presentations were Criminal Justice Responses to Illegal Gun Possession (March) and Strategies to Reduce the Lethality of Intimate Partner Violence (April)
• CDC Injury Center released three new tools, Violence Prevention Fundamentals, General Capacity Assessment for Violence Prevention, and EvaluACTION.

Judicial updates

• NYSRPA v. Corlett: On April 26th, the Supreme Court granted cert for New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Corlett, which is positioned to be the most significant Second Amendment case in over 10 years. The Court will determine if it is a violation of the Second Amendment for New York to require applicants for concealed carry licenses to have to show “proper cause” to be allowed to carry firearms in public. This is the first time the Supreme Court will examine the right to carry firearms in public places since the Court first recognized a constitutional right to own a firearm in their 2008 Heller opinion. Read more in the New York Times, Vox, and from our friends at the Duke Center for Firearms Law.

Media highlights

• Media Matters analysis: Cable news fails to cover gun violence like the public health crisis it is
• Ghost Guns: Untraceable DIY Firearms – JHU’s Public Health On Call podcast featuring Alex McCourt
• “Red Flag” Laws: Extreme Risk Protection Orders and What Went Wrong in Indiana – JHU’s Public Health On Call podcast featuring Shannon Frattaroli and Josh Horwitz
• Red-flag laws have saved lives. But they need to be strengthened – Allison Anderman in Washington Post
• Red-flag laws are great, but another available legal tool may be as effective – Jeff Swanson and Paul Appelbaum in Washington Post
• Biden faces long odds in push for more state ‘red flag’ laws – Josh Horwitz quoted in ABC News
• We can’t reimagine safety without being clear-eyed about America’s gun problem – Patrick Sharkey in Washington Post

Upcoming events

• May 6: 97PERCENT’s Gun Safety Symposium
• May 13: Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Injury webinar, Mass Shootings: Trends, Patterns, and Prevention
• May 18: Coalition to Stop Gun Violence webinar, Colorado: Making a Safer State, a discussion of CSGV’s Safer States Initiative in Colorado, working with local leaders to effect lasting change (email Sarah Rhyins for details)
• May 18: BulletPoints webinar, the first in a monthly series, What You Can Do, a conversation on clinical strategies for reducing firearm injury and death

Research funding opportunities

• NIMH: Systems-Level Risk Detection and Interventions to Reduce Suicide, Ideation, and Behaviors in Black Children and Adolescents (R01 and R34, Clinical Trial Optional) and Systems-Level Risk Detection and Interventions to Reduce Suicide, Ideation, and Behaviors in Youth from Underserved Populations (R01 and R34, Clinical Trial Optional)

If you’re in the Washington, DC area, the Gun Violence Memorial Project opened to the public in April at the National Building Museum. The exhibition is free and runs through September 25, 2022.

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