To Reduce Gun Violence, Focus on Gang Violence

Recently, the nation has been awash with reports of gun violence. Many readers have heard about the tragic mass shootings at Sandy Hook and in Aurora, Colorado, and, more recently, some at BYU may even have received an email urging students to watch a video on preventing gun violence on college campuses. 

Although these particular events are shocking to hear about, gang crimes and violence cause much more harm throughout the country, particularly within the inner-cities.

Gang Violence Impacts Everyone 

One of the most prominent symbols of the crisis is Indiya Pendleton, a Chicago teen recently killed in Maryland by two gang members while attending the presidential inauguration with her band.  According to Mark Memmott of NPR, the gang members thought that she and her fellow students were from a rival gang and just fired into the crowd.  This story stands as a symbol of how even innocent people have been tragically effected by gang violence.

Good Law Enforcement Reduces Violence

Although many solutions have been proposed to solve the growing problems, one of the best that I have found involves stronger enforcement of laws and a crackdown by police on gangs.

For instance, according to an article by Sandra M. Alters of Gale Research Group, in the 1990’s, gang homicides became prevalent in Boston due to the upsurge in the crack cocaine market.  To combat this, The National Institute of Justice implemented “Operation Ceasefire”,  which, among other things, included a major crackdown on the drug market and gun tracing by national officials.

Ms. Alters states:  

"The team... crafted intervention strategies to reduce gun violence.  For instance in one ... neighborhood, the street workers told the gang members to stop the shootings and give up their guns or they would face severe restrictions.  They were told that officials would shut down drug markets, serve warrants, overrun the streets with law enforcement officers...[Etc.]. When the threats were actually carried out, stunned gang members turned over their handguns, and the neighborhood became quiet."

The results were dramatic.  Gun violence dropped 70% in Boston overall, with a 71% drop in youth violence.  You can find this story here under the heading “Reductions in Youth Firearm Violence.”  Similar solutions have been implemented throughout the country.

Now communities have made tremendous progress in solving this issue.  Surprisingly, gun violence has actually decreased over the last two decades, despite all of the media hype.  According to FactCheck.org, the rate of gun murders in the US has decreased to 3.56 per 100,000 people, the "lowest rate since at least 1981."  

However, recently there has been a large uptick in this kind of crime, particularly in Chicago, where more than 500 people were murdered last year alone (Npr.org).  Moreover, each death caused by gang violence is a tragedy worth preventing.

Although solutions to this issue aren't always clear-cut, strong law enforcement has been shown to be effective in fighting gang violence, and this, in turn, can greatly reduce the gun violence in this country.