By Waleed Waite
Trinity Times Correspondent

If the U.S. is going to really deal with the nation’s escalating gun violence problem there must be a political mandate to address it and a cohort of academic, community and political leaders gathered at Trinity Washington University to advance a call to action.

“We are talking about gun violence, but we have to look beyond the gun and start talking about saving lives,” said Jenise “Jo” Patterson, founder of ParentWatch Inc., a Washington-based advocacy group, and a panelist at a June 22, 2023, Town Hall held at Trinity, named “Changing the Narrative on Gun Violence: A Community-Driven Approach.”

“We can help make a difference,” Patterson said, adding that students and Trinity leaders can use institutional learning to elevate the conversation on gun violence and help raise the needed voices to demand gun reform measures.

The Town Hall was organized following a year of mass shootings at schools and college campuses nationwide, rising gun-related deaths and “swatting” events at U.S. universities, including Trinity, where false reports of active shooters are phoned into police departments, causing the schools to lock down with armed law enforcement sweeping college grounds.

Panelists at the Town Hall shared perspectives on the root causes of gun violence and the need for new narratives that inform more holistic solutions aimed at addressing systemic and structural drivers of community violence — including inequity in housing, education, food access, and economic opportunity.

There is no doubt that Congress and state legislatures need to pass gun reform laws that ban high-capacity assault weapons and require better permitting for gun ownership, but the root causes of gun violence need to be better understood and addressed at many levels of society, the Town Hall speakers said.

It’s crucial that members of the community help policy makers understand what’s happening in their neighborhoods, how gun violence is impacting the citizens, what they see as the root causes and possible solutions in addressing it with a holistic approach and it’s equally important that leaders listen, said Wendy Ellis, director of the Center for Community Resilience at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health.

“We don’t necessarily need more police,” Ellis said. “That doesn’t mean that we don’t need any police, but we don’t need more police to solve an issue that has mental health as an underlying cause, and also inequity as the underlying cause.”

Root causes of gun violence in some Washington neighborhoods include a lack of affordable housing and ongoing systemic racism, she told the audience at the Town Hall.

“Those things that lead to stressors and that result in violence,” Ellis said. “Be real about the issues around structural racism… driving the inequities that we see in order to address gun violence.”

Identifying what fuels violence and examining the mental health impact on the community members and those directly involved must also be a part of the overarching efforts in addressing what many deem a gun crisis, said Cynthia Greer, associate professor of counseling at Trinity.

Washington resident Selena Quintanilla Perez told panelists that gun violence has affected her regularly on a personal level from a very young age.

“One of my Idols was killed by a gun,” Perez said. “So, when you have these moments, it really does make you reflect and look at how lucky you are to have another day, but how sad the situation is where guns are so common that it’s causing these issues.”

Salvador Sauceda-Guzman, chair of Washington’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in Ward 5, said he experiences gun violence in his own neighborhood on a regular basis and that residents see this as a normal way to live.

 “Not just because I’m a hyper-local elected official, but just someone who lives on the block, we go through constant issues of shootings, gunshots, and actual homicides,” Sauceda-Guzman said. “Eventually, either you normalize it, or you want to do something about it.”

It’s important that government provide better resources to hotspots of gun violence, he said.

“But it’s also about where those resources are being allocated,” Sauceda-Guzman said. “One thing is, using those resources wisely to meet the specific needs of that neighborhood. So, if that’s able to occur, I do think (government) can make a difference.”

The Town Hall panelists also explored how clinical, legal, and other systems can better respond to community needs to prevent gun violence.

District of Columbia At-Large Councilman Robert White Jr. said experts have to examine how to improve public safety, particularly for the young people in Washington.

“Law enforcement is part of the government,” White said, adding that police do help, “but prevention like housing stability, jobs, mental health and making sure that education is strong” are essential elements for society to have “less violence and less trauma in our communities.”  

Panelists urged students at Trinity, particularly those who live in the District of Columbia, to be active advocates for gun-violence solutions.

“It means write to your council members, and the mayor, testifying at hearings, voting,” White said. “Voting! It matters, but make your voice heard because you are part of our democracy.’ Sauceda-Guzman also urged Trinity students to make change by supporting some of the gun-reform advocacy programs at their own university, pointing out it’s one of the only institutions of higher education in D.C. that does this.

“That means you’re building consciousness… on this matter,” he said. “I think if you continue building on that consciousness, the conversations are able to not only be in Trinity, but other institutions.”