Tackling Birmingham’s gun violence requires all of us working together
As the mayor of Birmingham, I take tremendous pride in the many things that highlight the growth and progress of our city. One of the best things about my job is the opportunity to brag on Birmingham, to tell people from across the country and around the world, as well as our own citizens, about all we are doing to lift up our people and our neighborhoods — to make our city one of the great places in America to live, work, and play.
But my responsibilities do not end there. It’s also my job to ensure that we confront head-on the problems we face as a community, the things that challenge our efforts to make Birmingham the best it can be for every person who calls it home.
Among the greatest and most pressing of those challenges is gun violence.
The issue of gun violence affects every person in our city. While our overall crime rate continues to decline, crimes involving guns remain persistently high. That includes homicides, the vast majority of which involve guns. Homicides in Birmingham have increased in seven of the past 10 years, and so far in 2022, our homicide rate is up nearly 23 percent over last year. Of the 90 homicides that have occurred in Birmingham through the first eight months of this year, 83 have been by guns.
The problem is particularly acute among our young people. During the school year that ended last May, 42 children between the ages of 14 and 18 were victims of gun violence. To date this year, 15 children aged 18 and younger have been killed by firearms, including a 13-year-old boy who was killed in a drive-by shooting while sitting on the front porch of his home.
This is unacceptable.
As we grapple with the challenge of reducing and eliminating gun violence, it’s important to recognize that law enforcement alone is not the answer. So much gun violence and so many gun-related deaths come from incidents between people who know each other. These incidents cannot be policed. We cannot “enforce” our way out of gun violence.
What we can do is teach people to be better at resolving conflicts before they escalate. That’s why our city government is investing in conflict resolution and prevention and re-entry services as a critical part of our strategy.
It’s also incumbent on us to help people — most particularly our youth — understand that they have alternatives to paths that increase their vulnerability to gun violence. More than that, we are investing our tax dollars and other resources in programs and initiatives that open up those alternatives to more people and create opportunities for personal growth and the betterment of neighborhoods and communities.
What are we investing in? In addition to conflict resolution and working with the Birmingham City Council to provide the Birmingham Police Department with all of the tools and resources it needs, city government supports programs in mental health services, financial literacy, and creating apprenticeships and job opportunities for youth. Using funds we received through the American Rescue Plan, we’re partnered with UAB and the Jefferson County Department of Health to provide hospital-based interventions for survivors of gun violence.
In short, we’re doing a lot. Unfortunately, the Alabama Legislature — like numerous other states across the country where Republicans have legislative supermajorities — is making our job harder. They are loosening gun laws, making it easier to obtain them and contributing to their proliferation in ways that only serve to increase the likelihood of violence.
Since January 1 of this year, Birmingham police officers on patrol have confiscated more than 700 firearms. Combine that with additional policing strategies and the number nearly doubles to more than 1,300. At the Birmingham City Council meeting on August 30, we displayed for the council and the public a sampling of the types of guns that have been taken off our streets this year — not pistols, but automatic and semiautomatic weapons of the type most commonly associated with military uses. These are dangerous weapons, no matter whose hands they are in, and while we celebrate the fact that so many have been taken off the streets, we are faced with the reality that many more remain — and that by enacting bad laws, our Legislature is only making the problem worse.
This underscores the fact that the spike we are experiencing in gun violence is not a Birmingham problem. It is a national problem. In 2020 and 2021, more than 43 million guns were purchased in the United States, more than any two-year period in our nation’s history. During the same period, more than 90,000 Americans were killed by guns, the highest rate of gun-related deaths since 1995. I speak regularly with fellow mayors across the country, and regardless of where they are, regardless of whether rates of homicide in their cities have been historically higher or lower than average, they are seeing the same trends relative to gun violence that we are experiencing in Birmingham.
As we compare approaches, examine best practices in our respective cities, and continue to work diligently to address gun violence, I cannot stress enough that, just as law enforcement alone cannot solve the problem, neither can city government. As mayor, I welcome being held accountable for things that I can control. But on this issue, accountability goes beyond the mayor, the city council, and the police department. It extends to the entire community.
Solving the issue of gun violence in Birmingham will require interventions from a comprehensive partnership of public and private entities. In addition to city government, that includes our corporate community and other private and nonprofit organizations. It includes our district attorney and other components of county government. It includes schools and churches and neighborhood associations.
Most importantly, it includes families. Parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts, play a critical role in keeping our young people out of trouble and on the right track. City government is here to help in every way we can. But what we cannot do is babysit. The elemental changes that must take place if we are to end the epidemic of gun violence must begin at home.
Our entire city must wrap its collective arms around our young people. We must help them learn to make better choices and ensure that they know that those choices are available to them.
Now is the time. The future of our children — the future of Birmingham — is at stake.
