“That is the location where I was shot,” said Rashaad Woods, indicating a small shop in Knoxville, Tennessee. There are two nearby locations: a church with bullet holes in the walls and a nightclub where some people were shot and murdered. Kodi Mills remarked, “There was a moment I wasn’t comfortable standing here.” However, time is slipping away. The two men are employed by a community-based initiative called Turn Up Knox, which got its start in July 2022. It provides guidance to kids and teenagers on how to avoid turning arguments violent. A key component of the city’s attempts to lower gun violence is the initiative, which applies research-based techniques.
Show Up Following a dramatic increase in Knoxville shooting deaths, Knox opened for business. In addition to other measures, the city’s broader endeavor to decrease gun violence include changing policing policies. It is independent of gun ownership regulations, though. That was significant because Tennessee has made several attempts to relax its gun laws. In Tennessee, open or concealed carry of handguns is now permitted without a permit as of 2021. The legal age to carry a weapon was lowered to 18 this year. Research on ways to reduce gun violence has increased in tandem with the rise in gun violence in the US. According to research, there were over 48,000 gun-related deaths and suicides in 2017—numbers not seen since the early 1990s.
Researchers now claim to have a better understanding of which public health initiatives contribute to a decrease in gun violence and which do not. The non-profit research company Rand Corporation identified certain policies in its analysis that it believes contribute to a decrease in gun violence. Among these measures are regulations that allow adults who allow children to have unsupervised access to firearms to be charged. Strong background checks on gun buyers, according to the study, also contribute to a decrease in gun violence. According to Rand, prohibiting firearms from being owned by someone with a history of domestic abuse is another beneficial step. Policies that don’t aid in lowering gun violence were also mentioned in the RAND analysis. Gun buyback programs and concealed carry legislation have been found to have a negative impact on gun-related fatalities.
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