Covering Guns: Story Ideas

Below is a list of story topics compiled by workshop participants during a short brainstorming session at the close of the "Covering Guns" workshop:

• Gun violence as a women’s health issue
• Guns issues on the border
• Guns and gun ownership by race
• Mental health issues and PTSD in inner city communities 
• Suppressed gun violence-related trauma in young people
• Youth suicide
• Suicide by gun: patterns and causes 
• Tracing guns often-used in suicides
• Before and after legalized suicide: Did it knock down the gun suicide numbers?
• Suicide attempts that don’t end in death: People who are given another chance at life; efficacy of gun suicide
• Suicide as a public health issue; Suicide contagion
• Time to crime stories: How long after someone obtains a gun before he or she commits suicide/crime 
• A look at Las Vegas businesses that allow you to “become” a Navy seal for the day/week
• Shot spotter technology: How effective is it? What does the data show?
• Trace guns in compelling cases
• Economics discussion: costs of guns and gun violence
• Attempts at intervention and reducing the demand for guns
• Solutions-based stories: what do they mean and how would they fit within the framework of a data-driven story?
• Officer-involved shootings as they relate to domestic violence
• Differences between police forces in the 1980’s and today: The assumption is that everyone has a gun now – Does this change approaches to policing?
• A story on language and terminology, i.e. “officer-involved shootings”