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On Monday morning, The Washington Post published a series of 3D animations to show "how bullets from an AR-15 blow the body apart."
A few hours later, a 28-year-old shooter armed with two assault rifles and a handgun killed six people at a private Christian school in Nashville.
In the wake of that massacre—the 129th mass shooting in the United States in 2023—the Post's exposé has received sustained attention, with one person calling it "the most powerful article you will read this week" and another characterizing it as "one of the most important pieces of journalism ever produced."
Noting that the lethal wounds caused by AR-15s "are rarely seen" by the public, the newspaper demonstrated "the trajectory of two different hypothetical gunshots to the chest—one from an AR-15 and another from a typical handgun—to explain the greater severity of the damage caused by the AR-15."
Then, after obtaining permission from the parents of two school shooting victims, a team of visual reporters created 3D models to depict how bullets fired from "many mass killers' weapon of choice" obliterated their children's bodies.
Noah Ponzer was one of the 26 people who were killed by an AR-15-wielding gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. The 6-year-old was shot three times.
"Noah's wounds were not survivable," the Post reported, citing 2019 court testimony from Wayne Carver, who was the state's chief medical examiner at the time.
Peter Wang was one of 17 people murdered when an attacker armed with an AR-15 opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018. The 15-year-old was shot 13 times.
As the Post reported: "The combined energy of those bullets created exit wounds so 'gaping' that the autopsy described his head as 'deformed.' Blood and brain splatter were found on his upper body and the walls. That degree of destruction, according to medical experts, is possible only with a high-velocity weapon."
"This is the trauma witnessed by first responders—but rarely, if ever, seen by the public or the policymakers who write gun laws," the newspaper noted.
Instead, many GOP lawmakers glorify assault rifles, including U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), whose congressional district is home to the Nashville school where Monday's deadly shooting took place.
Another right-wing member of Tennessee's congressional delegation—Republican Rep. Tim Burchett—baldly stated that "we're not gonna fix it" just hours after the shooting.
There are more guns than people in the United States. Due to National Rifle Association-bankrolled Republicans' opposition to meaningful gun safety laws—bolstered by a 2022 ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court's reactionary majority—it is relatively easy for people to purchase firearms in many states.
Two years ago, Tennessee became one of several states that allow most adults to carry handguns without a permit.
There have been thousands of mass shootings since Noah and more than two dozen other individuals suffered gruesome deaths at Sandy Hook, including last year's slaughter at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, among hundreds of others. Research shows that U.S. states with weaker gun control laws and higher rates of gun ownership have higher rates of mass shootings.
Research also shows that gun regulations with high levels of public support, including bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, help reduce the number and severity of fatal mass shootings.
Guns recently became the leading cause of death among children and teens in the United States. A study published last year found that roughly 26,000 kids could still be alive today if the U.S. had the same gun mortality rate as Canada.
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Donald Trump raised eyebrows with a pair of posts on his Truth Social platform suggesting some type of deal he had reached with the Internal Revenue Service.
The former president criticized the purported visit by an IRS agent to Substack writer Matt Taibbi's home the day he voluntarily testified before Congress on the alleged "weaponization" of the federal government, saying the move was "just plain dangerous and stupid."
"But even more dangerous & stupid is the way they have handled me, leaking information (which is illegal!) &, making a deal & then breaking it for strictly political reasons," the ex-president posted in all capital letters. "I had a 'done deal' before running for president -- they broke it! Treated worse than Tea Party & evangelicals."
IN OTHER NEWS: Tempers flare at Tennessee Capitol in aftermath of Nashville school shooting: report
The House Ways and Means Committee issued a report in December, following a yearslong fight to obtain his tax records, that found the IRS had failed to pursue mandatory audits of him on a timely basis during his presidency, although congressional investigators produced no evidence Trump had directly discouraged the agency from reviewing his taxes.
"I could have easily made a very good deal with the IRS during my 4 years as President, but thought it inappropriate to do so," Trump posted. "Besides, I already had a deal from before my Presidency -- A deal which they choose not to honor. So now I am demanding the original deal, without late changes in the rules & regulations so that deal would be harder to make. Most people would say that after watching the Biden family take advantage of government, I should have made deal during my term. To me, CONFLICT."
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Fox News host Trey Gowdy, a former Republican congressman, slammed fellow members of his party for opposing red flag laws after a 28-year-old shooter murdered six people at a Nashville school.
During a Tuesday appearance on Fox News, Gowdy expressed frustration at the growing number of school shootings.
"It should be about solutions, evidence-based solutions," the former lawmaker said. "Suicidal ideations, homicidal ideations, mental health issues, the overwhelming majority of mass killers suffer from that. So what does that scream out to us? Red flag laws. With due process, but red flag laws."
Gowdy attributed the shootings to a problem with the nation's "soul."
"So instead of having schools where kids go to a quasi-prison, how about we do something about a culture that requires us to have schools for kids to go to that look like prisons?" he remarked. "On the other hand, we've got to have some kind of conversation about what is wrong with the soul of this country that someone would kill a child."
"I just know that we have a soul problem in addition to a violence problem in this country," he insisted.
The former congressman also took a shot at his former colleagues in Congress.
"I mean, we can put people to death with due process in this country," he explained. "But yet we got people on one political side who say you can't take firearms under red flag laws because of due process concerns."
"I mean, that's really stupid," Gowdy said of Republicans. "We can take your life, but we can't take your firearm if you are having mental issues."
Gowdy said Democrats "obsess about gun show loopholes, and that won't stop a single mass killing."
The former congressman did not directly address President Joe Biden's proposed assault weapons ban.
Watch the video clip below from Fox News.
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