What is the solution?
The solution to reducing gun violence requires comprehensive strategies that address multiple factors, including access to firearms, mental health services, interventions in schools and neighborhoods, and adequate enforcement of existing laws.
Violence prevention and intervention programs are key in the battle against gun violence. They combine street outreach, powerful community call-ins, and hospital intervention providing survivors and families with counseling, support, and mediation.
Study after study has proven the lifesaving value of these community-based programs: in some cities where leaders have had long-term backing for their work, gun homicides dropped by almost half. But now with gun violence surging nationwide, prevention programs are losing funds, and too many violence interrupters are doing their lifesaving work without a living wage.
We need national laws that would eliminate the current inadequate and arbitrary patchwork of state laws that leave people in some states more vulnerable to gun violence than others. We have outlined a set of recommendations, including:
- Comprehensive background checks
- National regulations for licensing and registering firearms, and required training for gun ownership
- Ban on semi-automatic assault rifles and other military-grade weapons
- Investment in evidence-based community violence reduction and prevention programs
- Mandatory safe-storage laws
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