Gun Violence Persists as New KCMO Mayor Takes Office

With support for a New York-based grant program, Buffalo has been trying various evidence-based approaches to decrease violence, especially gun violence, in the city. The grant program, Gun Involved Violence Elimination, or GIVE, provides funding for police departments to adopt strategies like hot-spot policing, deterring those most at-risk, or street outreach to break the cycle of violence. While such strategies are linked to success, the process of implementing them, gaining support and trust from the community, and waiting for long-term change has proven challenging.

From city-wide efforts to faith-based interventions to public health approaches, the city of Birmingham, Alabama is taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to ending gun violence in the city. The city has been deeply affected by structural violence, racism, and disinvestment, and is applying multiple approaches, like deploying “peacemakers” that talk to residents to figure out why violence is happening in the first place. The city has also increased the number of detectives covering homicides and area nonprofits are developing counseling, rehabilitation, and job training programs for young men.

While most Americans and politicians from across the partisan aisle support universal background checks for firearm purchases, that system has shown to not be as effective as many think. Instead, states are implementing licensing systems that require individuals wanting to buy a gun to take safety courses, apply with local law enforcement, provide references, and have their background checked. States that have such systems in place have seen a steady decline in gun homicides and suicides.

Across the United States, state legislatures are passing “red flag” laws as a preventative effort to mass shootings. These laws make it possible for law enforcement to take guns away from people showing signs of violence or suicide. While there has been push back from gun-rights advocates, with fourteens states passing laws like these, it seem to be a part of a larger, cultural shift.

Raw Tools, is a nonprofit that converts guns into garden tools. The organization was created by Michael Martin, a pastor who wanted to do something after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that resulted in the death 20 children and six educators. “You’re taking a weapon of death and turning it into the complete opposite, which is life.”

To decrease the amount of gun-related fatalities, cities are focusing on joint efforts with their communities and police departments to target those most at risk for shooting or being shot on the streets. Known nationally as Ceasefire, this initiative aims to identify the individuals from this selected target group - and open a dialogue about their options and the consequences of gun-related retaliation. Nationally, the program has had some trouble sustaining when the cities rely too much on the police department, but when it works, shooting have decreased dramatically.

There is much to be learned from The Chicago Police Department's failure to regulate moonlighting police officers. Boasting the nation's weakest oversight of documenting its officer's second-shift jobs, the department has seen repercussions both in shooting statistics and tax payer dollars. It's not what Chicago is doing that is a solution, but what others are doing that they should learn from.

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.

In Philadelphia, Black Guns Matter encourages Black Americans to practice the second amendment right to own a gun, while at the simultaneously discouraging altercations with the police. This group provides resources to inform Black Americans how to protect themselves from the police or other individuals should they need to. They also mitigate tragic outcomes by preparing Black Americans for confrontations with cops.

A law-enforcement strategy known as the "focused deterrence" approach involves identifying people most at risk to commit or to be victimized by crime — often the same individuals — and hosts meetings where they are offered resources to break the cycle, or, face serious legal consequences. The approach has worked so well in places like Kansas City, Boston, and High Point, that Milwaukee is looking at how to replicate the results.