Photo by Maria Lysenko

A three-year-old girl was shot and killed. The suspected shooter is her six-year old brother. A 15-year-old teen was shot and killed. The primary suspect is another juvenile. In front of an early childhood center, a pre-K aide was shot and killed. The childcare center was placed on lockdown. These events, which took place this year and last year, are fairly commonplace occurrences in the United States. They are rare and unusual occurrences in other rich countries.

Figure 1 illustrates how much of an outlier the United States is with respect to gun violence. Recent data show the firearm mortality rate in the United States to be six times that of Canada, 16 times that of Germany, over 100 times that of the United Kingdom, and nearly 700 times that of Japan.

Other countries have much stronger gun safety laws than the United States and consequently have less gun violence. The American public supports stronger gun laws and regulations, and research shows that places in the United States with more laws and regulations on access to firearms have lower homicide rates. Many politicians, however, seem to pay more attention to the gun lobby than to the American people.

Figure 1. Gun Violence is Much, Much Worse in the United States than in Other Rich Countries

President Donald J. Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the District of Columbia in August. He has used this “crime emergency” declaration to take overthe District’s police department and to bring in National Guard troops fromRepublican-led states.

There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia. In January, the US Department of Justice reported, “Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35 percent from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years.” The takeover has increasingly targeted people who are not violent criminals, especially unauthorized immigrants. An NPR analysis found that the majority of people arrested due to Trump’s takeover — perhaps as much as 80 percent — were arrested for misdemeanors, warrants, traffic offenses or ended up having the prosecutor drop the case. Among the activities the National Guard troops are engaged in is picking up trash.

If the Trump administration were truly interested in addressing crime, it would be doing many other things that are more efficient and effective. (See Bleeding Out by Thomas Abt for some better alternatives.) The National Guard “left behind their civilian careers and families with little notice” to pick up trash in the District. This is wasteful government spending and disrespectful to the soldiers.

One smart approach to addressing violent crime was the Biden-era Office of Gun Violence Prevention (OGVP). That office provided funding to local Community Violence Intervention (CVI) groups working to address gun violence. These violence intervention programs can be highly effective. As Columbia, South Carolina Deputy Police Chief Melron Kelly said, “CVI work is very important; we’ve seen a drastic reduction in violent crime post-COVID and shootings are almost at a 10-year low.”

Instead of continuing investments in effective violence intervention programs, the Trump administration has shut down the OGVP and has cut more than half of all federal funding for gun violence prevention –  including funding going to Los Angeles, Chicago, the District of Columbia, and Baltimore. Eighteen law enforcement groups and police chiefs have called for the funding to be reinstated.

Figure 2. Trump is Ignoring the Places with a Real Spike in Violent Crime

Gun violence is truly a crisis in the United States. One of the places actually experiencing a spike in gun violence is Little Rock, Arkansas (Figure 2). The gun homicides mentioned in the opening of this article are all from Little Rock. If Trump truly cared about crime and truly believed in his not-smart way to respond to a spike in violent crime, he would have sent troops into places like Little Rock where violent crime is actually increasing.

This first appeared on CEPR.

The post If Trump Cared About Crime, He Would Have Kept the Office of Gun Violence Prevention appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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