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Is Guns Off The Streets?

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Children are dying, mothers are crying. Sons are laying in the gutters as their warm blood warm the streets. Another son or daughter gone but not forgotten, and unanswered questions roam the streets. Guns, guns, and more guns have found their way into the homes and hands of the youth and the underprivileged. Sociologist James D. Wright suggests that to convince inner-city youths not to carry guns "requires convincing them that they can survive in their neighborhood without being armed, that they can come and go in peace, that being unarmed will not cause them to be victimized, intimidated, or slain." (Wright) Programs such as Youth Firearms Violence Initiative, Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), Project Exile, and Operation Ceasefire,…show more content…
Nonetheless, Americans are defenseless to gun violence every day.” (Bilchik) The state of Alabama is ranked number 3 among the states with the highest gun deaths in the United States. In 1996 Birmingham, AL started the Youth Firearms Violence Initiative (YFVI). YFVI’s goal was to reduce gun violence among local youth. “With the average household gun ownership being 57.2 percent and death rate of 17.79 per 100,000.” (Rand) The main focus of YFVI was to reduce gun violence within the Birmingham Public School System through education and intervention. “School officials and officers worked collaboratively to detect firearms in schools by conducting searches of lockers and vehicles and by using handheld metal detectors during random checks of students. The officers also worked to prevent trespassing on school grounds. As a result of the programs implemented in the Birmingham Public School System, juvenile’s offenses declined 28 percent, falling from 1,045 to 752.” (Bilchik) “The city of Chicago and the state of Illinois have long been battling the rise in the number of handgun crimes. After lifting the handgun ban, Chicago saw a particularly violent year. In 2012, 86 percent of all Illinois murder victims were killed by gunfire…” (Flowers) The objective of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) was to decrease occurrences of gun violence in Chicago’s most violent stricken neighborhoods. PSN was implemented to cut gun violence
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