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Tomorrow marks one year since a shooter killed 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school—the deadliest school shooting since the one at Sandy Hook a decade prior. Each of these grim American anniversaries raises the same question: Has the country made progress in curbing the likelihood of mass shootings since the tragedy? Today’s newsletter will check in on a few overlapping factors of America’s gun-violence crisis.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

The first social-media babies are growing up—and they’re horrified. The second generation of school shootings The Republican primary has entered its chaos phase.

Escalating Trauma

In a new essay, the writer Sarah Churchwell summarizes what America has begun to feel like in 2023: “We’re at a point of iterated, escalating trauma: the same people being affected by mass shootings across generations.” Churchwell writes about her brother, whose elementary school was targeted by a shooter when he was a child, and who, more recently, evaded a mass shooting at a nearby Fourth of July parade—and was then forced to explain the reality of such events to his preschooler.

This morbid mass-shooting tradition can seem particularly intractable because it involves overlapping conflicts in American policy, culture, and society. First, of course, is the matter of guns. As I wrote last month, a majority of Americans support gun-control measures such as universal background checks for gun purchases, but the nation’s political system fails to enact even these popular gun-control policies because of the intense political polarization over the issue and influence of the domestic gun industry.

In my story, I cited an Atlantic essay by the Stanford Law School professor John J. Donohue pointing out the disparity that exists even between National Rifle Association leaders and the organization’s own members. “Repeated surveys show that while the NRA membership consistently supports reasonable measures such as universal background checks,” he wrote, “NRA leaders stake out a much more extreme position.”

The role of the NRA is crucial to understanding America’s gun situation, but just as important is understanding how the Supreme Court has recently altered the lines of the debate. The Court’s decision last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen changed the framework that courts use when determining the constitutionality of firearm regulations, broadening interpretations of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to protect an American’s right to legally carry a handgun in public. Although the power of the NRA has long slowed the passage of new gun-reform measures in Congress, this Supreme Court ruling makes some existing modern laws that restrict firearms liable to being ruled unconstitutional in the future.

Setting aside Americans’ access to firearms, there’s also the question of how to address the emotional or psychological ills that could drive someone to turn to gun violence in the first place. My Atlantic Daily colleague Tom Nichols outlined his theory of the “Lost Boys” last month, in which he suggests that a scourge of male narcissism is likely to blame:

Yes, the country is awash in guns; yes, depression seems to be on the rise in young people; yes, extremists are using social media to fuse together atomized losers into explosive compounds. But the raw material for all of the violence is mostly a stream of lost young men.

Why is this happening? What are we missing? Guns and anomie and extremism are only facets of the problem. The real malady afflicting these men … is the deluge of narcissism in the modern world, especially among failed-to-launch young men whose injured grandiosity leads them to blame others for their own shortcomings and insecurities—and to seek revenge.

Other Atlantic writers have turned their attention to the social-media ecosystem waiting to capitalize on angry young men’s worst impulses. Last year, the writer Juliette Kayyem noted that “lone wolf” shooters may act alone but often have an “online pack” of peers who share their ideology.

Last week, the sociologist Eric Gordy pointed to a lesson America might learn from Serbia, a country shocked by two mass shootings in the course of a week earlier this month. Because semiautomatic weapons are illegal in Serbia, the government was able to respond quickly, Gordy explained: “It took only a day for President Aleksander Vučić to deliver a speech promising swift action to protect public safety and to reduce ownership of illegal firearms by 90 percent.” But for many Serbian observers, limiting gun access was only the first step in dealing with a larger problem—a country where “political elites and tabloid media continue to promote ethno-nationalist resentment and hatred.”

Gordy notes that many American gun-control advocates are reluctant to blame cultural or psychological causes, rather than the sheer number of guns in the country, for the persistence of mass shootings. But he argues that it’s worth paying attention to the residents of Serbia who are arguing that “eliminating the danger of violence will also require building institutions that are truthful and responsible, and building a culture that is, if not tolerant and understanding, then at least relatively nontoxic.”

This brings us back to Uvalde. On May 8, Republicans unexpectedly allowed a bill that would raise the purchase age for semiautomatic rifles to advance out of a House committee. A likely impetus for this sudden move is, by all definitions, the very opposite of progress: a mass shooting days prior, this time near Dallas at an outdoor mall, where nine people were killed.

Related:

A firearm-owning Republican’s solutions for gun violence Mass shootings are a problem America can’t fix

Today’s News

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis plans to announce his 2024 presidential campaign in a live audio conversation with Elon Musk on Twitter tomorrow. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued a public advisory on the “profound risk of harm” that social media can have on young people. A man is in custody after crashing a U-Haul truck carrying a Nazi flag into a security barrier near the White House last night. Investigators are treating it as a potentially intentional incident.

Dispatches

Up for Debate: Conor Friedersdorf shares readers’ thoughts on the marijuana-legalization divide.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

More From The Atlantic

In Ukraine, brutality lingers. Tim Keller’s critique of liberal secularism Photos: Extreme weather brings deadly flooding to northern Italy.

Culture Break

Tina Thorpe / HBO

Read. The Late Americans, the new novel by Brandon Taylor, which hits bookstores today. Or check out another title from The Atlantic’s summer reading guide, which includes 20 books you should grab this season.

Watch. A Black Lady Sketch Show (streaming on Max). It’s the perfect mix of random and hilarious.

Play our daily crossword.

P.S.

This week is a good time to hear from America’s kids. I recommend this collection of reflections from students across the country, in their own handwriting, after the Uvalde shooting.

— Isabel

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.

For years, Republican presidential primaries have been chaotic affairs.

In 2008, Rudy Giuliani looked like a prohibitive front-runner until his disastrous decision to forsake campaigning in the calendar’s first two states (an indicator of judgment issues to come) created openings for Mike Huckabee and eventually John McCain. In 2012, things got so weird that Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Herman Cain all led the field at various points. Then 2016 was even weirder—the earliest debate saw 17 participants in two tiers—and culminated in Donald Trump’s stunning victory.

But 2024 was supposed to be different. In one corner was Trump, making his attempt at a comeback from an election loss he still hasn’t acknowledged. No one was sure whether he was unbeatable or if he was a hollowed figure, outwardly fearsome but ripe for toppling. If the latter, then the man to do it was surely Ron DeSantis, the hotshot young Florida governor who his backers believed had formulated a highly potent version of Trumpism without Trump.

[David A. Graham: The 2024 U.S. presidential race–a cheat sheet]

And who knows? That might be where things end up, but it’s not where they are now. This week, DeSantis is finally expected to formally enter the race—a leap that some people already believe is coming too late. But rather than consolidating the Trump-alternative space, DeSantis enters a race that is expanding. The growing number of candidates reflects wariness among Republicans about Trump’s weakness in a general election, yet a big field could smooth his path to the nomination.  

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina officially announced his campaign yesterday. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, a fairly outspoken Trump critic, is “accelerating” his move toward a bid, according to The Dispatch. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who earlier this month ruled out a bid “this year” (careful language!) is now acting like a guy who’s not ruling out a bid altogether. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who not long ago was publicly wrestling with the gap between his desire to run and his worry that Trump was unbeatable, is now rumored to be announcing a bid any day now. Former Energy Secretary Rick Perry is, for some reason, thinking about a third stab at the nomination. So is Doug Burgum, who you’ll be forgiven for not knowing is the governor of North Dakota.

Yes, a couple of potential candidates, Larry Hogan and Mike Pompeo, have decided against running, but the new entrants join an already large field that includes Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence (presumptively), and Asa Hutchinson. All of this happens even as Trump’s position has actually improved over the past few months, despite his indictment in New York, legal troubles elsewhere, and a loss in a $5 million civil case for sexual assault and defamation.

[Read: A bouncy, fresh brand of Trumpism]

The growing candidate list reflects skepticism about both DeSantis’s and Trump’s chances. DeSantis’s estimation has sunk sharply since last fall, as he has appeared lethargic, unsure how to take on Trump, and frankly just a little weird, and some Republicans simply don’t believe that Trump is as invincible as he looks. Perhaps this is because they think his legal troubles will eventually catch up with him, or perhaps they are indulging in wishful thinking.

Not every candidate runs because they think they can win. They could be trying to raise their profile for a 2028 run, when Trump will presumably actually be out of contention, or they could be hoping for a Cabinet role under whoever the winner is, or even a good cable-news sinecure. Another reason would be that someone is willing to pay for it. Why not take a chance to bask in attention and travel the country on other people’s tab? Any semi-viable Republican candidate has to have some megadonors in his or her corner, or believe he can get one. (Burgum is a billionaire in his own right.)

The important thing is that many major Republican donors are up for grabs. These people tend to be older-school Republicans who want low taxes, a favorable business environment, and not a lot more. They were never all that enamored of Trump, whom they found gauche and whose love of tariffs and dislike of immigration turned them off. They didn’t give much to him in 2016, when he ran on a shoestring budget and eschewed them, and although they grudgingly donated in 2020, they didn’t like January 6 and worry he can’t beat Joe Biden in a rematch.

Initially, many of them gravitated toward DeSantis, but as his polling has faded, so has their ardor. John Catsimatidis, a New York grocery baron, told the Washington Examiner that he wouldn’t back DeSantis, asking, “Why would I support somebody to become president of the United States that doesn’t return phone calls?” The financial-tech billionaire Thomas Peterffy, sounding uncannily like a Joe Biden ad, told the Financial Times he was cool on DeSantis too: “Because of his stance on abortion and book banning … myself, and a bunch of friends, are holding our powder dry.” He then sent a big check to Youngkin’s PAC. The financier Ken Griffin, who’d looked like a DeSantis backer, is among those waiting. A fellow Wall Street titan, Stephen Schwarzman, wasn’t convinced after a meeting with the Florida governor. Miriam Adelson, the widow of the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has said she plans to stay neutral in the GOP primary. The Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, a former Trump backer, hasn’t committed to any candidate yet, per Puck. Larry Ellison, who co-founded Oracle, reportedly plans to put millions behind Scott. The hedge-funder Steve Cohen is reportedly backing Christie. (DeSantis did recently pick off the former Trump donor Hal Lambert, the New York Post reports.)

As long as the big money hasn’t started consolidating around a few candidates, there’s no reason for the field to start contracting. But the splintering is a reminder of why so many donors gravitated to DeSantis in the first place: because they wanted to stop Trump. The irony is that a diffuse field is good news for the former president, just as it was in 2016, when he won the nomination despite plenty of party opposition split among his many rivals. Trump is often described as a chaos agent, but he’s happy to be a chaos client, too.

The novelist, who was stabbed in New York last year, spoke at an investiture ceremony in Windsor.