When Alyssa Weakley’s 82-year-old grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2019, the family scrambled to respond. Her grandmother lived in southern California; Weakley and other family members were in northern California and Washington State. As problems arose, they took turns flying down to see the older woman. Often, that meant leaving a job or making child-care arrangements on short notice.
In the wake of the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead, legislators in Washington, D.C., and across the country are debating “red flag” laws or extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs).
Red flag laws are one potential solution for high rates of gun violence in the U.S. Nineteen states now allow the removal of firearms from gun owners when there is a risk of violence.
It is hard not to feel hopeless about the political system after 19 elementary school students and two teachers were slaughtered last week in a Texas school, 10 days after 10 people were killed in Buffalo, N.Y.
Gun deaths reached the highest number ever recorded in the United States in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, as gun-related homicides surged by 35 percent, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday.
Six people died in the April 3 shooting in Sacramento, and the spring holiday weekend saw at least four mass shootings across the country. Gun sales surged during the pandemic, while the White House recently announced a crackdown on untraceable “ghost guns.”
Around the country, gun purchases, which surged in 2020, have begun to level off, at least when measured by the number of federal background checks, a proximate measure of Americans’ gun-buying habits.
The sharp rise in unemployment during the five months of the pandemic was associated with an increase in firearm violence and homicide in 16 American cities.
Research led by UC Davis Professor Garen Wintemute shows that violence indirectly impacts most Californians. Though relatively few may experience or witness a violent act, a large majority of surveyed Californians reported having an “experience of violence” (EV).
During the first five months of the pandemic in 2020, low-income communities of color experienced significantly greater increases in firearm violence, homicides and assaults compared to more affluent, white neighborhoods. Those are the findings of a new study from the Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP) at UC Davis.
One of the foremost experts on firearm violence in the U.S. is sounding the alarm that the rise in gun purchases, violence and political extremism is putting America at risk for disaster in the coming months.