The Trace

The Trace Snapchat, the disappearing-message app, holds an unusual appeal for young people. Nearly half of teenagers ages 13 to 17 say they use Snapchat every day, according to a December 2025 Pew report, compared with 25 percent of adults who said they’ve ever used the platform — a decline from 2024, at that. Those stats were probably in mind when the violence prevention organization Project Unloaded launched a Snapchat messaging campaign on the dangers of guns.

The Trace In 2022, when the violence prevention organization Project Unloaded launched its first social media-focused campaign, its leaders had one goal: to challenge the notion among young people that guns make people more safe. Four years later, they’ve reached a conclusion: Social media platforms are an effective avenue for channeling public health messaging to young people.

The Trace During my summer at The Trace, I’ve gotten to dive into the world of community violence intervention. I’m fascinated by the work that CVI organizations do and how that’s contributed to lowering violence in cities like Baltimore and Chicago. One evolving facet is how we go about evaluating a CVI program’s impact.

The Trace The CDC released provisional gun death figures for 2025, and the numbers tell two important stories: On the one hand, gun homicides continued to fall from their COVID-era peak. But gun suicides continued to rise. The latter is a frustrating development. Cities like Baltimore have shown tremendous success at reducing gun homicide through a concerted effort among community members, law enforcement, and local leaders. The same has not been done for gun suicide.

The Trace Fatal shootings in the United States fell for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, according to a Trace analysis of new federal data. At least 42,348 people died of gunshot wounds last year, a 5 percent decrease from 2024, and the lowest number in six years. The 2025 data, published in August by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows that the decrease in shooting deaths was driven almost entirely by a drop in gun homicides.

The Trace Efforts to combat homemade, untraceable ghost guns have taken a turn. It’s thorny. I’ll start in New York. Law enforcement officials in New York City have reported that 3D-printed guns are making up a larger proportion of the ghost guns they find at crime scenes. Historically, most recovered ghost guns are firearms assembled with commercial kits. As staff writer Chip Brownlee reported in April, in 2021, the NYPD recovered 263 ghost guns; only one was 3D-printed.

The Trace About a year ago, Rutgers University researcher Daniel Semenza was listening to a podcast about an expansive study of GLP-1 medications when a question occurred to him. The 2025 study, published in Nature Medicine, had examined millions of Department of Veterans Affairs records to map the potential benefits and risks of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, a class of drugs better known by brand names like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound.

The Trace I met Krystal Gonzalez last fall while I was reporting a story about Juanita Agnew, a mother who became an activist after her son was killed in a shooting. Gonzalez was a guest speaker at Agnew’s community gun violence awareness walk in Baltimore, where she shared her compelling story of loss, grief, and advocacy. Nine months later, Gonzalez hosted her own annual event to honor the life of her daughter, Aaliyah. Gonzalez vividly remembers the last moments she shared with Aaliyah.

The Trace The Trace, in partnership with Block Club Chicago, is looking for a full-time staff writer to cover the impact of gun violence on Chicago’s neighborhoods. The staff writer in this role, which is funded by The Trace but based in Block Club’s newsroom, will cover gun violence, public safety and justice in Chicago.

The Trace Colin Gray, the father of the 14-year-old who killed four people and wounded nine others at Apalachee High School in Georgia in 2024, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday for failing to secure the gun used in the shooting. Gray gave his son a semiautomatic rifle for Christmas, several months after police visited their home about a mass shooting threat the teen made online.