Gun violence in Champaign-Urbana has been on the rise, and those of us who call this place our home want to do something about it.
But where can we start?
For many, these conversations can feel overwhelming, and it’s difficult to address any issue without first understanding its root causes. This website aims to explore some of the historical and present-day phenomena that are likely contributing to gun violence in our community, so that we can be better informed and more effective as we work together to build a safe CU.
“Community violence is a symptom of a community’s disease, it is not the cause of a community’s disease, it is a symptom. Having talked to young people and their partners, their girlfriends, their parents, many have been under-supported and in need for a long time. When there’s a lack of resources and opportunities and access to guns, you have sort of a toxic mix. . . . A lot of times people want to blame the conversations around redirecting funding for police on our current escalating rates of gun violence. But there have been no reforms, all the data happened last year [2020], we’re just now looking at reforms. So you can’t blame any major reform on our current state of gun violence. This is the status quo. And so, if the status quo isn’t working to contain things, maybe we should try something different.”
Karen Crawford Simms, founding director of the CU Trauma and Resilience Initiative