PHILADELPHIA — Leon Harris, 35, is intimately accustomed to the devastation weapons can inflict. Robbers shot him within the again practically 20 years in the past, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. The bullet stays lodged in his backbone.
“When you get shot,” he mentioned, “you stop thinking about the future.”
He’s anchored by his spouse and little one and religion. He as soon as wished to work as a forklift driver however has constructed a secure profession in data know-how. He finds camaraderie with different gunshot survivors and in advocacy.
Nonetheless, trauma stays lodged in his every day life. As gun violence surged within the shadows of the covid pandemic, it shook Harris’ fragile sense of safety. He moved his household out of Philadelphia to a leafy suburb in Delaware. However a nagging worry of crime persists.
Now he is considering shopping for a gun.
Harris is one in every of tens of hundreds of People killed or injured every year by gun violence, a public well being disaster that escalated within the pandemic and churns a new sufferer right into a hospital emergency room each half hour.
Over the previous 20 years, the firearm business has ramped up manufacturing and stepped up gross sales campaigns by social media influencers, convention shows, and promotions. An business commerce group acknowledged that its conventional buyer was “pale, male and stale” and lately started focusing on Black individuals and different communities of coloration who’re disproportionately victimized by gun violence.
The Trump administration has moved to cut back federal oversight of gun companies, heralding a brand new period introduced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as “marked by transparency, accountability, and partnership with the firearms industry.”
The ache of gun violence crosses political, cultural, and geographic divides — however no group has suffered as a lot as Black individuals, comparable to Harris. They have been practically 14 instances as more likely to die by gun murder than white individuals in 2021, researchers mentioned, citing federal knowledge. Black males and boys are 6% of the inhabitants however greater than half of murder victims.
Washington has supplied little reduction: Weapons stay one in every of few shopper merchandise the federal authorities doesn’t regulate for well being and security.
“The politics of guns in the U.S. are so out of whack with proper priorities that should focus on health and safety and most fundamental rights to live,” mentioned lawyer Jon Lowy, founding father of World Motion on Gun Violence, who helped symbolize Mexico in an unsuccessful lawsuit towards Smith & Wesson and different gunmakers that reached the Supreme Court docket. “The U.S. allows and enables gun industry practices that would be totally unacceptable anywhere else in the world.”
KFF Well being Information undertook an examination of gun violence in the course of the pandemic, a interval when firearm deaths reached an all-time excessive. Reporters reviewed tutorial analysis, congressional stories, and hospital knowledge and interviewed dozens of gun violence and public well being specialists, gun homeowners, and victims or their family members.
The examination discovered that whereas public officers imposed restrictions meant to forestall covid’s unfold, politicians and regulators helped gas gun gross sales — and one other public well being disaster.
As state and native governments shut down faculties, suggested residents to remain house, and closed gyms, theaters, malls, and different companies to cease covid’s unfold, President Donald Trump stored gun shops open, deeming them important companies essential to the functioning of society.
White Home spokesperson Kush Desai didn’t reply to interview requests or reply questions concerning the Trump administration’s efforts to cut back regulation of the firearm business.
Through the pandemic, the federal authorities gave firearm companies and teams greater than $150 million in monetary help by the Paycheck Safety Program, whilst some companies reported brisk gross sales, in keeping with an evaluation from Everytown for Gun Security, an advocacy group.
Federal officers mentioned this system would maintain individuals employed, however thousands and thousands of {dollars} went to firearm firms that didn’t say whether or not it could save any jobs, the report mentioned.
About 1 in 5 American households purchased a gun in the course of the first two years of the pandemic, together with thousands and thousands of first-time consumers, in keeping with survey knowledge from NORC on the College of Chicago.
Harris is keenly conscious of what drives the demand.
“Guns aren’t going away unless we get to the root of people’s fears,” he mentioned.
Surveys present most People who personal a gun really feel it makes them safer. However public well being knowledge means that proudly owning a gun doubles the chance of murder and triples probabilities of suicide in a house.
“There’s no evidence that guns provide an increase in protection,” mentioned Kelly Drane, analysis director for the Giffords Legislation Middle to Stop Gun Violence. “We have been told a fundamental lie.”
File Deaths
Lower than a yr into the pandemic, 20-year-old Jacquez Anlage was shot useless in a Jacksonville, Florida, condo. 5 years later, the killing stays unsolved.
His mom, Crystal Anlage, mentioned she fell to her knees and wailed in grief on her garden when police delivered the information.
She mentioned Jacquez overcame years within the foster care system — dwelling in 36 houses — earlier than she and her husband, Matt, adopted him at age 16.
Jacquez Anlage had simply moved into his personal condo when he was shot. He cherished animals and wished to turn out to be a veterinary technician. He was form and loving, Crystal Anlage mentioned, with the 6-foot-4, 215-pound physique of the soccer and basketball participant he’d been.
“He was just getting to a point in life where he felt safe,” Crystal Anlage mentioned.
Gun violence researchers say mother and father like Crystal Anlage carry trauma that destroys their sense of safety.
Anlage mentioned she endures post-traumatic stress dysfunction and anxiousness. She is petrified of weapons and fireworks.
However she has made one thing significant of her son’s killing: She co-founded the Jacksonville Survivors Basis, which works to lift consciousness concerning the affect of murder and to assist grieving mother and father.
“Jacquez’s death can’t be in vain,” she mentioned. “I want his legacy to be love.”
His legacy and that of different younger males killed by weapons is muted by firearm producers’ highly effective message of worry.
Through the pandemic, gun entrepreneurs advised People they wanted firearms to defend themselves towards criminals, protesters, unreliable cops, and racial and political unrest, in keeping with a petition filed by gun management advocacy teams with the Federal Commerce Fee.
In a since-deleted June 18, 2020, Instagram put up from Lone Wolf Arms, an Idaho-based producer, a protester is depicted being confronted by law enforcement officials in riot gear between the phrases “Defund Police? Defend Yourself,” the petition exhibits. The caption says, “10% to 25% off demo guns and complete pistols.”
Influence Arms, a web based gun vendor, posted an image on Instagram on Aug. 3, 2020, displaying an individual placing a rifle in a backpack, the doc says. “The world is pretty crazy right now,” the caption reads. “Not a bad idea to pack something more efficient than a handgun.”
The Nationwide Rifle Affiliation in 2020 posted on YouTube a four-minute video of a Black girl holding a rifle and telling viewers they want a gun within the pandemic. “You might be stockpiling up on food right now to get through this current crisis,” she mentioned, “but if you aren’t preparing to defend your property when everything goes wrong, you’re really just stockpiling for somebody else.”
The messaging labored. Background checks for firearm gross sales soared 60% from 2019 to 2020, the yr the federal authorities declared a public well being emergency.
The identical yr, greater than 45,000 People died from firearm violence, the very best quantity up until then. In 2021, the document was damaged once more.
Weapons bought at the start of the pandemic have been extra more likely to wind up at crime scenes inside a yr than in any earlier interval, in keeping with a report by Democrats on Congress’ Joint Financial Committee, citing ATF knowledge.
Gun producers “used disturbing sales tactics” following mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, “while failing to take even basic steps to monitor the violence and destruction their products have unleashed,” in keeping with a separate memo launched by congressional Democrats in July 2022 following a Home Oversight and Reform Committee investigation of business practices and earnings.
The firearm business has marketed “to white supremacist and extremist organizations for years, playing on fears of government repression against gun owners and fomenting racial tensions,” the Home investigation mentioned. “The increase in racially motivated violence has also led to rising rates of gun ownership among Black Americans, allowing the industry to profit from both white supremacists and their targets.”
In 2024, then-President Joe Biden’s Division of the Inside supplied a $215,000 grant to the Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis, a number one firearm business commerce group, to assist firms market weapons to Black People.
The Federal Commerce Fee is answerable for defending shoppers from misleading and unfair enterprise practices and has the ability to take enforcement motion. It issued warnings to firms that made unsubstantiated claims their merchandise might forestall or deal with covid, as an illustration.
However when households of gun violence victims, lawmakers, and advocacy teams requested the FTC in 2022, throughout Biden’s time period, to research how firearms have been marketed to kids, individuals of coloration, and teams that espouse white supremacy, officers didn’t announce any public motion.
This summer time, the Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis pressed its case to the FTC and derided “a coordinated ‘lawfare’ campaign” that it mentioned gun management teams have waged towards “constitutionally-protected firearm advertising.”
FTC spokesperson Mitchell Katz declined to remark, saying in an e mail that the company doesn’t acknowledge or deny the existence of investigations.
Serena Viswanathan, who retired as an FTC affiliate director in June, advised KFF Well being Information that the company misplaced at the least 1 / 4 of the employees in its promoting practices division after Trump got here into workplace in January.
Gun firms Smith & Wesson, Lone Wolf Arms, and Influence Arms didn’t reply to requests for remark. Neither did the Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis or the NRA.
In an August 2022 social media put up, Smith & Wesson President and CEO Mark Smith mentioned gun producers have been being wrongly blamed by some politicians for the pandemic surge in violence, saying cities experiencing violent crime had “promoted irresponsible, soft-on-crime policies that often treat criminals as victims and victims as criminals.”
He added, “Some now seek to prohibit firearm manufacturers and supporters of the 2nd Amendment from advertising products in a manner designed to remind law-abiding citizens that they have a Constitutional right to bear arms in defense of themselves and their families.”
Weapons and Race
In 2015, the Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis gathered supporters at a convention in Savannah, Georgia, and urged the firearm business to diversify its buyer base, in keeping with a YouTube video and stories from Everytown for Gun Security and the Violence Coverage Middle.
Aggressive shooter Chris Cheng gave a presentation referred to as “Diversity: The Next Big Opportunity.” Screenshots from the convention embody slides purporting to indicate “demographics,” “psychographics,” and “technographics” of Black and Hispanic shooters.
The slides described Black shooters as “expressive and confident socially, in a crowd” and “less likely to be married and to be a college grad.” They mentioned Hispanic shooters have been “much more trusting of advertising and celebrities.”
Nick Suplina, senior vp for legislation and coverage at Everytown for Gun Security, mentioned business advertising shifted within the latter half of the twentieth century as the recognition of searching declined. The brand new gross sales pitch: weapons for private security.
“They said, ‘We need to break into new markets,’” Suplina mentioned. “They identified women and people of color. They didn’t have a lot of success until the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the death of George Floyd. The marketing says, ‘You deserve the Second Amendment too.’ They are selling the product as an antidote to fear and anxiety.”
Gun producers have been harshly criticized within the Oversight Committee’s 2022 investigation for advertising merchandise to individuals of coloration, as gun violence stays a number one reason behind dying for younger Black and Latino males.
On the identical time, some firms additionally promoted assault rifles to white supremacist teams who consider a race struggle is imminent, the investigation discovered. One firm bought an AK-47-style rifle referred to as the “Big Igloo Aloha,” a reference to an anti-government motion, it mentioned.
Nonetheless, Philip Smith needs extra Black individuals to get weapons for defense.
Smith mentioned he was working as a human assets marketing consultant a decade in the past when he received the thought to type the Nationwide African American Gun Affiliation, which helped the Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis compile its report on speaking with Black shoppers.
Smith encourages Black individuals to purchase firearms for self-defense and get correct coaching on methods to use them.
After 10 years, Smith mentioned, his group has about 45,000 members nationwide. Single members pay $39 a yr and {couples} $59, which supplies them entry to reductions from the group’s company companions, together with gunmakers, and raffles for gun giveaways, in keeping with its web site.
The police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the capturing dying of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin helped spark early curiosity from docs, attorneys, and others in becoming a member of the group, he mentioned. However curiosity took off in the course of the pandemic, he mentioned, even amongst Democrats who had resisted the thought of proudly owning a gun.
“Hundreds of people called me and said, ‘I don’t agree with anything you’re saying, but what kind of gun should I buy,’” Smith recalled.
Smith, describing himself as “quiet, nerdy, and Afrocentric,” mentioned criticism of weapons misses the purpose.
“My ancestors bled for us to have this right,” he mentioned. “Are there some racist white people? Yes. But we should buy guns because there is a need. No one is forcing us to buy guns.”
‘American Amnesia’
Through the pandemic, gun violence took its best toll on racially segregated neighborhoods in locations comparable to Philadelphia, the place roughly 1 in 4 residents reside in poverty.
A metropolis report says a one-year interval within the pandemic noticed greater than 2,300 shootings, or about six a day. Most of the circumstances haven’t been solved by police.
Metropolis officers cited the growth in gun gross sales within the report: Fewer than 400,000 gross sales happened in Pennsylvania in 2000, however in 2020 it was greater than 1 million.
Gun gross sales have dropped for the reason that pandemic ended, however the hurt they’ve brought about persists.
At a convention final yr contained in the Eagles’ soccer stadium, victims of firearm violence or their family members joined activists to share accounts of near-death experiences and the grief of shedding family members.
Work flanked the stage and the assembly house to commemorate individuals who had been fatally shot, practically all younger individuals of coloration, beneath messages comparable to “You are loved and missed forever” and “Those we love never leave.”
Marion Wilson, a group activist, mentioned he believes the nation has forgotten the struggling Philadelphia and different cities endured in the course of the pandemic.
“We suffer from the disease of American amnesia,” he mentioned.
Harris was on his approach house from a job at Burlington Coat Manufacturing facility practically 20 years in the past when robbers adopted him from a bus cease and demanded cash. He mentioned he had none and was shot.
Harris had spent his youth fixing automobiles together with his grandfather, when he wasn’t in school or attending church. He remembers mendacity in a hospital mattress, overcome with a way of helplessness.
“I had to learn to feed myself again,” he mentioned. “I was like a baby. I had to learn to sit up so I could use a wheelchair. The only way I got through it was my faith in God.”
Harris endured years of rehabilitation and counseling for PTSD. As somebody in a wheelchair, he mentioned, he typically fears for his security — and a gun could also be one of many few methods to guard himself and his household.
“I’m mulling it over,” Harris mentioned. “I’m afraid of my trauma hurting someone else. That’s the only reason I haven’t gotten one yet.”
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