Guns in Dangerous Hands
An investigative series on the flaws in Tennessee’s justice system and the victims who suffer the consequences.
Tennessee has some of the highest gun violence rates in the country, and some of the loosest gun laws. The state consistently ranks in the top 10 for rates of women killed by men. But no one is tracking how often those homicides are being committed by someone who is prohibited by law from having a gun.
WPLN and ProPublica set out to do just that — identifying domestic violence homicide perpetrators and combing through hundreds of court records — all to try to track the parts of our justice system have the power to intervene but don’t.
Series by WPLN’s Paige Pfleger in partnership with ProPublica. Research by Mariam Elba. Edited by Michael Grabell, Tony Gonzalez, and Miriam Kramer.
How we reported this
Between 2001 and 2021, more than 1,000 Tennesseans died in domestic violence gun homicides. WPLN and ProPublica sent requests to hundreds of law enforcement agencies to identify perpetrators and victims. Then, using local court records we assessed whether the perpetrator was barred from having a gun at the time of the homicide. This reporting has taken us across the state to interview survivors, families and the people who are trying to close the gaps in the system.
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