It’s been a little over a month since we published the first two stories in our Guns and Lies in America series, a year-long project investigating what works to reduce the daily toll of gun violence in America.
This is what we’ve been working on since then, and what we’re working on next.
Why are so many people getting shot on California highways?
As we reported last month, gun violence across California’s Bay Area has declined dramatically over the past decade. There’s one place, however, where shootings appear to be on the rise. In a disturbing trend, the San Francisco Bay Area’s highways have increasingly become the scene of gun violence, according to law enforcement officials.
Since November 2015, there have been over 200 shootings on San Francisco Bay Area freeways. Police and community leaders believe the problem is an effect of gentrification, which has displaced some of the violence from urban neighborhoods out onto the massive roadways connecting the suburbs. Law enforcement have responded by building a state-of-the art surveillance center, but community leaders warn that the real solution is to expand successful violence reduction programs to a more regional level.
A sudden spike in gun homicides in 2019
There’s other bad news for the region in terms of gun violence. In the first half of 2019, homicide numbers jumped in Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Stockton, Richmond and other cities. Non-fatal firearms assaults are up in several major cities also. This uptick is most visible in Oakland where homicides have increased by 31%. Oakland has seen 34 murders during the first six months of this year compared to 26 over the same period of time last year.
It could just be a random spike, but the latest numbers do show how fragile hard-won gains are in public safety. It’s also a reminder of how many Bay Area communities still don’t feel safe.
A child’s guide to avoiding bullets
Abené Clayton spent a day with Elana Bolds, a local activist in Richmond, California, teaching children how to avoid being caught in a crossfire. In Oakland, the work of violence prevention, often coordinated through grassroots community organizations and churches, feels as vital as it did in the 1990s, when the city’s gun violence epidemic peaked.
Many of the city’s neighborhoods are still stricken by shootings, despite a sharp decline over the past five years, which has been attributed to Oakland’s Operation Ceasefire violence prevention initiative.
In future stories, we will be examining the role that social media plays in the dynamics of gun violence.
Stories we’re reading
Untraceable “ghost guns” are proliferating in California and are increasingly being used by criminals. Read the full story over at The Trace.
Sactown Magazine has a lengthy profile on Dr Garen Wintemute, a physician who has spearheaded gun control legislation over several decades backed by science. Wintemute helped put southern California’s infamous “Ring of Fire” gun companies out of business back in the 1990s.
