The Guardian is doing a series on gun violence in the states. The two most interesting parts of the article are the acknowledgement from the Giffords folks that CA's laws likely have little to do with any decrease in gun violence in the Bay Area:
The bigger issue seems to be class and violence. The Guardian chose the Bay Area, which is scarcely representative of cities in the states. The authors make the case that looking at the Bay Area is interesting because of the drops in gun violence but also because of the programmes that cities like Oakland have initiated and, importantly, funded, to work against everyday violence. These include initiatives that don't involve police and carceral power."California has the strongest gun laws in the country, and it’s enacted more than 30 new gun control laws since 2009 alone, according to Robyn Thomas, the executive director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which tracks gun legislation nationwide.
At the same time, Thomas said: “few of the laws enacted in the last 10 years would have been expected to entirely explain the significant reductions in the Bay Area."
But... the spectre of gentrification looms over the entire article. There's a great map that shows changes in gun deaths, and while cities that touch the bay all saw decreases, cities filled with economic refugees saw increases. Stockton experienced the worst increase. In many ways, it's a map of privilege and scarcity, only scarcity is represented by an abundance of violence.
Overall, I liked the read, and I generally like The Guardian. I do wish had gone the route of looking at big drivers like class rather than finishing the article with a dive into the rabbit hole of individual moral stories and choices. But this is America, so there you have it.
