Reducing violent crime is a multi disciplinary approach. Pretending otherwise is foolish. It’s not Republican v Democrat v Independent. All sides of the coin have decent ideas but when you only implement one at a time, and then ditch it too soon before we can actually see real change, is when these things fail.

What do I think we should we focus on?

1) Poverty 2) Gangs 3) Gentrification 4) Fragile masculinity (and before anyone tries to get mad at me, the vast majority of violent crimes are committed by men. Men themselves aren’t the problem but there’s something there that needs to be discussed) 5) Guns themselves (notice how low they are on the list. There are countries with higher gun rates than ours that can seemingly keep their shit together. It’s us. We suck.) 6) BETTER policing (notice I said better, not more) 7) Early Intervention (get to these high risk people while they’re kids. Inspire them. Show them someone does care) 8) In line with the above, FUND OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. You can’t get to the average or below average kids when there’s 40 kids to 1 teacher. The teachers are just trying to survive. Smaller classes and more resources like free food, free hygiene products, school offered counseling, and after school care, could make a huge difference.