Madison was in the national limelight after the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School last December, in which a student and teacher were killed. Then, earlier this month, President Trump pardoned around 1500 insurrectionists, some of whom face illegal gun charges. Today’s guest, Will Van Sant, is an investigative reporter covering gun violence and gun laws, and he puts these events in context with each other. 

Van Sant says that though Trump has yet to take any particular action on gun regulation, it is expected that he will follow the gun lobby in deregulating guns or weakening the federal agencies that uphold or enforce existing gun laws and regulations, like the Department of Defense or the ATF.

Van Sant’s latest article for Mother Jones, he traces the influence of one evangelical church leader, Dale Sutherland, who founded the Constitutional Defense Fund which works to strike down firearms laws. From 2020 to 2022, the CDF funneled almost $10 million to gun rights groups and a DC Law firm, Cooper and Kirk, a prestige advocate for a number of conservative causes. That firm has filed at least 21 lawsuits since then that challenge gun restrictions, reports Van Sant.

Will Van Sant is a staff writer at The Trace. His reporting focuses on the gun lobby and related topics. Previously, he spent seven years on the investigative reporting team at Newsday, chronicling the cronyism, self-enrichment, and abuses of power endemic to government and law enforcement in New York. 

Featured image of firearms seized by law enforcement via Wikimedia Commons.

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