US Needs Research-Driven Community Intervention Programs To Combat Gun Violence - Advocate

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th July, 2021) The United States needs to implement and scale up evidenced-based community intervention strategies in order to successfully combat the gun violence epidemic, LIVE FREE Campaign Director, Pastor Mike McBride, told Sputnik.

On Tuesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order, the first of its kind, declaring gun violence a national emergency. He also signed into law a bill that enables lawsuits against firearms manufacturers on the grounds that they are being a "public nuisance."

"We have seen historically failed responses and courage and imagination are needed to scale up strategies," McBride said. "We have to focus on and implement research-driven efforts of gun violence prevention."

US Congress, McBride added, must release the $5 billion investment in evidence-based community violence intervention that is part of a new government jobs plan. He said he and other advocates will continue to work with President Joe Biden and state governors to implement policy strategies to confront this public health crisis.

Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, 233 died in gun-related incidents in 500 shootings in the United States, CNN reported citing data from the Gun Violence Archive. However, the numbers, while staggering, represent a 26 percent drop from the same weekend in the previous year.

McBride echoed statistics showing crime and violence decreasing over the last decade, and credited the scaling up and implementation of prevention strategies, ceasefire efforts and other programs.

"We saw a reduction but all this literally stopped because of COVID. We weren't able to continue violence intervention, targeted interruptions, outreach, intervention and healing work because of COVID," he said. "Oakland [California] was on track to see a 30 percent reduction on top of the 50 percent that we'd already seen."

McBride, lead pastor of The Way Christian Center in West Berkeley, California, said those in the wider society "have to approach this from the perspective of people enduring levels of grief, trauma and loss." McBride said the issue needs to be framed completely differently and looked at as a sympathetic/empathetic situation versus criminality and blame.

"I always start off by reminding people that we experienced a once-in-a-century global pandemic that had a significant impact on the Black community, even families. It affected Black leaders of churches, family members, elders and others where many of them were sick and died. The community is undergoing a ubiquity of tests and communal violence is just another weight," he said.

The LIVE FREE Campaign with Faith in Action is a movement led by hundreds of faith congregations throughout the United States committed to addressing gun violence and mass incarceration of young people of color.