A Public Space That Commemorates Victims of Gun Violence

Saturday Night Lights is run by the DA’s office and aims to reduce gun violence by providing organized sports for school-aged kids on weekend nights, when crime often goes up. Active in 20 locations across the city, SNL has served over 20,000 kids in 10 years. Partners must open on Saturday nights, for at least 46 weeks per year, and provide high quality coaching. There is no formal sign-up process or eligibility requirements apart from age and participants can join on any given night. As a response to surging crime rates in 2020, the mayor’s office has committed $5 million a year to expand to 100 locations.

Chicago students organized and, for the first time, convinced the city to rename a park in honor of Frederick and Anna Murray Douglass. The former Douglas Park was named after a Civil War era Illinois senator who advocated to expand slavery, and whose wife owned slaves. Not daunted by the city’s bureaucracy, the students canvassed in their community and gathered over 10,000 signatures for a petition to change the park’s name. The campaign, which began in 2017, was much harder and longer than the students anticipated, but by forming a coalition and continuing to speak out they persevered.

Coming to terms with the past requires reexamining the way we represent both history and art. The Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA, is on the forefront of correcting the absence of enslaved craftsmen in representations of art. The museum’s exhibit on the architectural work at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home presents a fuller story by illuminating the presence and work of enslaved laborers.

Cut Bank, Montana has incorporated education about Native Americans in all grade levels with a special emphasis on and participation by Blackfeet Nation students because of the reservation's proximity. This effort is also state legislature: the Indian Education For All (IEFA) law was passed in 1999 and funds schools conducting the curriculum. Cut Bank School is special because of how Blackfeet Nation students contribute to the teaching, but students are also learning by reading stories about American Indians, learning words and phrases, talking about the first Thanksgiving, and playing traditional music.

Amidst a backdrop of growing conversation around gun control and reform, especially as it pertains to school shooting incidents, President Trump suggests the solution is arming teachers. Some schools, however, have already done this to varying degrees of success and acceptance.

Japan’s annual gun deaths are in the single digits, thanks to tight regulations on firearms. Even police defuse violence using martial arts rather than guns. Criminals use knives instead and find ways of illegally importing guns, but overall the near-taboo reduces deaths.

The effectiveness of Australia's gun laws is said to be skewed by its already declining gun violence. The effect is difficult to isolate but new research affirms that the decline accelerated significantly under new gun control measures.

More-rigorous police training, changing the way officers interact with residents, and requiring more education for cops has helped limit police shootings in Germany, Britain, Canada, and other nations. Their approaches may serve as a model the United States, which grapples with a number of police shootings that vastly and exponentially outnumber that of other industrialized countries.

Lansing, Michigan built an ecosystem of community violence intervention programs (anchored by Advance Peace and the Lansing Empowerment Network) that reduced shootings by 38% between 2022 and 2025. Their relationship-based outreach, mentorship, and victim support continue to prove effective despite federal funding cuts.

Richmond's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Oakland's Department of Violence Prevention use credible messengers, targeted intervention, and coordinated city infrastructure to interrupt cyclical gun violence. These tactics helped both cities achieve record-low homicides in 2025, with Richmond so successful it may no longer qualify for state violence-reduction grants.