[paperwasp42]

> I disagree. Gun deaths are.

I'm not convinced these things are mutually exclusive. When you break down the statistics, 61 kids between the ages of 0-11 were killed so far in 2023 by gun violence (just typing that makes my stomach hurt...). In comparison, 355 teenagers (ages 12-17) were killed. (1) That's 6x the amount of death in an age bracket half the size.

The huge spike in death rate is largely linked to gang violence. Gangs often start recruiting around the age kids hit puberty. Take a look at the Gun Violence Archive's incident reports on mass shootings, and you find a huge percentage are tagged as "gang violence" and resulted in dead or injured teenagers. (2)

When you hear about "school shootings" happening in America, very few are Columbine style events. Most are gang related, and impact the most vulnerable and poverty-stricken student populations who have the least resources to deal with the resulting trauma. There is a reason poor, inner-city schools are usually the ones with metal detectors at their doors.

Gangs are still fueled by drug sales. Drugs and gun violence go hand in hand. I don't think we can solve one without solving the other.

We desperately need resources and reforms poured into both issues. But I think if we treat them as unrelated problems, we're doomed to fail.

1) https://www.gunviolencearchive.org 2) https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/mass-shooting