iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 30/06/2026

This time next year, the Supreme Court could be striking down state assault weapons bans. The court has agreed to hear challenges to laws in Illinois and Connecticut. After relisting a bunch of AWB cases for weeks upon weeks, SCOTUS finally granted cert.

SCOTUS granted cert to two assault weapons ban cases, Viramontes v. Cook County, Illinois, and Grant v. Higgins.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 21/04/2026

Over the last two years, a murder-suicide or family annihilation has occurred 1.8 times per day on average.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 25/02/2026

The Trace has fact-checked the president’s baseless claims about violent crime and immigrants during his State of the Union. www.thetrace.org/2026/02/trum...

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 22/01/2026

The White House is touting a new analysis from the @counciloncj.org showing that homicides and crime reached record or near-record lows in 2025. But violence has been falling at a quick pace since at least 2022, when the U.S. began recovering from the historic spike in violence that began in 2020.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 09/01/2026

Including yesterday's shooting of two people in Portland, The Trace has identified 44 incidents of use of force by federal immigration agents since January 2025. That includes 16 shootings, 4 of which were fatal. Seven other people have been wounded. www.thetrace.org/2025/12/immi...

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 07/01/2026

The Trace has identified 14 shootings by federal immigration agents as of January 7. They include the shootings of three people observing or documenting ICE raids. www.thetrace.org/2025/12/immi...

ICE agents in Minneapolis shot and killed a motorist, claiming she rammed her car into them. Video showed her backing up and driving away from the agents before they fired. Local officials rejected Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s assertion that the agents fired in self-defense. “The presence of federal immigration enforcement agents is causing chaos in our city,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey subsequently posted on X.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 20/11/2025

This grant used to support things like community violence interrupters, Cure Violence, hospital-based interventions. Now, the DOJ says it will prioritize applications that directly support law enforcement and coordinate with federal law enforcement agencies, including on immigration.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 30/09/2025

The Michigan attack was at least the 20th high-profile shooting at a house of worship in the U.S. over the past two decades. Many of the shootings were motivated by hate, while others stemmed from domestic disputes or a grudge the attacker had against the church. www.thetrace.org/2025/09/chur...

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 26/09/2025

But, like manifestos, that means media — and social media — need to be careful about amplifying their messaging. "When perpetrators want attention and you give it to them, you’re rewarding them," Lankford, who has researched the "gamification" of mass violence, told me.

Chip Brownlee: You’ve written about the “gamification” of mass violence. Can you explain what that means and how these inscriptions may fit into that framework?

Adam Lankford: Gamification is taking a task and giving it game-like features, largely to encourage participation. If you want your kids to clean their bedroom, you make it a game — it’s fun and less like work. With the gamification of violence, it’s the same premise: Attackers suggest that extreme violence is fun, encouraging others to participate.

We see this clearly in the Charlie Kirk case, where the alleged shooter acknowledged there wasn’t a lot of meaning to his inscriptions. Some perpetrators have studied previous attackers and may attempt to inspire copycats by portraying violence as fun and cool.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 29/08/2025

Most of the states backing Trump’s crime crackdown have areas with higher gun homicide rates than the nation’s capital, a Trace analysis shows. At least 17 Mississippi counties endured more gun homicides per capita than the nation’s capital in 2024. Read: www.thetrace.org/2025/08/nati...

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 26/06/2025

In all, the budget would cut more than 1,400 positions from the ATF, mostly inspectors, special agents, and support staff. The DEA, which would supposedly take over the ATF, is also facing a 4.4 percent budget cut.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 16/04/2025

Just got these sick stickers in the mail. 😃😃 Thanks @wesbos.com @tolin.ski @syntax.fm

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 09/04/2025

Attorney General Pam Bondi has created a Second Amendment Task Force at the Justice Department. In a statement, she said the task force "will combine department-wide policy and litigation resources to advance President Trump’s pro-gun agenda and protect gun owners from overreach."

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 04/04/2025

Guns have been the leading cause of death for Gen Z since 2017, when the youngest zoomers were kindergarten age and the oldest could not yet legally drink alcohol. Since 2013, when the last of Gen Z turned 1, more than 64,000 zoomers have been killed by firearms. 🔗 www.thetrace.org/2025/04/gen-...

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 17/03/2025

NEWS: The 11th Circuit upholds a Florida law enacted after Parkland that prohibits the purchase of firearms by people under 21. The opinion was written by conservative Chief Judge William Pryor. This is a significant addition to a growing circuit split on firearm age restrictions.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 13/03/2025

A group of more than 60 House Democrats, led by @robinkelly.house.gov and @maxwellfrost.bsky.social, have sent a letter to President Trump urging him to re-establish the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 07/02/2025

Perhaps most notably, he’s told the AG to review the DOJ’s decisions to defend gun laws from lawsuits. This could mean that the DOJ may eventually decline to defend federal minimum-age restrictions, the ghost gun ban, and other federal laws that are being challenged in courts.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 07/02/2025

The review appears to be for the purposes of eventually rolling back Biden admin policies. Among the Biden policies to be reviewed are the ATF’s zero-tolerance policy toward gun dealers found to have committed serious violations of federal law, like selling w/o background checks.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 31/01/2025

The CDC's data portal — data.cdc.gov — is officially down. This site had so much important public health data, including data on gun violence, suicides, and injuries.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 31/01/2025

The DOJ has blocked access to the Bureau of Justice Assistance's Community-based Approaches to Prevent and Address Hate Crimes Program webpage. bja.ojp.gov/program/prev...

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 31/01/2025

The DOJ has blocked access to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program website.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 31/01/2025

The DOJ has blocked access to the Bureau of Justice Assistance's Violent Crime Reduction Roadmap, which was a "one-stop-shop" to assist local jurisdictions in developing, implementing, and evaluating community gun violence prevention strategies. bja.ojp.gov/violent-crim...

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 28/01/2025

The BSCA provided $250 million for the program, to be spent over five years, ending in FY2026. Just three years of the five have been awarded so far. Other mandatory and discretionary funding was also supporting the program, not just the BSCA.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 28/01/2025

The Justice Department appears to have archived the website of its community-based violence intervention and prevention grant initiative. The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act required a CVI grant initiative and set a baseline of funding for it through at least 2026. ojp.gov/archive/topi...

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 24/11/2024

Seems about right, based on this prefab bathroom in a Bushwick park running $2.6 million.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 21/11/2024

I wrote about this before the election. And @chrismurphyct.bsky.social told me he feared Trump may try.

“You have to open up your imagination about what a second Trump presidency is going to look like,” Murphy said. “This isn’t going to be normal. You may see him outright refuse to implement laws he doesn’t like, like the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and potentially short circuit Congress and try to impose certain gun industry priorities on the country without going through the legislative process.”

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 08/11/2024

Notably, Trump's campaign said he would use executive power to unravel as much of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first significant gun reform law in three decades — as possible.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 02/08/2023

Capitol Police say all buildings have been cleared, there's no active threat, and offices are preparing for reentry.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 02/08/2023

Staffers and others in U.S. Senate office buildings are being told to shelter in place after an unconfirmed report of a possible active shooter. Worth noting that these offices were just fully reopened to the public earlier this year after being largely closed during COVID.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 25/07/2023

So far this year, there have been at least 406 mass shootings (4 or more shot) in 42 states, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an increase over 2022 YTD. This time last year, the number of mass shootings was just reaching 370. 455 people have been killed and nearly 1,700 injured.

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 14/07/2023

live footage of me making my friends watch the troye sivan rush music video

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Chip Brownlee @bychipbrownlee.com · 07/07/2023

well i finally made it here… all on my own and no thanks to ANY of y’all prepare to be SICK OF ME jk happy to be here on my 54th microblogging site!

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