GVPanorama - Disrupting Gun Violence
A whole-community approach to curbing firearm tragedies
While on the search for recent gun violence prevention news for our weekly "Friday Finds” feature, we often come across editorials, personal stories, or wider-lens articles that don’t necessarily fit into a current events window. With “GVPanorama” we highlight some of these thought-provoking pieces.
Today we’re sharing an excellent op-ed from criminal justice reporter, Josiah Bates. He has spent years on the ground in low-income black communities shining a light on the stories of gun violence victims and survivors that are often ignored by the mainstream press.
In this piece — that also includes a number of interesting videos — Bates runs the gamut from intense interviews with mothers who’ve lost their suns, to the stark realities of everyday violence, and ultimately the inspiring and effective work of community violence intervention leaders and organizations who are taking this problem into their own hands, and getting results.
“Community activism goes against a dominant narrative about many Black neighborhoods: that the people who live there don’t care. You hear that claim too often in the rhetoric from some politicians and criminal justice experts who would never set foot in a neighborhood that contends with gun violence head-on.”
Check out the full article here.
Give a listen to our podcast talk with Josiah Bates from May, 2024.
Josiah Bates has written for Time, The Trace, The Grio, and more. He just released his latest book, In These Streets: Reporting from the Frontlines of Inner-City (Johns Hopkins University Press); and check out his excellent Substack page, The Margins with Josiah Bates.
Photo by Monstera Production; via Pexels