Shift focus to deadly urban gun violence
In its Feb. 17 editorial, “A year after Parkland, the young keep dying by gun violence,” the Board lamented that following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tragedy in which 17 people were killed, nationwide, “Another 1,100 young lives were snuffed out by bullets in the last 365 days.”
We asked: Whom do we talk to about that? And who is ready to take action?
State Rep. Shevrin Jones is ready. And he wants Gov. Ron DeSantis to join him. Neither the governor nor Jones’ legislative colleagues should hesitate to do so. Jones says he has found the DeSantis administration reception to hearing more.
Jones, who represents the 101st District, which includes southeastern Broward County, is asking the governor to appoint a panel to examine how to prevent gun violence in urban, and especially African-American, communities in the state. Jones told the Editorial Board that the panel should be modeled upon the one created to after the school massacre in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018.
Jones is on point. One takeaway from the Miami Herald’s report, “Since Parkland,” done in collaboration with McClatchy and The Trace, an online news organization that tracks firearms deaths, is that as horrific and attention-grabbing as mass shootings — and the high-power weapons used to carry them out — are, the incremental, unending and too often little-noted toll from handgun violence is staggering.
The report puts it in context: The number of gun deaths across the nation in the wake of Parkland was “a Parkland every five days, enough victims to fill three ultra-wide Boeing 777s.”
Though Jones has called for DeSantis to step up, the MSD Commission that examined all the lapses that allowed the massacre to happen, and proposed solutions, was part of a legislative package last year that addressed gun reform, mental health and other issues. So Jones’ legislative colleagues also can step up, and should.
According the the NAACP, at least 80 percent of gun deaths in African-American communities are homicides. It’s a chilling statistic that demands examination. Any panel should include a variety of experts in law, justice, healthcare, gun violence, etc. But it must also bring the people — the hurting family members, the gunshot survivors — to that table, too.
Jones said the issue is broader than stopping violence. Neighborhoods’ economic needs are a factor; as are jobs and tradeschool training. “Give people options,” Jones told the Board.