July 2022 - INbetween Episode on Gun Violence Prevention

In this INbetween episode, host Mighty Fine provides a list of suggestions that we as public health and injury violence prevention professionals can consider and act on in regards to gun violence prevention.

Transcript

Mighty Fine: 0:36

Welcome to the Injury and Violence Prevention INdepth podcast. My name is Mighty Fine, and I'm the host of this Safe States Alliance production. Hopefully you've been tuned in and you know that this is a space where we engage in dialogue on a variety of issues to help inform you, our wonderful listeners on the latest trends and hot topics in injury and violence prevention. Today's episode is an INbetween, which is our shorter episodes that happen in between the longer ones. This is where I get a chance to talk directly to you. And I'll be focusing on gun violence prevention today. And before I get started, I just want to give a huge shout out and thank you to our sponsors for their continued support of this platform. I'd also like to take a brief moment of silence to honor those that we've lost to gun violence. Thank you for that. And hopefully, I'm not biased here. But I like to believe that we all know that gun violence is a major public health issue. We know it's a leading cause of premature death, whether we're talking about suicide, mass shootings, homicides, or other forms of firearm related violence. As we continue to collaborate to address this issue with the intention and attention that it needs, I'd like to share some of my thoughts on the way forward. And anyone that knows me, you're aware of my love of lists, I just think of it as a way to organize our thoughts in a manner, so to speak. And I've come up with 20 areas that I think we can focus on to help move this prevention effort forward. But I'll only share five today because maybe I'll share or save the other 15 for another time, or you'll hear it in a presentation or something. Just keep in mind that this is not all encompassing think of it more like a pseudo organized stream of consciousness, drawn from my experience working in the space, and the different concepts, ideas and practices that I've been exposed to. Again, no particular order, some of these you may be thinking of already. And that's great. If there's synergy in our thought process and our minds and our way forward. That's wonderful for the field. And there are things that you can think of that aren't on this list. If you see me at the Safe States Conference or some other forum or email me or address that on Twitter, I would love to hear your thoughts for it. So the first is to engage those most impacted early on and in a meaningful way. I'm talking about our community members. I heard a term recently that I loved and it's Citizen Scientists. So I think of these folks as our citizen scientists, and they know the issues on the ground and can easily be a part of the solution because they know the inner workings and the different nuances of the communities that they represent and are a part of. So let's see how we can build upon their thoughts, ideas, perspectives, and be comfortable following their lead, even though we may deem ourselves as experts, right. They certainly have expertise to we should be providing support and space for them to elevate their thoughts and ideas. And this is thinking of our youth, our seniors, folks in between, and certainly engaging survivors of violence in those impacted by violence. I think that's just prudent for us all. The second one is to prioritize health equity. Some communities we know have a disproportionate burden of violence, particularly our communities with more people of color living in them. And we know that's not by happenstance, but by design. Ostensibly, violence is a reality in all communities. Yet again, we know some of our communities are far more exposed to diminish neighborhood conditions, among other factors that exacerbate the likelihood of violence occurring in the first place. So prioritizing equity allows us to address uproot, and counter issues such as concentrated disadvantage, which we know is linked to structural racism that we know also feeds disparity in inequity. So it's that line that we have to follow in by prioritizing equity, health equity, we're able to see the issue in totality and not assign blame to people but recognize the conditions that create the likelihood of violence happening Number three is to broaden our policy scope. While I know firearm related policy is clearly paramount in addressing this issue in a comprehensive manner, because we know acquisition of firearms clearly is related to firearm violence. I think we also have to put an effort into creating and supporting policies that address the root causes of community level violence, whether we're talking about education, housing, employment, health care access, and the other social factors that impact our health, again, putting the firearm in context with all the other contextual factors that lead to the likelihood of violence happening. So we know the firearm is a mechanism. But how can we think about policies that just don't focus on the firearm, but again, focus on the conditions that create the likelihood of violence occurring? Related to that is number four elevate our focus beyond gun violence prevention, and you're probably saying Mighty, what are you talking about? So let me tell you, I think we have to think about this issue, again, in its totality, so thinking about root causes, and all the other challenges that we know create the likelihood of violence occurring. So we also want to create opportunities for development and growth, and create space for folks to tap into principles of healing, and other community centered approaches such as restorative justice. These approaches, in my estimation, help us to resolve conflict and build peace within communities, which then in turn, builds stronger neighborhoods and facilitates connection and cohesion, which we know are protective against violence, brylee and gun violence particularly. And we can think of doing things such as community conferencing and healing circles, and other practices that can be employed to improve public safety, and reduce violence against violence broadly, and firearm related violence, specifically. Number five, last but not least, is to promote economic opportunity. As we know, this will help to build viable and stable communities. But we need to partner with local businesses and other stakeholders with experience in economic development, that will be structured in a way to fully support those most in need. We want to be able to avoid displacement and some of the other consequences of development. That when it's when development isn't done through an equitable lens, we see displacement in some of those other challenges happening. So we want to do in an intentional way, involve community and ensure that those most in need are not impacted poorly by this development in the community. So those are my five thoughts and ideas of how we can continue to move this work forward. As I mentioned, it's not all encompassing, it's not complete, but they're just some some areas that I think we can tap more into, to really get a hold on this firearm violence. Again, we'd love to hear from you some of the thoughts that you have. So email me tweet us. If you see me, his thought me and Sammy, mighty, I really liked that or mighty hand, maybe you need to think about that a little bit more. Nonetheless, in all seriousness, this is a critically important topic that I think impacts us all. Whether we've experienced violence or not, we know what it does to our communities. We know what it does to our individuals living within society. And we know the resounding impact that has on us all. So I'll stop there and just want to thank you all for listening to IVP in depth. Feel free to subscribe and listen to us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Google podcasts. You can also follow us safe states that is on Twitter at Safe States and on LinkedIn. Be sure to check out our website, www dot safe states.org For more injury and violence prevention tools and resources and a host of other information. Again, thank you all for listening and this is your host mighty fine signing off and until next time, stay safe and injury free.