Hey, I'm Kelly McEvers and this is Embedded.

And we just wanted to let you know we are working on some news stories and in the meantime,

we wanted to tell you about this new NPR series by two reporters who are part of the Guns

and America collaboration.

That's this group of public radio reporters across the country who cover guns.

And the two reporters who did this new series are Chris Haxel and Lisa Hagen.

And their series starts at this rally in Richmond, Virginia.

It was last January.

You might remember it.

It was before the COVID.

Twenty thousand people were there.

A lot of them were armed.

Some of them were dressed like they were in some kind of militia.

And the idea was to support the right to, as they say it, bear arms.

And the surprising thing was not just how many people were there.

It was a pretty big number of people for this kind of rally.

But also that the reason those gun rights supporters were all gathered in this place was not

because the NRA told them to be there.

The National Rifle Association, the largest pro-gun organization in the United States.

The NRA had actually had its own event at the Capitol a week before this big rally.

But only a few hundred people came to that.

So what we're going to do today is talk to Lisa Hagen and Chris Haxel about their new series.

...