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4 weeks ago
Yoonie Yang was sitting in her Spanish two honors class in southern Florida when she first learned of a shooting at nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. She watched in horror as fellow students checked in on their friends to see if they were among the 17 victims.
“I don’t think my peers know of an America or a world where there isn’t gun violence,” said Yang, now a senior at the University of Pennsylvania and a campus organizer for the gun safety group Students Demand Action. “This is an issue that we’re willing to take a stand on, and it’s an issue that has affected our lives and affected our childhoods into our adulthoods.”
Yang and fellow gun safety advocates are acutely aware of the stakes of this year’s elections, as Donald Trump looks to return to the White House. The US has some of the highest rates of gun violence in the world when compared to other developed countries. Joe Biden’s presidency oversaw the passage of the first major federal gun safety law in nearly 30 years and a boost for violence interruption community programs led by the people in the communities most affected by gun violence.
Now, advocates fear that those broadly popular policies could be easily reversed if Trump and congressional Republicans win in November, eroding incremental progress made on addressing the two most common types of gun deaths – suicide and homicide.
“We are at a pivotal moment because we finally broke the back of the gun lobby in 2022,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, about the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). “We passed a significant piece of legislation. We are doing way more background checks. So we are at a moment where we have to convince people, based upon our experience in the last two years, that passing laws saves lives.”
‘We did nothing’
When he addressed the National Rifle Association’s Great American Outdoor in February, Trump applauded his administration’s inaction on gun violence and described himself as “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House”.
“During my four years, nothing happened,” Trump said. “And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield.”
During his presidential tenure, Trump did ban bump stocks, the gun accessory used in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting. And in 2019, following mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, Trump signaled support for “red flag laws”, which prevent those deemed to be a danger to themselves or others from accessing guns, but he never moved on legislation.
If Trump wins election again, advocates expect him to immediately shutter the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which Harris oversees, and nominate a gun industry-friendly leader as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He could also disrupt implementation of the BSCA and wind back some of the Biden administration’s efforts to broaden background checks.
The BSCA expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers, incentivized states to pass red-flag laws and provided significant funding for community violence intervention programs. If Republicans take full control of Congress, they could repeal the law entirely.
“Not only is this out of touch and extreme, it’s not aligned with where the American people are on this,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action.
According to a Gallup poll conducted last year, 56% of Americans believe gun laws should be made stricter while 31% believe they should be kept the same. Only 12% of Americans favor less strict gun regulations.
Despite that opposition, Republican-led states have moved to further loosen gun laws in recent years. Since 2015, 25 states have enacted laws allowing residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit, despite research suggesting such laws can increase rates of gun violence.
On the other hand, states that have attempted to heighten gun regulations have encountered resistance from the conservative-leaning supreme court. In 2022, six of the court’s justices, including three nominated by Trump, ruled to overturn a New York law that placed strict parameters on who could carry a handgun in public. Gun safety advocates worry that Trump would use a second term to nominate more judges who could strike down additional regulations on firearms.
“Having a Trump administration means that we can look forward to having to fight like hell to not lose the incredible progress that we’ve made on just common basic gun safety measures across this country that are, frankly, saving lives every single day,” said Ferrell-Zabala.
On the campaign trail, Trump and Vance have either downplayed or normalized gun violence, despite two assassination attempts against the former president involving firearms. After a school shooting in Iowa earlier this year, Trump told mourning community members: “It’s just horrible – so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward.”
After framing a recent school shooting in Georgia as a “fact of life”, Vance suggested during the vice-presidential debate that the answer to such violence was stronger doors and windows as well as more security.
“We have to make the doors lock better,” Vance said in the debate. “We have to make the doors stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger, and of course, we’ve got to increase school resource officers.”
Those proposed solutions are wholly inadequate to gun safety advocates, who note that the presence of school resource officers did not prevent the 2022 shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, or the 2018 attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida.
“Our first responders certainly have a role to play in society, but they needn’t play a role in every part of society,” said Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat of Massachusetts. “And all of the data supports that what makes students safer, what makes educators safer is an investment in social and emotional wellness supports and trauma-informed learning communities.”
Asked about Vance’s framing of school shootings as a “fact of life”, Pressley described the comment as “shameful”.
“We should never be normalizing all of the violence that is wrought by guns in this society,” Pressley said. “We should be outraged that it’s happening, and that is not anything that I am going to accept or tolerate.”
A project left unfinished
The first years of the Biden-Harris administration coincided with an increase in homicides not seen in more than six decades. This jump, which hit underserved Black and Latino communities hardest, combined with the protesters that followed the killings of Black Americans like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor pushed the field of community-based violence intervention (CVI) into the spotlight.
But the ties that have been forged between the White House and leading veteran Black and Latino violence prevention workers could now be jeopardized if Trump wins.
Cities like Boston, Newark and Oakland have had programs for the small population of people most likely to be shot or shoot someone else since the late 20th century. By the mid-2010s, hundreds of groups were working in hospitals and subsidized housing complexes across the US to intervene in conflicts and connect people with the services they need to heal physically and mentally from gun violence.
“The field is growing – not only in pockets of the country but all over the country, said Anthony Smith, executive director of Cities United, a non-profit that helps city officials, community groups and youth build up their violence prevention infrastructures. “You have more energy and synergy around it, and people trying to understand and be a part of it.”
As the movement to defund police departments reached the national level and people sought out alternatives to prevent violence and shrink the police’s footprints in Black and Latino communities, the White House increasingly tapped people like Smith for their expertise. “Folks were looking for alternatives to public safety and didn’t know there were already a number of people doing this work,” Smith continued. “I think when people found out [CVI] got a different look than it had in the past.”
Addressing that type of violence was also a central focus of the BSCA, and in 2023, Biden and Harris announced a first-of-its-kind federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention tasked with implementing the policies laid out in BSCA. The office has aimed to expand the use of red flag laws and distribute $5bn made available through the BSCA to on-the-ground violence prevention and violence response programs.
“Lives will be saved,” Biden said when he signed the bill. “I know there’s much more work to do, and I’m never going to give up. But this is a monumental day.”
Two years later, early evidence has lent credibility to Biden’s prediction. According to data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, violent crime decreased by 3% between 2022 and 2023, while murder and non-negligent manslaughter were down by 11.6% in 2023 compared to a year earlier. Data from the Gun Violence Archive shows that, by the start of October, mass shootings had decreased by 22% compared to the same point in 2023.
Biden has used the authority of the BSCA to push for a drastic increase in the number of gun sellers required to perform background checks, although that policy has faced legal challenges.
“We’ve never seen the kind of two-year drop [in violence] that we’re seeing right now,” Murphy said. “Thousands of people are alive that wouldn’t have been alive had we not passed that bill.”
Funding for this work will be available through the US Department of Justice until 2027, but the continuation of other Biden-era gun policies will depend on the outcome of the election.
Harris has indicated she wants to build upon the work that Biden has done to tackle gun violence, as she has called for the reinstatement of a federal assault weapons ban and universal background checks on gun purchases.
But Harris has also made a point to emphasize that she and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, are both gun owners. She has fiercely rejected Trump’s claims about Democrats angling to take all of Americans’ guns away, and she raised eyebrows when she said anyone caught breaking into her home is “getting shot”.
Gun safety advocates argue that Harris’ position underscores how responsible gun ownership need not clash with support for laws like universal background checks, a stance supported by polling. According to a Fox News poll conducted last year, 87% of Americans, including 83% of those in gun-owning households, back requiring criminal background checks on all firearm purchases.
“It is not the case that there is some sort of bifurcation where gun owners are in a different place on these issues than the rest of the electorate,” said Emma Brown, executive director of the gun safety group Giffords. “And I think that that is why you are seeing the vice-president talk about the importance of being a gun owner and that there is no conflict there.”
She added: “Ultimately, we have Kamala Harris on one side, who’s being very clear that we do not have to live in a country where we are under constant threat of gun violence. And on the other hand, you have Donald Trump promising to be the most loyal friend to the NRA. So I actually think it is a contrast that is extremely clear.”
It’s unclear how much Trump knows about violence prevention programs, and Smith admits that the violence prevention field is still nascent in many ways. Efforts at the local, state and federal level can also easily be interrupted by a change in political leadership.
“We should be prepared as a field no matter who’s the White House,” Smith said. “We have to be able to navigate the political shift, and I don’t think we have prepared ourselves enough, even on the local level.”
A moment for change
With days left until election day, members of the anti gun violence movement, particularly its youngest members, are making it clear that they will not accept inaction on this issue.
“It’s really important to elect folks across all levels of government, including the presidential ticket, that care about gun safety and want to act on it,” said Zeenat Yahya, director of policy for the youth-led organization March for Our Lives. “We’re living in a world where young people are fearing whether they’re even going to be able to grow up.”
A study conducted by Tufts University found that gun violence is the third most important issue for young voters, only after the cost of living and jobs. Since its founding in 2018, March for Our Lives has mobilized young Americans around the issue of gun violence, contacting millions of first-time voters in its organizing efforts. In July, the group endorsed Harris in its first ever political endorsement.
“For young voters in particular, it’s not remiss that our lives and safetyhood are on the line,” Yahya said. “Young people should be given the right to be able to live freely and safely.”
Witnessing the devastation of the Parkland shooting led Yang, in Florida, to help start the first chapter of Students Demand Action in Tennessee, after her family moved to the state.
Now, as a campus organizer for the organization, she recently celebrated the opening of the new Everytown for Gun Safety field office in downtown Philadelphia, one of three such offices that the group has opened in battleground states. This election marks the first time that Everytown has invested in physical field offices.
“What helps keep me motivated is that we are in such a place to make change,” Yang said. “If we’re not out talking to people, then actually nothing will change.”
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