The Shooting of Seau: How Gun Violence Induces Death and Rejuvenation Fails. CNN Opinion Series “America’s Future Starts Now”

There are people laying flowers at a memorial for Junior Seau, a professional American football player who died in a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Sandy Huffaker was pictured.

As people die and get hurt as a result of gun violence, there is always a business case for it, but it is becoming more clear that guns are the leading cause of death in our country.

As members of the public, we tend to hear about gun violence through the tragedy of innocent lives lost. But those shot who survive are often quickly forgotten.

At a 2015 event, Miyoshia Bailey held a photo of her son, and she called for better gun control. He was shot to death in Chicago. Credit: Allison Shelley/Getty

Community engagement is crucial, especially because gun advocates, members of affected communities and under-represented racial minority groups are often deeply sceptical of academic or government-funded researchers10. The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention is a non-profit organization headed by F.L.D. and organizes a national working group of researchers who are interested in violence prevention. Funding agencies are willing to support community-based research. A growing number of researchers are including firearm owners or members of community organizations in their research teams and authorship lists, but more is needed: collaborations that extend beyond academia should not simply be enabled; they should be the default.

This is a part of the CNN Opinion series, “America’s Future Starts Now”, where people share how they have been affected by the biggest issues facing the nation, and experts offer their proposed solutions. The views in the commentaries are those of the authors. CNN has more opinion.

Polls show Americans’ concerns about violent crime and guns are always top of mind. These issues certainly stick with Kathy Pisabaj, of Chicago, who was 19 in 2018 when she was shot by a stranger and nearly died.

She said that if they didn’t stay away from gangs, they would not get hurt. Every day, gun violence ruins communities and wreaks havoc on lives like mine.

I grew up in the Tamarind Avenue corridor of West Palm Beach, which is notorious for poverty, drug abuse and violent crime. It’s just a few miles from what was the “Winter White House,” or Mar-a-Lago.

Inner City Innovations: Combating Crime Rates and Gun Violence Through Mentoring Programs, Anti-Violating Workshops and Community Engagement

I worked at an emergency shelter for young people as a graveyard shift worker. My cousin, then 28, was a maintenance worker at a local nonprofit. We went on to found Inner City Innovators, a nonprofit with three initiatives.

The Hope dealer mentoring program combines individual and peer to peer mentorship with leadership development, community service and social-emotional learning. Youth ages 13+) are given someone to talk to.

We do court advocacy as well. A lot of young men get gun charges early on, at 15 or 16. Once they get in that kind of trouble, no traditional mentoring program will accept them. We work with public defenders and judges to give these boys a second chance.

Our goal is to make sure every young man in our program stays alive through age 25. The offending begins around 13 and ends around 25, when the brain is done developing. When this demographic is hard to get along with, we want to capture and stable them.

We don’t want to just keep them alive physically. We want them to be able to still be alive even in old age. We introduce them to yoga, mindfulness, out-of-the-hood experiences. When you are born and raised in a poor area, you think there is a constant disadvantage. We want to inspire them to do more.

Lack of education, poverty, and home are not sources of shame. Those are the sources of power. I want them to use these things to make better decisions in their lives.

They are given space to be involved and lead. Young people who have been through hard times want to show you they are capable when you challenge them.

We can not stop all shots being fired. But of the young men who’ve been involved in our Hope Dealer mentoring program and have firearm charges, most stay on the path we put them on and leave activities that require picking up firearms behind them.

Ricky Aiken is the founder and executive director of Inner City Innovators, a nonprofit based in West Palm Beach, Florida, that combats crime rates and gun violence by empowering and inspiring inner-city youth through mentoring programs, anti-violence workshops and community engagement. The piece was taken from an interview with CNN.

The alarming incidents of violent crime in Philadelphia were written about earlier this year. I recounted the city’s record-breaking homicide rate and shared how crime affected my two children.

A college classmate of my son’s was murdered during an attempted carjacking. My daughter, a physician in residency, was assaulted. In the eight months since I wrote that piece, circumstances haven’t changed.

My son’s friends were robbed at their former apartment during a home invasion. My daughter scolded me recently for wearing an Apple Watch while walking two blocks to dinner because she feared I would be mugged.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/opinions/gun-violence-crime-solutions-roundup/index.html

The Bipartisan Gun Safety Measure: A Case Study of the State and Local Levels of State Police Conducting and Investigating Criminal Activity in Ohio

Political implications at the federal level include the fact that most crime is prosecuted at the state and local levels. The crime issue is being used against Democrats by congressional candidates because it appeals to base and swing voters. The package of bills was passed to try to shore up the support of voters who feel House Democrats are too soft on crime or against defunding the police.

At this point, the most important thing that can be done to address the crime problem is for local district attorneys, mayors and council members to demonstrate publicly their support for law enforcement officers and allow them to do what needs to be done, with reasonable oversight and accountability, to restore order. Too many police departments and district attorney offices in the country have a low level of Morale, which leads to high turnover rates and puts the police officers and prosecutors at risk.

The bipartisan gun safety bill signed into law in the summer is an absolute band-aid. It does not address the safety of law enforcement officers, citizens and children. It is a way that politicians can appease different side of the issue, but it does not go far enough. I think we agree on more than a little something, but it is a way of saying, “Here is a little something we agree on.” A majority of residents in Ohio were in favor of background checks for gun purchases. This bill does not include that basic element.

It’s long past time to address the blatant lawlessness in communities across the country. We can do it. It requires political will.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/opinions/gun-violence-crime-solutions-roundup/index.html

A Local Perspective on Gun Violence: Launching the Lock It Up Campaign in South Carolina and Adopting the First Law in the State of South Carolina to Report Lost or Stopped Guns

The chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies was chaired by Charlie Dent, a former congressman from Pennsylvania. He is a political commentator.

We’re all tired of the state of politics in our country today. Tired of the tweets, the bickering and the polarization. And so, when people ask why I decided to run for city council as a public health researcher, I remind folks that the local level is where we can really make change and impact our community.

With our hands tied by preemption laws, which allow state laws to preempt what local governments can do, and the challenges of South Carolina’s deep red political climate, we’ve had to get creative and develop relationships across the spectrum of viewpoints around gun violence to be successful.

The Lock it Up Campaign was initiated to increase safe firearm storage. We worked with our police department and local community groups to launch a gun safety campaign. Informational materials and gun locks were given to help address injuries caused by firearms. The National Crime Prevention Council reports that 89% of unintentional shooting deaths of children happen in the home, when children play with loaded guns.

The campaign was so successful, we ran out of gun locks within an hour. Our state gun armory took notice and donated another 150 locks and helped us spread the word. This campaign wasn’t going to solve the entire problem of gun violence, but it made the statement that our city will do its part. And that mattered to our citizens.

Next, I led efforts to pass the first law in South Carolina to require citizens in the city to report a lost or stolen gun within 24 hours of knowing the gun is gone, given that South Carolina is third in the country for guns stolen out of vehicles.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/opinions/gun-violence-crime-solutions-roundup/index.html

Are Guns of War off the Streets? Aditi Bussells and the Case for ZeroKC: A Campaign to End Homelessness in Kansas City

Aditi Bussells holds a PhD in public health and is a city councilwoman in Columbia, South Carolina. She is the first South Asian woman to be elected to local government in the history of South Carolina.

Two years ago, Kansas City lost four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while sleeping, after a shooter opened fire on his father’s home. Thousands of children should not have been taken too soon by gun violence, as LeGend should still be alive.

We are making historic progress in housing access. More than 500 affordable housing units can be created thanks to the funding from the Kansas City Housing Trust fund and a bond measure will be considered by voters next month. ZeroKC is a plan to end homelessness in our city in five years.

The administration sued the gun maker in 2020 in order to stop illegal guns from flooding our streets. But the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducted a deficient investigation before granting a new license to the operators of Jimenez Arms. Because of ATF’s refusal to act, we sued the agency, too, and eventually shut down Jimenez Arms, keeping their weapons of war off our streets.

Vote for people who care for you and your kids. If your candidate doesn’t know how to keep your children safe at school or safe shopping in the grocery store, you should question whether they’re the best for your community.

Keeping people in our cities is more important than rhetoric. We are failing if people are dying from preventable causes.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/opinions/gun-violence-crime-solutions-roundup/index.html

The Quiet Base of State: Why gun violence costs the United States and why it affects families and economy, and how much it costs to lose your job

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is a member of the US Conference of Mayors Criminal and Social Justice Committee and is co-chair of Everytown for Gun Safety’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Loved ones are not unscathed. In the year following a survivor’s injury, family members of survivors experience an increase in mental health disorders, despite not being shot themselves.

The effects of injury remain for at least a year. While the world has moved on – at times to the next mass shooting – survivors are still learning how to walk again, battling demons to go outside again and suffering through their personal, slow-moving tragedies out of the public eye. This is not the tip that grabs attention, it’s the quiet base.

Even though the economic toll is very low, it is not counted. Employers lost an estimated $535 million in revenue and productivity each year with employees and dependents getting shot four times from 2007 to 2020. Add that to quality-of-life costs to victims and families, police and criminal justice costs, and health care spending, gun violence as a whole is estimated to cost the US $557 billion each year, or roughly 2.6% of the nation’s economy.

When gun violence goes away: How to stop it, how to protect yourself in the law, and how to make sure that you are not going to be taken seriously

Public health depends on the voice of the business community. The private sector has been partners in public health before from addressing tobacco to expanding health insurance.

Young people are increasingly devoting their money to businesses that embody their values. As the sheer number of people affected by gun violence grows and their demand for change mounts, companies that do something about it may be better off than those that do not.

I have been wearing a uniform for the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office for 35 years. I started as a young officer and moved up the ranks. I have trained officers on firearm safety and run a training academy for the Sheriff’s Office over the years.

Law enforcement officers must complete countless hours of firearm training prior to being certified – and even we are less accurate in a crisis situation. I’m 95% accurate on a good day, when I’m stationary in front of a target. My skill level will go down despite all my training when loud noises, sirens, darkness of night and people running at me are introduced. And the likelihood that I, or any trained officer, will hit something we don’t intend to hit goes up. This has been known in law enforcement for decades.

That’s part of the reason I spoke out last year against Ohio SB215, which was signed into law and went into effect in June. The bill removed the concealed carry license requirement which mandates eight hours of training and background checks. It also eliminated the requirement of citizens to announce to a deputy that they have a concealed weapon if stopped.

People who are 18 years old or younger in Ohio should be able to vote on age limits for firearm purchases and for people who carry a concealed weapon.

What we’re now concerned with is our own training, how to work around this flawed legislation and how to keep ourselves safe. We will keep a running account of what goes wrong, point out what could have been prevented, and pay attention to what goes wrong. We will fight to repeal this law, and we will encourage licenses and training.

All of us, as citizens of this great nation, have a responsibility to help prevent gun violence. I will speak out and advocate for sensible gun legislation. They need to talk to anyone with an avenue to do so.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/opinions/gun-violence-crime-solutions-roundup/index.html

The Failure of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to Surveill (FASTER): A First Lady Sheriff’s Perspective

A Cincinnatian for more than 35 years, Sheriff McGuffey is the first woman ever elected to serve as sheriff in Hamilton County.

Editor’s Note: Rosanna Smart is an economist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and co-leader of its Gun Policy in America initiative to understand the effects of gun policies. Andrew R. Morral is a senior behavioral scientist at RAND; co-leader of the initiative; and director of the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research, a private philanthropy that funds gun violence prevention research. The views expressed in this piece are their own. View more opinion on CNN.

The Firearm Injury Surveillance Through Emergency Rooms (FASTER) program, a 10-state pilot project launched by the CDC in September 2020, will test whether the National Syndromic Surveillance Program, which helps track urgent crises like the Covid-19 pandemic and opioid overdoses, can be used to monitor firearm injuries.

While a more detailed (and theoretically improved) system replaced the prior one, the rollout of this FBI System has not gone smoothly. In 2021, the FBI’s new data system collected crime information from just over 60% of law enforcement agencies nationwide, resulting in uncertainty about whether murder in 2021 was up 17% or down 7% from the year before.

This crumbling of the nation’s crime data infrastructure, even if temporary, could be an urgent problem for any effort to proactively intervene to respond to emerging crime trends.

Other important questions also are omitted from these surveys, such as defensive gun use, firearm storage practices, safe handling practices and training and safety perceptions.

The lowest hanging fruit to improve our data collection could be to remove statutory barriers that prevent researchers from using important data that the federal government is already collecting, such as information on guns used in crimes. Since 2003, the Tiahrt Amendments have prohibited the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from sharing disaggregated crime gun trace data with researchers.

The federal government has many of the necessary tools in place to do this and it does it well on a wide range of other problems. Shying away from measuring this problem may also make it more difficult to fix it.