Sen. Van Hollen Hosts Roundtable Talk To Discuss Gun Violence

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD — Crime rates and gun violence are trending upward in the state of Maryland and all across the country. In Maryland specifically, homicide rates, carjackings and violent acts are on the rise.

To reduce further growth of gun violence in Maryland, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen hosted a virtual roundtable conversation with local leaders on Thursday to discuss ways to prevent gun violence.

Thursday’s conversation was one of Van Hollen’s many efforts to prevent gun violence, along with the permit-to-purchase gun safety bill and legislation to improve the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF.) In support of Gun Violence Awareness Month, Van Hollen emphasized his goal is to draw support and create conversation about gun violence prevention.

“The key is to turn Gun Violence Awareness Month into Gun Violence Prevention Month and then make sure that we focus on that month after month, day after day and throughout the year,” Van Hollen said.

The conversation comes after President Joe Biden announced the nation’s new strategies to prevent gun violence on Wednesday. Biden’s strategy entails providing resources to police departments for gun-crime enforcement, allowing communities to use millions of dollars from the spring COVID-19 relief bill for gun violence program funding and targeting illegal gun dealers.

Similarly to Biden’s plan, Van Hollen’s plan identifies that a rise in law-breaking gun dealers contributed to gun violence in Maryland. He emphasized the importance of placing tougher gun policies, such as a permit to purchase requirement for handguns.

However, Van Hollen explained stricter gun policies are not always the solution to the problem. According to Van Hollen, 54 percent of the guns traced back to Maryland crimes came from outside the state.

Although it is difficult to determine the source of the illegal guns, Van Hollen said he believes the stricter gun policies will prevent those using them for crimes from purchasing. On top of ending illegal gun purchasing, he said the focus should be on preventing gun violence within communities in Maryland.

“In addition to efforts to prevent the sale of guns into the hands of people who are going to use them to do harm,” Van Hollen said, “We also need to focus on community based gun violence prevention.”

The top strategies shared in Thursday’s conversation were preventing violent acts from taking place, investing in the youth community, advocating for mental health issues within the community and continuing support for gun prevention beyond Gun Violence Awareness Month.

During the roundtable, Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy said while crime rates are rising across the country, the ages of suspects are going down.

Juveniles as young as 12 years old are engaging in more violent acts, particularly carjackings, which have increased by 180 percent since 2019, Braveboy said.

“Our goal is to prevent these types of acts from happening because they’re devastating to families, they’re devastating to our school children because one day you have your classmate there and the next day they’re gone,” Braveboy said.

The panel discussed a few ways to avoid child-inflicted crimes from happening such as creating violence intervention programs and developing connections with the youth community.

In an effort to prevent youths from getting involved inc rime, state officials created several initiatives to curb the gun violence in Maryland such as Braveboy’s “Our Street Our Future” mentoring program and Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks’ “Operation Heatwave” summer crime initiative.

George Hodge, president and founder of Community Kinship Coalition, Inc, created an anti-violence program after gun violence personally affected his own life.

Losing three family members to gun violence in one year inspired Hodge to steer children away from gun violence. And, he has now impacted the lives of 5,000 children.

Hodge said building connections with the youth community plays an important role in preventing them from engaging in illegal actions.

“The impact of having professional facilitators empower them and let them know that they can be accepted where they are, but the sky's the limit in terms of where they can go, it’s essential," Hodge said.

Gun violence is also shown to worsen the overall mental health of a community, according to Joseph Richardson, chair of the African American Studies department at the University of Maryland, College Park.

A total of 193 nonfatal shootings happened in Maryland in 2019. In the first six months of 2021 alone, meanwhile, 175 shootings have taken place.

All told, nonfatal shootings are expected to double between 2019 and 2021.

During the roundtable, Richardson echoed other leaders’ calls to advocate for whole-community wellbeing and put a stop to gun violence.

“This level of community trauma not only affects the individual engaged, but it also affects communities and families, added stress affects everyone,” Richardson said, “So as Mr. Hodges mentioned, we need far more mental health resources that are accessible in communities.”