Gun Control Is An Uphill Battle, But Here's One Of The Rare Success Stories

In Memphis, “school officials, politicians, business leaders, preachers, nonprofit organizations and everyday residents” came together to fight crime in a strategy known as Collective Impact. Could this approach help other cities like Fayetteville fight crime?

Giving domestic workers a seat at the table elevates their voices and provides them with access to protections enshrined in labor laws. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the passage of the Philadelphia Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights extends worker protections to those previously left out of traditional labor laws. The new law, passed with the combined effort of the Pennsylvania Domestic Worker Alliance (PDWA), Philadelphia’s City Council, and the support of Philadelphia AFL-CIO, grants domestic workers access to employer-funded benefits and paid time off.

In Chicago, a white police officer shot Laquan McDonald, a young black man, 16 times, for refusing to stop. The city created a task force in the midst of an already existing investigation by the Department of Justice into the Chicago Police Department’s use of force. "The No. 1 good thing about these federal interventions is they force local municipalities to face the issue of police misconduct head-on.”

A grassroots campaign ended gerrymandering in Michigan by passing an initiative requiring districts be drawn by citizen-commissions rather than politicians. The all-volunteer campaign went door-to-door collecting enough signatures to get the initiative on the ballot and used creative voter-engagement techniques to sustain the support. Once the ballot initiative passed, 9,300 people applied for the first commission. A third-party firm ultimately selected four Democrats, four Republicans, and five non-partisan people as commissioners, who worked together very well to redraw districts.

Despite a strong gun-rights culture in the state, Louisiana law enforcement agencies use aggressive gun-confiscation laws and procedures to disarm domestic abusers as part of a wider array of protections for victims. Thanks to the work of one abuse survivor turned cop in the small south Louisiana parish of Lafourche, new laws and local-federal collaboration have spread statewide, making convicted abusers less likely to have ready access to a gun.

Since July 2019, New Zealand has held gun buybacks across the country and collected over 10,000 firearms. After a mass shooting at Christchurch mosque, the government rushed through legislation to ban semi-automatic and automatic firearms, offering owners of such weapons cash and a no-questions-asked policy. Such legislation has been implemented in other countries as well, including Australia, who in 1996 collected over 600,000 weapons.

A month after a mass shooting at New Zealand’s Christchurch mosque, New Zealand’s government has bought back over 10,000 firearms. The country passed legislation banning automatic and semi-automatic weapons a month after the event, setting aside $150 million New Zealand dollars for the buyback, and offering a no-questions-asked policy for those that do turn them in.

Rare are the days of cordiality towards opposing party politicians within American government. Specifically, a shift has occurred in which politicians no longer know each other, which can have detrimental effects on governing and deal-making. To this end, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld has recently promoted the importance of spending time with fellow politicians, in order to increase bipartisanship and function better in government. This is exemplified by his proposal and seven year old practice of “hangout sessions,” weekly meetings in which politicians with opposing viewpoints come together.

Climate change is a growing issue, but the Citizens' Climate Lobby (a group of volunteers who work to get Republicans and Democrats to work in unison) is aiming to curb carbon emissions. So far the group has had a large increase in number of volunteers and politicians joining and willing to work together.

Healing Hurt People, a hospital-based violence intervention program in Portland, embeds caseworkers in trauma center care teams to rapidly connect shooting victims and their families with counseling, housing assistance, job training, and emotional support. The program has been linked with Portland's decline in gun violence, though chronic funding instability continues to threaten its capacity and growth.