Posted August 20, 2019 11:00 am by Comments

By Cam Edwards

AP Photo/Sean Rayford

The Virginia Crime Commission continues its meeting in Richmond today, with public testimony expected to last through much of the afternoon. While most of the media coverage has focused on Ralph Northam sending lawmakers a letter pushing his gun control plans, there was a remarkable session during the first day of hearings that is worth highlighting.

David Kennedy, professor of criminal justice at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the director of the National Network of Safe Communities, joined lawmakers to discuss group violence intervention. This is a fairly antiseptic way of describing a tactic that identifies the small number of super-violent offenders in any given community and treats them as the nexus for violent crime throughout their community. Through targeted enforcement and opportunities to change their ways, this intervention can lead to dramatic reductions in violent crime, without putting a single new gun control law on the books.

Kennedy began his presentation by reminding lawmakers of just how rare homicides of any kind really are in this country. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the problem. It means we can actually address it effectively.

As Kennedy pointed out, “There are hundreds of millions of guns in this country, …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms

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