We can reduce gun violence, here's how
The number of shooting incidents in Chattanooga hit a 10-year low in 2022. What can we do locally to make sure violence continues to decline?
By William Newlin & Ian-Alijah Bey
Fast facts
During the onset of the pandemic, Chattanooga saw a spike in the number of shootings and victims in 2020 and 2021.
In 2022, the number of shooting incidents in Chattanooga hit a 10-year low. But because some events were mass shootings, the number of victims was similar to the pre-pandemic norm.
There are proven strategies that can be enacted at a local level, to reduce gun violence.
Chattanooga is incorporating some tactics that have been effective in other communities.
How bad is gun violence in Chattanooga right now?
Chattanooga saw a different pattern of gun violence in 2022.
The number of shootings hit a 10-year low, at 86 shooting incidents, but we saw more shootings with multiple victims.
Police statistics show the number of shooting victims was similar to other yearly totals from 2013-2019. In all, 126 people were shot in Chattanooga last year, and 21 of those victims died.
For comparison Chattanooga’s rate of shooting incidents, when adjusted for population, was slightly lower than Knoxville’s but was higher than Nashville’s in 2022.
Graphic by Ian-Alijah Bey
The ripple effect
Months after last May’s shooting near the Aquarium left six teenagers injured, Reginald Yearby’s two teenage sons still felt the impact. They weren’t there, but the trauma of knowing some of the young people involved has stayed with them.
“I can’t even really get them to go around crowds at times, even though they’re with me,” Yearby said.
He added that when a shooter decides to pull the trigger, “You’re affecting the person that you shot, you’re affecting their family, and you’re affecting the people around them.”
As a youth mentor in Chattanooga, Yearby said he’s trying to change how kids think about themselves and their futures. His organization, Reach One Teach One, promotes education, sports, and activities like a summer camp to model community for young people.
Mentorship programs like Yearby’s are one of the many tools proven effective in reducing gun violence in other communities. The city has invested in a number of mentorship programs, including Yearby’s, as well as a host of other programs aimed at reducing gun violence, often in partnership with other agencies.
Chattanooga’s Director of Community Health Dr. Mary Lambert said it’s important to understand the underlying factors that lead community members to commit violence, such as a lack of job opportunities and support services for families.
“The environment in which those children are raised and the things that they may be exposed to and see are going to be some of the root causes for the violence that we see in the street,” Lambert said.
What causes gun violence?
Poverty is deeply linked to community gun violence. In a 2022 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers found that in 2020, counties with the highest level of poverty saw more than four times the number of homicides with a firearm than counties with the lowest level.
The CDC also reported young persons, males, and Black persons in the United States are disproportionately affected by gun violence — a trend that holds true in Chattanooga. In the last two years, more than half of people involved in shootings in Chattanooga (victims and suspects) were under 29 years old.
One of the CDC report’s authors, Marissa Zwald, said policymakers should look to address the structural inequalities driving poverty if they want to tackle gun violence.
“So this includes housing assistance, childcare subsidies, tax credits, and livable wages,” Zwald said. “All of these things can really lift both individuals and families out of poverty and reduce stress and enhance a whole host of positive outcomes.”
Policies geared toward systemic problems are a more long-term approach to stopping gun violence. However, cities and organizations have also found effective strategies to lessen the violence happening now.
Strategies that work
The Chicago-based nonprofit Cure Violence has helped reduce shootings in cities across the United States. Its model features street outreach workers from local communities focused on de-escalation, relationship-building, and changing norms around gun use.
Another strategy endorsed by the CDC and other organizations is hospital-based intervention, in which case managers engage with gunshot victims to prevent retaliation and connect them with mental health support and employment services.
Finally, group violence intervention (GVI) efforts have existed since the 1990s. Under GVI, local outreach workers, organizations, and police invite residents most at-risk for gun violence to community meetings. In addition to condemning the violence and offering support services, law enforcement threatens severe consequences for future offenses.
Richmond, California (population 116,000), used outreach, including an 18-month mentorship program, hospital-based counseling, and group interventions to target the same problem Chattanooga faces — young people using firearms. Despite some spikes in violence, the city’s number of homicides per year declined 80% over 2009-2021.
Chattanooga's plan
Last July, the City of Chattanooga released its plan to reduce gun violence. It outlines a host of short- and long-term measures meant to fill the gaps in any single intervention.
“We've got multiple causes of this,” Lambert said. “So we're going to address it with multiple proven, effective strategies to make the difference.”
Part of the plan focuses on the underlying factors contributing to neighborhood disparities, and in turn, violence.
In the plan, the city committed to investing in prevention methods including:
Youth mentorship programs
Support for families experiencing generational poverty and trauma
Additional mental health resources
Training and skill development
Efforts to increase affordable housing
Public education on gun safety and storage
The city also committed to conducting interviews with young people who have been impacted by gun violence and using their insight to create a “best practices” guide for any organization aiming to reduce gun violence. There has been substantial progress already made in each of these areas aimed at violence prevention. Some of the ongoing efforts include programming for youth offered over each school break, city staff members who work in schools to offer support services to families, and more than $10 million from the American Rescue Plan that is being channeled to career development, mentorship programs, and mental health support.
The other part of the plan lays out the city’s law enforcement strategies, including more police cameras, a planned curfew for those under 17 next summer, and “focused deterrence,” where the city’s crime analysis unit points officers to certain areas at certain times based on crime trends.
But Adam Ging, the crime analyst supervisor at the Chattanooga Police Department, knows proactive policing only goes so far, noting the police usually intervene after someone commits violence.
Since releasing its plan, the city hired a consultant from Trajectory Changing Solutions, a firm that works with cities and nonprofits to prevent violence. Owner Norman Kerr previously spent 14 years working at the Chicago-based nonprofit Cure Violence.
Because gun violence is tied to the disparities we see in our neighborhoods, Lambert sees it as another community health issue. To her, the solution lies in providing resources that improve Chattanoogans’ basic quality of life, from increasing access to health care and jobs to destigmatizing mental health care.
“So much of it is preventable,” Lambert said. “It's preventable, if people are healthy — if people are healthy emotionally and physically.”
Two things you can do now
In addition to community-level strategies to reduce gun violence, there are several things that individuals can do to help, including:
Get involved in mentorship
Mentorship programs have been shown to help young people avoid involvement in gun violence. There are a number of programs in Chattanooga that are seeking volunteers.
Y-CAP is a program of the YMCA that serves as an early intervention and prevention program for youth ages 10-15 who have been referred through the juvenile court system or the school system. Y-CAP features a gardening program, a woodshop program, a boxing club, and family-style dinners. Contact Andy Smith at westsideboxing@hotmail.com for information about volunteer opportunities.
Reach One Teach One is an afterschool and summer program that focuses on sports and leadership development, located on Bonny Oaks Drive. Contact Reginald Yearby at rotoyearby@gmail.com to get involved.
Pursuit of Happiness offers counseling, mentoring, and internships to students living in under-resourced communities in the Chattanooga area. Contact Michael Gordon at thepursuitofhappiness423@gmail.com for volunteer opportunities and visit their website to learn more or make a donation.
Store your gun safely
An estimated 42% of Americans have a gun in their home. But, more than half, including 55% of firearm owners with children in the home, do not practice safe storage, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
If you are a firearm owner, be sure to follow guidelines for safe storage, including:
Keep your gun unloaded
Store your gun in a locked safe
Store ammunition separate from the gun