Gun Violence: A Plague On Our Youth
Gun Violence: A Plague On Our Youth
By Jeanna Murat
Jeanna is the Director of Membership Engagement & Programming at PACDC
“Easy access to firearms - legal or illegal - is one of the main drivers of gun violence”
In Philadelphia neighborhoods plagued by divestment and lack of economic means, gunshots are heard and painfully commonplace. Like many urban communities throughout the nation, gun violence is at an all-time high. Each week, we lose more young people who should make up our future.
According to Amnesty International, “Easy access to firearms-legal or illegal is one of the main drivers of gun violence.”
On a National level, this is backed up in a recent piece by Politico noting that “Gun Violence Is Actually Worse in Red States. It’s Not Even Close.”
The Office of the Controller for the City of Philadelphia maps an increase in gun violence. Philadelphia had 432 nonfatal and 108 fatal shooting victims during the first four months of the year of which the majority have been Black and Hispanic and proportionally males under the age 30. Between 2015 and 2020, the number of fatal shooting victims increased by 93%.
If we are losing the lives of our youth in the city at unprecedented numbers, how can the future of Philadelphia be promising? With such an increase in violence and news reports daily reporting new victims, we tend to forget that each individual homicide victim had breath, lived experiences, aspirations and loved ones. We desperately need change, both legally and culturally if we want to instill in our youth any hope for a safe future.
