PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Most shootings are done with a stolen or illegally-owned gun, according to a new study from Rutgers-Camden.
It pulled data for 10 years from around the country, and found a correlation between the number of shootings in a city and the number of stolen guns there.
To put it simply, more stolen guns mean more murder for any given city, according to the study Dr. Daniel Semenza co-authored.
“Legal access and the illicit market can sometimes seem like two different things, but in greater reality, they really do bleed into one another," said Dr. Semenza.
"I think that the policies on either end can affect the other market just as well.”
He said it’s clear people who obtain guns legally aren’t the problem. They’re the ones following the rules.
"From my perspective, that means you have to do a couple of things," he said.
"You have to have an equitable policing approach where the police are not over-or-under policing, but they’re working with the community to reduce violence.”
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He believes that will take a delicate balance, and it requires significant help from community leaders to approach people more prone to violence, often young men in poor neighborhoods, to show them a way out of that lifestyle.
Dr. Semenza said the cycle of violence has the most drastic impact in the most disadvantaged communities, and ultimately, he believes this shouldn’t be a partisan issue.
Gun owners and people who would never touch a gun all agree that people shouldn’t be getting killed.
Another interesting piece in the study finds this isn’t really a partisan issue, and it says the whole country would benefit by building bridges to solutions rather than finding reasons to divide us further.
“I hope that people can look at this as something where we can bridge gaps rather than create bigger ones," Dr. Semenza said.
