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"Firearm deaths are the leading and second leading cause of mortality for African Americans and Hispanics ages 15 to 23 respectively....For the past 16 years, I have been conducting research on the effects of community violence on the developmental trajectories of youth. From these studies, we know that guns represent the move pervasive form of community violence. Youth exposed to community violence are more vulnerable than their counterparts for experiencing depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) or symptoms. That these youth also have a higher numbers of school absences, more problematic experiences with teachers and less positive peer group interactions. In addition, youth exposed to community violence are at increased vulnerability (especially boys) for joining gangs, using alcohol and drugs and engaging in high risk sexual behaviors which place them at greater odds for contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs). My research shows that the linkages between the exposures to community violence and multiple youth concerns are not spurious but interrelated [4]....However, the larger picture of the costs and sequelae associated with gun violence is often lost when we look at acts of violence such as these most recent massacres, Columbine, and the 16 other mass gun murders in America since 1991. We fail to connect the dots that gun violence is related to a sequel of compounded mental health, academic, drug use, juvenile justice and public health concerns that concerns and has deleterious effects on us all [4]. Consequently, we easily compartmentalize these occurrences of gun violence and fall short of acknowledging our own culpability in the larger equation and solution to this problem. Few of us react as defiantly when our youth are murdered daily on American streets, especially when it involves white-on-white, brown-on-brown, and black-on-black gun slayings." (Author Text) |
en_US |