Maddie Brown
GSW 1110
Jay Jones
December 15th, 2015
Using Central Programs in Cities to Limit Gun Violence
“It sounds like there are gunshots in the hallway,” she says.
“OK, do you have everyone in the classroom and the door is locked?” the dispatcher asks calmly.
“All of my students, the door is not locked yet. I have to go…I have to go lock the door …”
“Keep everybody calm, keep everybody down. Get everybody away from the windows, OK?”
Some staff members took shelter in the school’s main office as Lanza moved toward two classrooms where he killed 20 children and four adults. Others protected and tried to calm their students. “In fewer than 11 minutes, 20 first-grade pupils and six adults had lost their lives,” (CNN Report). This is what can happen when laws against gun control aren’t handled correctly. This shooting happened on December 12, 2014 at Sandy Hook Elementary School. This was one of the most memorable shootings in history of the 20th and 21st centuries because of the impact it made on politicians, Americans, and people around the world.
The two federal laws that regulate gun sales and property are the National Firearms Act of 1934 and Gun Control Act of 1968. Generally speaking, the National Firearms Act of 1934 restricts civilians from owning automatic weapons, short-barreled shotguns, hand grenades, and other powerful arms (Gun Violence in America). On the other hand, the Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits mail-order sales of weapons, and requires anyone in the business of selling guns to be federally licensed and keep permanent sales records (Gun Violence in America). So why are the numbers of victims of gun violence so high? These laws alone simply cannot control the mass amounts of criminal activity we have in the United States of America.
President Obama has decided that he wanted to change the way America saw the fight against gun violence. He set forth a plan of a total of twenty-three executive actions and three presidential memoranda that “bans military-style assault weapons and limits magazines to a capacity of 10 rounds… Helps schools invest in safety… and maximizes efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime” (President Obama’s Gun-Control). Even though the President is trying to fix one of the most drastic problems we have in the U.S., this act still doesn’t completely regulate the laws we already have in place. Shootings continue to happen. According to David A. Graham, a staff writer at The Atlantic, “…Obama has repeatedly called for new gun controls, those attempts have hit a wall in Congress. …of the gun laws enacted…since the Newtown massacre, more have actually loosened restrictions than tightened them. Firearm production and sales have also increased since Obama took office.” As the sales of firearms increase, the risk of shootings in schools and public places will increase. Although these laws seem to work as of right now, there could be a possible solution that reduces gun violence in the United States.
Does the fact that us Americans have gun control result in having fewer guns? Partially, but it only limits users to what they can buy. One proposition to reduce gun violence and control is creating programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods. Project Safe Neighborhoods (or PSN) is located in Chicago, Illinois and “accomplish[es] this objective through a multi-faceted approach that includes law enforcement, intervention and prevention strategies” (PSN). With help from partners across the U.S., PSN is able to reduce incidences of gun violence in Chicago and other major crime cities in the country. According to the Bureau of Justice Assistance, PSN “is committed to building effective federal, state, and local partnerships; using research tools to assist with guiding local strategies and measuring their impact… and conveying [the] results to the community and the media…so they will be agents of change in their own communities”. This means that with the use of social media, the results of the gun violence can be seen throughout the community.
Creating a program like PSN would help control gun violence in a way that many people may have not thought of before. By informing communities about these heinous crimes, word is able to spread quicker and hopefully prevent these crimes from happening. Along with building relationships with law enforcement and the state, the organization would also be able to create acts that could potentially pass through the federal law and may make it through to the government. These acts would suffice as being a part of an organization like PSN, seeing a crime, reporting it, and having the right action taken for the criminal’s justice. These acts would keep these “standby” people safe while giving the criminal the justice they deserve.
On the other hand, Project Safe Neighborhoods does not quite get to the root problem of gun control. They, as an organization, don’t have the resources like law enforcement to stop these crimes from happening. Rather than creating a program that may help a topical issue towards a rooted problem, this doesn’t seem to be the case for PSN. According to experimentalists, Andrew V. Papachristos, Tracey L. Meares, and Jeffrey Fagan, “[PSN] polic[ies] can be undesirable or even counterproductive” (Attention Felons: Evaluating). Because of the lack of resources, programs like PSN won’t be able to solve the root of the problem. With a program like PSN, the same situation would occur.
With the attacks like the ones in Paris and the school shootings like Sandy Hook, the gun control laws we have in place as of right now won’t be able to control the mass amounts of criminal activity we have in this country. With the rise in school shootings and the major panic that ISIS could be a potential threat, it would be substantial to us Americans to try and change the gun control policies we already have in place in a way that would make us Americans feel safer. Although programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods do not get to the root of the problem, with a little help, we could change the United States by making it a safer place by making communities aware of criminal activity near them and alerting the authorities. That way, the authorities can bring those criminals to justice.
Works Cited
“Newtown School Shooting 911 Calls Released – CNN.com.” CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
Stray, Jonathan. “Gun Violence in America: The 13 Key Questions (With 13 Concise Answers).” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 04 Feb. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
“Summary: President Obama’s Gun-Control Proposals.” Summary: President Obama Gun Proposals. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
Graham, David A. “Why Conservatives Mistrust Even Modest Efforts at Gun Control.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 02 Oct. 2015. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
“Project Safe Neighborhoods.” Project Safe Neighborhoods. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.
Project Safe Neighborhoods: America’s Network against Gun Violence. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2004. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
Papachristos, Andrew V., Tracey L. Meares, and Jeffrey Fagan. “Attention Felons: Evaluating Project Safe Neighborhoods in Chicago.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 223-272 4.2 (2007): n. pag. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.