[House Hearing, 116 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO GUN VIOLENCE IN OUR CITIES ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 __________ Serial No. 116-54 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov ______ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 39-718 WASHINGTON : 2021 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chairman ZOE LOFGREN, California DOUG COLLINS, Georgia, SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas Ranking Member STEVE COHEN, Tennessee F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., Wisconsin Georgia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas KAREN BASS, California JIM JORDAN, Ohio CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana KEN BUCK, Colorado HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island MARTHA ROBY, Alabama ERIC SWALWELL, California MATT GAETZ, Florida TED LIEU, California MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland ANDY BIGGS, Arizona PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington TOM McCCLINTOCK, California VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona J. LUIS CORREA, California GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania, BEN CLINE, Virginia Vice-Chair KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida JOE NEGUSE, Colorado LUCY McBATH, Georgia GREG STANTON, Arizona MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, Florida VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas Perry Apelbaum, Majority Staff Director & Chief of Staff Brendan Belair, Minority Staff Director ------ SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY KAREN BASS, California, Chair VAL DEMINGS, Florida, Vice-Chair SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas, LUCY McBATH, Georgia Ranking Member TED DEUTCH, Florida F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana Wisconsin HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York STEVE CHABOT, Ohio DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas TED LIEU, California TOM McCLINTOCK, California MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, Florida GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania STEVEN COHEN, Tennessee BEN CLINE, Virginia W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida Joe Graupensperger, Chief Counsel Jason Cervenak, Minority Counsel C O N T E N T S ---------- SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 OPENING STATEMENTS Page The Honorable Karen Bass, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Oral Testimony............................................. 1 The Honorable John Ratcliffe, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Oral Testimony............................................. 4 The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, a Representative in Congress from the State of New York, and Chairman, of the House, Committee on the Judiciary Oral Testimony............................................. 5 Prepared Statement......................................... WITNESSES The Honorable William Lacy Clay, U.S. House of Representatives, Member of Congress, Missouri 1st District Oral Testimony............................................. 6 Prepared Statement......................................... 9 The Honorable Robin Kelly, U.S. House of Representatives, Member of Congress, Illinois 2nd District Oral Testimony............................................. 12 Prepared Statement......................................... 17 Eddie Bocanegra, Senior Director, Heartland Alliance Oral Testimony............................................. 23 Prepared Statement......................................... 26 Reggie Moore, Director, City of Milwaukee Health Department, Office of Violence Prevention Oral Testimony............................................. 30 Prepared Statement......................................... 33 Maj Toure, Founder, Black Guns Matter Oral Testimony............................................. 56 Prepared Statement......................................... 59 Amber Goodwin, Executive Director, Community Justice Action Fund Oral Testimony............................................. 62 Prepared Statement......................................... 64 STATEMENTS, LETTERS, MATERIALS, ARTICLES SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD Statement of Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot, City of Chicago submitted by Representative Robin Kelly, a Member Congress of the State of Illinois, prepared for the record........................... 12 Materials submitted by Representative Steve Cohen from the State of Tennessee, a Member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security for the record........................... 88 APPENDIX Cycles of Violence, A Journal Sentinel Special Report, If violence spreads like a disease, it can be interrupted. How a new team in Milwaukee is trying to stop one shooting leading to another........................................................ 99 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: How do we reduce gun violence? By treating it like a disease written by Michelle A. Williams and Mary T. Bassett................................................ 109 ProPublica, How the Gun Control Debate Ignores Black Lives by Lois Beckett................................................... 113 USA Today--El Paso, Dayton, Chicago: Media doesn't treat all gun violence the same.............................................. 130 The New York Times, Confronting a Plague of Violence, a Documentary by Steve James..................................... 134 The New York Times, When Cities Try to Limit Guns, State Laws Bar the Way........................................................ 138 The Trace, How We Fix This Gun Reform is on the Agenda. But Victims of Color Aren't........................................ 141 COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO GUN VIOLENCE IN OUR CITIES ---------- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 House of Representatives Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Committee on the Judiciary Washington, DC The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 12:09 p.m., in Room 2237, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Karen Bass [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. Present: Representatives Bass, Nadler, Jackson Lee, Demings, McBath, Deutch, Jeffries, Lieu, Dean, Mucarsel-Powell, Cohen, Ratcliffe, Gohmert, McClintock, Cline, and Steube. Staff Present: Joe Graupensperger, Chief Counsel; Monalisa Dugue, Deputy Chief Counsel; Veronica Eligan, Professional Staff Member; Tamara Kassabian, Counsel (Detailee); Jason Cervenak, Minority Chief Counsel; and Andrea Woodard, Minority Professional Staff. Ms. Bass. The subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recesses of the subcommittee at any time. We welcome everyone to this afternoon's hearing on Community Responses to Gun Violence in Our Cities. I will now recognize myself for an opening statement. I am pleased that the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security is holding this very important hearing on an issue that is too often overlooked in our national conversation about gun violence--the systemic, tragic, and daily experience of gun violence in our communities. Yesterday, the Judiciary Committee conducted an important hearing on the deadly use of assault weapons in this country. Some have asserted in that hearing, and as an NRA talking point against strengthening gun laws, that the continued gun violence in our cities like Chicago that have strong gun laws indicates that these laws are ineffective. That is not correct. We know that lax gun laws in other jurisdictions allow those intent on evading gun laws to obtain guns and traffic them to cities that have enacted strong gun laws. So, today, we will focus on the epidemic of gun violence in many of our cities, the root causes of this violence and the trauma that results, and the various responses being developed by individuals in these communities and the resources needed to support these efforts. Our cities disproportionately suffer the impact of gun violence, with the impact particularly felt by communities of color. Too many lives are taken, too many people are injured, and too many families of victims suffer. It is imperative that we apply a comprehensive approach to addressing gun violence in this country, which should include an appropriate focus on these communities that experience concentrated levels of shootings. Unfortunately, communities have developed solutions, but financial assistance to successful strategies is often not available or slow and inefficient when it is. This lack of financial and other assistance is especially evident in African-American and Latino communities. Communities often have effective ways to address community- based gun violence. They need the resources. In order to have an effective, comprehensive approach, we must change the way we discuss and address these issues and change the attitudes and behaviors of perpetrators, educators, researchers, advocates, and including us, lawmakers. So, today, we start this conversation. Too often communities with habitual occurrences of gun violence receive attention for the acts of the violence, but little to no attention as to why a high concentration of violence permeates these communities. Instead, we too often do not take the time to look behind the violence and find and support appropriate responses, and we do not take the time to listen to the people in those communities who are working where they live and work to develop solutions that are rooted in their everyday experiences. Consequently, these communities are often not factored into the larger conversation around responses to gun violence. We need to examine what are the root causes of violence? What are examples of successful community-based responses to gun violence? Understanding the root causes really doesn't take rocket science, and I want to take a few minutes to describe this. If you look at communities where you have concentrated violence, you also have a number of other factors. You have the communities that suffer from the cycle of incarceration and people being released from incarceration who are then locked out of a legal economy. And then people will survive by any means necessary. If you don't allow people to work because they are formerly incarcerated, our communities do not have job opportunities, then don't be surprised when those same communities are impacted by drug trafficking. Don't be surprised when those communities have a high concentration of gang violence. A lot of this information is knowable, but attention is not given to it. So those communities then are viewed as communities that have a lot of problems and they are incapable of solving them, or these communities only care about gun violence when it involves a police officer and an individual and that these communities don't care about violence that happens inside the community. Having lived and worked in these communities most of my life, I know that this is not true. One thing that was always extremely frustrating to us was we would work day in and day out to prevent violence, have levels of success, but it never received any attention. What received attention was when the violence took place. So I want to give you one example of a community in Los Angeles where we set out to prevent homicides from taking place in one summer. It was an area where there were 300 apartment buildings. It wasn't public housing, but it kind of functioned that way, called Baldwin Village, in my congressional district. And we invested concentrated resources in this housing development. We hired young people during the summer. And so when we think of cutting funding to programs like Summer Jobs, we don't connect it to violence prevention, and we should. We hired people who were former gang members, and we essentially assigned them the task of mediating conflicts. They were on the ground. They worked with the people in the neighborhoods. When there was a conflict that was developing, because they were OGs, or original gangsters--they were out of the gang life, but they still had credibility--instead of sending in police forces, we sent in people from the community, and they were able to mitigate that violence. And we went--in an area that was known for homicides, we went an entire summer without homicides. The other thing about shootings when they take place is they tend to be concentrated on certain days of the week and certain hours. And so during those hours and during those days was when we had the concentrated resources and made sure that young people had activities. One of the things that distinguishes areas where there is concentrated violence where they are areas that are low income is that they don't have the resources to involve youth in positive activities or employment opportunities for young people. And so I look forward to today where we can hear about examples of root causes, but also solutions. So I want to recognize that many of my colleagues have taken a strong interest in these issues and are making proposals to address gun violence in our communities. Representative Dwight Evans, who represents portions of Philadelphia, has one such proposal, and I would like to read a brief statement from him. ``Gun violence is a public health issue. Just this year alone, we have seen more than 10,000 deaths and more than 40,000 gun-related incidences. We have run out of excuses to not act on this. These are people's lives we are talking about, and while we move forward with long-overdue discussions on gun control legislation, we cannot forget the victims of gun violence, who already deal with the daily consequences of inaction. ``The Resources for Victims of Gun Violence Act, which I introduced with Senator Bob Casey, would establish an interagency advisory council to connect these victims with critical information, programs, and benefits they need. I urge all Members to join us in supporting this common sense legislation.'' With this in mind, and as we discuss this important set of issues related to gun violence in our cities, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about other remarkable programs that are successfully addressing gun violence in communities throughout this country and which urgently require Congress' support. It is now my pleasure to recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ratcliffe, for his opening statement. Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to the witnesses who are here today. This is one of several hearings the majority has held on the issue of gun violence. Usually after we examine a topic two or three or four times, we should be able to find common ground and build a consensus on what we can do to address the issue. Unfortunately, that is a far cry from what we have seen this Congress. A lot of my colleagues have said that gun violence is a public health crisis and suggested that their gun control proposals are the only way to save lives. We have got to be honest with ourselves. We have got to be honest with the American people about what the data shows. According to the 2019 report from Every Town for Gun Safety, gun homicides and assaults are concentrated in cities. Thirty-one percent of gun murders occurred in the 50 cities with the highest murder rates, though only 6 percent of Americans live in those cities. Gun homicides and assaults are concentrated in specific neighborhoods in specific cities. In St. Louis, for example, where Congressman Clay is from, 28 of the city's 88 neighborhoods had either 0 or 1 murder in the last 5 years. But 41 percent of St. Louis' murders and 35 percent of gun assaults occurred in just 9 of those 88 neighborhoods. And unfortunately, we have seen that disparity grow in lots of American cities. I empathize with my colleagues that represent cities with high rates of gun violence, but gun control solutions that have been offered by this Congress, by a lot of my colleagues often would do little to address crime rates in those cities. Some of my colleagues have looked at the concentration of gun deaths in cities and concluded that the solution is to pass restrictive, vague laws and impose significant significant burdens on law- abiding gun owners all across the country. Law-abiding Americans in Northeast Texas that I represent and law-abiding Americans who live in communities across the country don't commit gun crimes in Chicago or in St. Louis or New Orleans or Baltimore, or any other major American city. An attempt by this Congress to restrict Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans in an effort to pay lip service to the idea of public safety or public health is, frankly, an affront to common sense. I think it misses the mark on solutions that would actually reduce gun violence across our country. So why not address the issue of mental health? Why not explore ways that school resource officers keep their schools and students across the country safe? Why not look at programs we already have in place that work to improve those programs, make them better? Programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods, which was a program that existed when I was the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas. Why not explore community solutions to problems that are facing our cities? Some have suggested that we should not criminalize communities impacted by everyday gun violence. What would we say to a parent in one of our cities if their child was gunned and murdered? Is the prosecution of the murderer of that child just another contributor to mass incarceration? The answer is unequivocally no. This is an issue of criminal justice. This is about justice for the victims of these crimes, whether they are a child gunned down while playing outside or a single mother murdered by a domestic abuser. This is about keeping our communities safe, community-driven solutions that are tailored to meet the needs of a given community that should be heard and should be examined. Until we reckon with these basic truths and discuss solutions that will actually hold accountable the perpetrators of gun violence instead of restricting the rights of law- abiding gun owners, we will continue to be mired in gridlock. I yield back. Ms. Bass. Thank you. And let me just respond, if you don't mind? I believe we have a lot more in common than we do differences, and let me assure you that I do not believe in any way, shape, or form that there is one solution. I think we need a comprehensive solution, and many of the things that you discuss I believe are part of that comprehensive solution. With that, I am pleased to recognize the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, for his opening statement. Chairman Nadler. Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the chair of the subcommittee, Karen Bass, for holding this critical hearing about community-driven strategies to reduce gun violence in our cities across the Nation. This discussion is a critical component of this committee's comprehensive approach to addressing our national epidemic of gun violence. As we have seen, no American is immune from gun violence. The spike of mass shooting incidents, high suicide rates, domestic violence incidents, and daily homicides that we have seen in recent years has touched all of our communities. But gun violence has particularly victimized high-poverty communities of color across the country, with tragic results. Every day in America, 100 people are shot and killed, and 210 more survive gun injuries. Half of all gun homicides took place in just 127 cities, however, which represented nearly a quarter of the population of the United States. Now these homicides are most prevalent in racially segregated neighborhoods with high rates of poverty. These communities lose grandparents, mothers, fathers, teens, or young children to gun violence at an alarming rate. This is simply unacceptable. Today's hearing is intended to generate a national conversation about gun violence and its destructive impact on our communities. We must analyze gun violence in America the same way we would analyze a disease, as it is, in fact, a public health issue, as well as one of public safety. Today, we will hear about the scope and gravity of this issue, the root causes of gun violence in specific communities, and local prevention and intervention programs that implement evidence-based violence reduction strategies that engage all community stakeholders. We must acknowledge and examine the loopholes in the law that allow tens of thousands of guns to enter the illegal market. The vast majority of these guns are trafficked from States with weak gun laws to States with stronger gun laws. Also, mayors of cities across the Nation are pleading for changes to State firearm preemption laws that block cities like Chicago, Dayton, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis from adopting reasonable gun legislation to protect their residents. In addition, the antiquated gun tracing system, severe budget cuts, and laws placing unnecessary restrictions on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives have undermined its ability to enforce Federal gun laws and regulate the gun industry effectively. Strengthening our gun laws is just a start. Gun violence in our communities is a multifaceted issue that requires a holistic approach. Federal, State, and local government efforts must reflect the need to address this problem comprehensively, investing in evidence-based anti-gun violence programs and ensuring that these programs are tailored to the needs of the communities most affected by the crisis. I look forward to hearing the perspectives of our colleagues, Representatives Lacy Clay and Robin Kelly, who represent the St. Louis and Chicago areas, respectively, both of which are directly impacted by chronic gun violence. I also look forward to hearing from our other expert witnesses about the scope of the problem and what solutions have been shown to work. Their testimony today will help inform our efforts to take a comprehensive approach to addressing the national emergency of gun violence. I thank the chair of the subcommittee for holding this important hearing, and I yield back the balance of my time. Ms. Bass. We will now hear from our first panel, the Honorable William Lacy Clay, who represents the First District of Missouri, and Honorable Robin Kelly, who represents the Second District of Illinois. And we thank you for joining us today. Mr. Clay. STATEMENTS OF HON. WILLIAM LACY CLAY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI; AND HON. ROBIN KELLY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM LACY CLAY Mr. Clay. Thank you, Chairwoman Bass, Chairman Nadler, and Ranking Member Ratcliffe, who I want to recognize as his sister being a friend and constituent of mine in St. Louis. I appreciate the subcommittee's efforts to organize and hold a hearing on this important topic. This Nation and the community that I represent in St. Louis are facing a public health emergency, and I am not just speaking about the tragic frequency of mass shootings in schools and other public spaces. Members of this committee and the 116th Congress have had numerous opportunities to make it known how they prioritize firearm safety. Regardless of what any of my colleagues have said publicly about the issue, this body has a responsibility and an opportunity to work together and move the debate forward. The nearly 40,000 people killed by firearms in the United States in 2017 no longer have that chance to move this debate forward. The people living and working in my district, where nearly 600 shootings have occurred so far this year, do not have the choice to remain silent while these issues impact their daily lives. I do not have that choice. Since May, at least 22 children under 16 years of age have been killed by guns in the St. Louis region, some due to random shootings, others due to accidents and unsecured handguns. It is due to statistics like that that black families are 62 percent more likely to lose a son to a bullet than to a car accident. Now my community is already on track to top last year's rate of gun-related injuries and deaths, and I know we are not alone. Our city councils and other local leaders used to be able to confront these issues directly. Mayors and law enforcement would work with other community leaders and residents to discuss ways to make our streets safer. Unfortunately, in the 1980s, the gun lobby started approaching Governors, State legislators, and even some of my colleagues in Congress to make sure that these dedicated local leaders and first responders would not be able to do what they need to do to address firearm safety. This is unacceptable. That is why I, along with my esteemed colleague and friend Congresswoman Robin Kelley, introduced legislation to restore the ability of these local leaders to pass common sense laws and regulations. And our new legislation is directed to help curb the slow motion mass shootings that occur in St. Louis, Chicago, and other urban communities every week. H.R. 3435, the Local Public Health and Safety Protection Act, would allow the Department of Justice to provide grants to States that reverse their ill-advised firearm preemption laws and allow local government to take reasonable measures to address gun violence on their streets. And under the bill, States should not prohibit or restrict a local government from requiring background checks for firearm purchases, restricting the ability to carry a firearm in public places, restricting the quantity and type of ammunition that an individual is allowed to purchase, or requiring gun owners to safely store their firearms, especially in households with children, and prohibiting the sale and transfer of certain types of especially deadly firearms and accessories, including semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines, among other provisions. The epidemic of gun violence in places like St. Louis and Chicago is different than the situation in smaller cities and towns across Missouri and across this country. Not every community faces the same challenges. That is why this bill works. Communities who do not experience high rates of gun violence would likely not see the need to implement higher standards at local levels, but the impact on other communities would be meaningful. This act is all about hope, the hope that we can finally give local governments the freedom to protect innocent citizens and first responders while making our neighborhoods safer, regardless of what the State legislature thinks. And Madam Chair, I would stop there and say thank you again for allowing me this opportunity. [The statement of Mr. Clay follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Ms. Bass. Absolutely. Representative Kelly. STATEMENT OF HON. ROBIN KELLY Ms. Kelly. Madam Chair, before I begin my testimony, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to enter into the hearing record a statement from Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago. Ms. Bass. Without objection. [The information follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Ms. Kelly. Chairman Nadler, Chairwoman Bass, Ranking Member Ratcliffe, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for holding this important hearing on urban gun violence. I wish that I was here to talk about a more positive topic, but sadly, I am here to talk about an epidemic sweeping through the United States. Gun violence is an epidemic that kills nearly 100 Americans each and every day and forever changes the lives of 250 others. Not every year, not every month or week, but each and every single day. And this epidemic, like so many others, has a disproportionate impact on the African-American community. I am proud to represent the great City of Chicago, and like all cities, we have our share of challenges, and gun violence is one. We are a city awash in illegal guns that are transported over our borders from Indiana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Missouri, all of which are States with weak or non-existing gun safety laws. A patchwork system is unworkable. We need a national solution to this national problem. To date, Chicago has lost 341 people to gun violence. That is 341 sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers whose lives were cut short due to congressional inaction. There have been over 1,500 shot. In my district, I hear from young people, some of whom are numb to the pain. Others feel the sense of urgency. More than half of all guns used to commit crimes in Chicago come from outside of Illinois. We can't be an oasis of common sense surrounded by States beholden to the gun lobby. We need strong Federal laws against straw purchases and gun trafficking because these common sense ideas are proven to save lives. We also need the background check bill passed to the Senate brought to the floor and signed by the President. Many gun violence deaths could be preventable. We could save more than 30,000 American lives every single year. A recent study shows that States with stronger gun safety laws have 35 percent lower rates of gun deaths for children and teenagers. These laws, like universal background checks, are supported by more than 90 percent of Americans and save lives, specifically the lives of our Nation's young people. These bills before you today are also important next steps toward combatting gun violence, as is the bill I recently introduced, H.R. 4116, the Prevent Gun Trafficking Act, which would make straw purchases a Federal crime. Straw purchases, I am saying, because a number of trafficked guns are straw purchased. Straw purchases are not just a problem in Chicago, but every urban community is challenged with crimes using guns that are purchased illegally. We have reached a point in our country where many Americans have been affected by gun violence, either directly or through a close neighbor, friend, coworker, or family member. Gun violence happens everywhere, in every community and, sadly, in too many families. I just lost a 12-year-old today. She was shot sitting in her home planning her birthday party, and a bullet came through the window, and she died on her birthday. At this very moment, we are at a pivotal crossroads. We are seeing a reform movement sweep across America in big cities and small towns. In actuality, we are seeing many movements converging together, demanding profound change, much like the 1960s, made up of concerned citizens standing up and speaking out for their fellow Americans. Hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets every few months. Just yesterday, young people from Chicago and other young people from across the United States came to D.C. to demand action, all of them marching shoulder to shoulder for common sense gun laws. Our young people in Chicago have been speaking out for years. Now they are joined by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and thousands of other young people who are galvanizing the Nation. Young people are rising up, speaking out, and demanding action, and I couldn't be prouder of them. These young people are energizing our movement, even though many of us have been soldiers in the movement for many years. These young people are the reinforcements that we always needed. Our numbers keep growing. Every day, more and more people are realizing their safety and security is eroding. More and more people are joining the fight for common sense gun reform. In closing, I do want to say this is not about taking guns away from people who have them legally, and they are not trying to hurt me, you, or anybody else. Also I know it will take more than laws. It will take improved police-community relations and also will take investing in our neighborhoods and scaling up effective programs that I know exist in the Chicagoland area. I wrote a report in 2014 called the Kelly Report on Guns, and it discusses root causes and solutions and that this is a public health crisis. And lastly, we like to blame mental health, but more people with mental health are hurt by guns than hurt other people. I yield back. [The statement of Ms. Kelly follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Ms. Bass. Thank you very much for your time and your testimony, and I will look forward to that report that you mentioned. You wrote it 5 years ago? Ms. Kelly. Yes, and we are updating it. Ms. Bass. Okay. I would like to now bring forward our panel. Could our panel come forward? Mr. Bocanegra, Amber Goodwin, Reggie Moore, Maj Toure. [Pause.] Ms. Bass. Now if you would please rise, I will begin by swearing you in. If you would please rise? Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and correct, to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God? [Response.] Ms. Bass. Thank you. Let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you, and appreciate your coming forward today. Please note that your written statements will be entered into the record in their entirety. Accordingly, I ask that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. To help you stay within that time, there is a timing light on your table. When the light switches from green to yellow, you will have 1 minute to conclude your testimony. When the light turns red, it signals that your 5 minutes have expired. I want to first introduce Amber Goodwin. Ms. Goodwin is the founding director of the Community Justice Action Fund and the Community Justice Reform Coalition. CJAF is the Nation's leading gun violence prevention organization, working on policy, education, leadership development, and building resources centered on communities of color. Under Amber's leadership, CJAF is filling a critical role in advocating for solutions and leadership roles for marginalized communities of color. Eddie Bocanegra, Mr. Bocanegra is the senior director of READI. Do you say ``read-eye''? Mr. Bocanegra. READI Chicago. Ms. Bass. Oh, ``ready,'' okay. READI Chicago. In this role, he oversees the management and implementation of the evidence- based and trauma-informed program to reduce violence and promote safety and opportunity. Mr. Bocanegra brings years of experience in community-based organizations and programs created to address trauma and build resiliency among those most impacted by violence. Reggie Moore currently serves as the injury and violence prevention director of the City of Milwaukee, and I believe Representative Gwen Moore is here or was here. You are one of her constituents. The director of the City of Milwaukee Office of Violence Prevention, a division of the Milwaukee Health Department. Mr. Moore leads the city's efforts to assess, prevent, and decrease incidence of structural and community violence. He facilitated the development of Milwaukee's first comprehensive violence prevention plan, known as the ``Blueprint for Peace,'' which is a community-centered plan that takes a public health approach to addressing the root causes of violence and trauma. Mr. Moore leads the National Youth Activism Program for the Truth Initiative in Washington, D.C., where he designed and implemented programs to increase public health advocacy among youth throughout the country. Mr. Toure is the founder of Black Guns Matter. He believes that Americans in inner cities must be allowed to exercise their Second Amendment right and challenge the status quo for smaller amounts of people to carry, but not most others. I don't know. I think that didn't sound right. We welcome all of our distinguished witnesses and thank them for participating in today's hearing. Mr. Bocanegra. TESTIMONY OF EDUARDO BOCANEGRA, SENIOR DIRECTOR, HEARTLAND ALLIANCE; REGGIE MOORE, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF VIOLENCE PREVENTION, ON BEHALF OF CITY OF MILWAUKEE HEALTH DEPARTMENT; MAJ TOURE, FOUNDER, BLACK GUNS MATTER; AND AMBER GOODWIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY JUSTICE ACTION FUND AND COMMUNITY JUSTICE REFORM COALITION TESTIMONY OF EDUARDO BOCANEGRA Mr. Bocanegra. Good morning, Chairman Bass and Ranking Member Ratcliffe and members of the committee. Oh, sorry. Is it on? So, again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the gun violence facing communities across our Nation and to share the actions of Heartland Alliance and other organizations, advocates, and survivors of violence in Chicago, while working around the clock to make our communities safer. Communities across our country are struggling with violence, cities like Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago. Much of this violence is concentrated in a handful of impoverished neighborhoods. This year alone, Chicago has had over 2,000 shootings and over 300 homicides as a result of gun violence. Just this past weekend, 21 people were wounded, and 5 were killed. Behind every shooting, there is a family left to grapple with the aftermath. Mothers, like Mrs. Jennings, whose son was shot 19 times, and Rodney Bell, who was shot in the face multiple times. I had the honor of knowing these young men, and I personally witnessed their efforts to change the circumstances they were born into. These killings and resulting trauma are preventable. Neighborhoods with high levels of violence routinely face other compounding survival issues, like limited or no access to employment, safe housing, health and mental services, and more. This results in a heartbreaking cycle of poverty, violence, and trauma. And we know that exposure to violence and trauma can make people react in unpredictable ways that may not be appropriate to the situation. Much of gun violence in Chicago, for example, is the result of a split-second decision by traumatized individuals who have grown up surrounded by violence. I know this from personal experience. I witnessed violence and domestic abuse at home when I was 6 years old. By the time I was 13, I witnessed my first homicide. I was 17 when a close friend of mine died in front of me, and by the time I was 18, I was sentenced to 29 years in prison for murder. In prison, I saw that most people look exactly like me. The men who rotated through what seemed like revolving prison doors shared the same goals as me, never to return. Somehow many of us fell short. Nearly everyone who returned to prison lacked the same things, a plan for how to survive outside of prison; a network of people who would stick by them, and when they faced setbacks, they would be there; access to support systems to help them cope with feelings of hopelessness, loss, and frustrations. Since my release from prison 11 years ago, I have earned a Bachelor's from Northeastern Illinois University and a Master's degree from the University of Chicago. I have created innovative approaches to leveraging marginalized groups as part of the solution, such as U.S. veterans, parents who lost children to violence, and people with justice involvement. My perspective on this deeply--my perspective on this is deeply informed by my personal experience and education. I am proud to be a part of a movement in Chicago that aims to dramatically reduce cycle of poverty and violence in our city. The surge in gun violence in Chicago 2 years ago spurred action in unprecedented ways. A coalition of more than 40 Chicago funders and foundations under the umbrella of Partnerships for Safety and Peaceful Communities courageously aligned their funding to support proven and promising programs and approaches to reducing gun violence, rebuilding communities and developing leaders who can sustain safety and opportunity. There is a number of promising initiatives that can serve as models, including the Metropolitan Peace Academy, lead by Communities Partnering for Peace, which was established to professionalize street outreach work; Chicago CRED; Chicago Public Schools Safe Passage, which was designed to provide safe routes for students while traveling to and from school; and READI Chicago, the program that I run. With our six partners, we relentlessly engage men who are most highly impacted by gun violence and connect them with paid employment, cognitive behavioral therapy, and supportive services. READI Chicago is being evaluated by the University of Chicago's Urban Labs so that we can learn all that we can about what is taking--what it takes to meaningfully identify and engage men who are at the highest risk of gun involvement and keep them alive. There are no Federal programs designed to support bold, comprehensive responses to prevent violence like ours. Importantly, very few programs are led by people like me with life experience like mine. We urgently need attention and sustained investment in people who are the most at risk before more lives are lost. And I wanted to close by sharing a story of one of our--of those that we lost. When I first met Davon, he was unhappy with his life and community. He joined our program and started to see change. He was beginning to plan for a future. Tragically, Davon was shot and killed just about 2 months ago on an afternoon, 5:45, as he was heading back home from work. And I can't help but to think about the young man who ran up to Davon and shot him. What if he had been given the tools to help him pause and think? What if he had been surrounded by people who cared enough about him, to address his pains or grievances and change his thoughts? Perhaps Davon would still be alive. After spending much of my time in prison contemplating how my future would have meaning, my goal is clear. To use my experience as a former gang member and inmate, as well as my formal education to save lives and to help others with backgrounds like mine find and achieve their own dreams for a safer and better future. We can do this, and I appreciate your support. [The statement of Mr. Bocanegra follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Ms. Bass. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Moore. It is hard to look at those pictures, you know? TESTIMONY OF REGGIE MOORE Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chairwoman Bass, Ranking Member Ratcliffe, and other members of the subcommittee, for providing the opportunity for me to speak before you today. Again, my name is Reggie Moore. I am the director of the City of Milwaukee's Office of Violence Prevention, and I want to start by thanking my esteemed congresswoman, Gwen Moore from Wisconsin's Fourth District, for her invitation to address this critically important issue. I am sure she shares our excitement for being the host for the 2020 Democratic National Convention in our city. And I would also like to acknowledge Congressman Sensenbrenner for his many years of service, who also serves on this committee. I am grateful for this opportunity to share the vision, approach, and progress Milwaukee has made toward addressing violence as a public health issue not only because this topic is deeply personal for me, but because we are long overdue for lifting up community-based solutions proven to prevent and reduce violence in communities across this country. We have an opportunity right now to invest in policies and programs that could literally save lives or continue to ignore the slow mass murder happening on the streets of our cities every day across this country. Our mayor and former congressman Tom Barrett has been a champion for gun violence prevention for more than a decade. As one of the first mayors involved with Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Cities United Against Gun Violence, he remains committed to this issue. However, cities cannot bear this burden alone. Today, I will speak briefly to you about the approach we took to frame violence as a public health issue, the perils of punishment over prevention, our success with engaging residents and prioritizing local solutions, and the need for national and State-level support for these efforts. The pictures sitting before you are of young people--and only a few of, unfortunately, too many--who have been killed in crossfire shootings in the City of Milwaukee. This issue does not just affect one community or one zip code but has impacted lives across our entire city. This young lady here is Sandra Parks. She was a brilliant 13-year-old girl who was killed on November 19th by a bullet fired from an assault rifle outside of her house as she sat in the safety of her own bedroom. Her life was taken just 2 years after she wrote an award-winning essay about gun violence. They all should be here today, whether taking a tour of the national Capitol with other children that we encountered on our way here or actually sitting at this table as advocates. And unfortunately, none of them will have the opportunity to sit in the seats that you are sitting, with the power and ability to make a change in this country on this issue. I want to briefly read a passage that she wrote in her essay that I think underscores the impact that many children in our country feel in cities and in neighborhoods as it relates to gun violence. ``Sometimes I sit back, and I have to escape from what I see and hear every day. I put on my headphones and let the music take me away. I move to the beat, and I try to think about life and what everything means. When I do, I come to the same conclusion. We are in a state of chaos. ``In the city in which I live, I hear and see examples of chaos almost every day. Little children are victims of senseless gun violence. We must not allow the lies of violence, racism, and prejudice to be our truth. The truth begins with us. Instead of passing each other like ships in the night, we must fight until our truths stretch to the ends of this world.'' Launched in 2008, the Office of Violence Prevention sits within the Milwaukee Health Department. Our mission is to prevent and reduce violence through partnerships that strengthen young people, families, and neighborhoods. Under the leadership of Mayor Barrett, Milwaukee launched the office in 2008, placing the office in the Health Department, underscoring our commitment early to treating this as a public health issue. Unfortunately, in cities across the country, violence has often been simplistically regarded as bad people doing bad things in bad places, punishable by death, divestment, or confinement. This has led to a manmade disaster for young people, families, and neighborhoods. Instead of addressing the root causes of violence, we decided to punish it. In many cities, poverty, trauma, unemployment became an issue for the criminal justice system to manage, especially in African- American communities. We cannot talk about violence in Milwaukee without talking about mass incarceration. As of the 2010 Census, Wisconsin had the highest incarceration rate of black males nationwide, locking up 12.8 percent of black male residents, compared to the country's 6.7 percent average at that time. Out of 56 majority black communities in Wisconsin, 31 are jails or prisons. Concentrated punishment is an expensive habit that has had a significant impact on local and State taxes more than housing, transportation, higher education, youth development, or public health. In 1970, Milwaukee was a thriving industrial city with a relatively low poverty rate. But decades of industrial decline and population loss have taken their toll. By 2019, the city spends over $300 million, 40 percent of the city's budget, on law enforcement alone. This cost exceeds the total amount of revenue collected through property tax levied for the entire city. Milwaukee clearly cares about public safety, but this is fiscally and morally unsustainable for our community. The punishment of disadvantage hides the deep and cumulative impact of policy decisions so that the real work of solving these problems never happens. High neighborhood unemployment rates are never addressed, the foster care system is never repaired, and underfunded schools close en masse. In Milwaukee, in 2017, we engaged the community in developing a comprehensive violence prevention plan called the Blueprint for Peace. In the written document, you have copies of that, and this is a comprehensive approach that calls for all hands on deck to addressing this issue so that we can stop the pipeline from pain instead of investing in incarceration and death on the backend. Thank you. [The statement of Mr. Moore follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Ms. Bass. Thank you very much. And before we go to the next witness, I just wanted to detour a little bit and let Representative Jackson Lee have a few words before she has to leave, and then we will come to you, Mr. Toure. Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me accept the courtesies in the proficient and efficient manner to respect all members, but I had to acknowledge all the witnesses, first of all, and to hear you talk about the redemption, as opposed to incarceration and murder and death at the end. But I want to acknowledge my fellow Texan and fellow Houstonian Amber Goodwin and to let her know that if she sees me stepping out, I am managing bills on the floor. That is another place way away. But I wanted to say not only does she have the wisdom to organize and be the founding member, the director of the Community Justice Action Fund and the Community Justice Reform Coalition dealing with gun violence, but we have worked together in organizing and empowering people. And if there is anyone that can be solution oriented on these questions, Madam Chair and to the ranking member, it is Amber, along with her fellow witnesses. And Amber, I look forward to us being in tandem as we sort of lift this up in the many challenges that we have in our hometown, but in the Nation. Let me thank you for the work that you have done and my privilege to be here to welcome you. Forgive me. I hope you will stay around, and I can catch up with you, if I am allowed to say that on the record. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, let me yield back to you as I thank this fellow Texan. Thank you. Ms. Goodwin. Thank you. Ms. Bass. Mr. Toure. TESTIMONY OF MAJ TOURE Mr. Toure. Good morning. Thanks, everybody, for having me. I appreciate everyone listening. Can you all hear me? Good? Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Maj Toure. I am the cofounder of Black Guns Matter. Our organization travels around the country to address firearms-related rights and responsibilities. Each one of our classes, which happen in libraries, churches, recreation centers, and even on street corners, where we discuss firearm safety, conflict resolution, and the law. My travels have afforded me a unique opportunity to see firsthand the issue of violence in our urban centers, as well as the failures and successes of various approaches. Black Guns Matter started 4 years ago, and the data we have collected has been and will continue to be a very valuable tool in saving lives and protecting freedoms as stated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Personally, I know that today's hearing is centered on quelling the violence in urban communities, but the phrasing is a bit off. We do not have a gun violence issue in our urban centers. But we do have a host of other issues that, coupled with the lack of de-escalation tools, lead to violence. What we are experiencing is not an issue with guns, per se, but more lack of ability to navigate trauma. If we are going to address violence in urban America, we need to address violence of all kinds. Singling out firearms is a tremendous misstep in solving the issue, and I hope my testimony today will assist in redirecting our focus. One of the first ways that we have tackled this issue with Black Guns Matter is by identifying and labeling answers as ``solutionary.'' Giving urban Americans tangible skills has been very impactful because we define not only what our approach is, but also a parameter for staying the course of solution-based thinking. By naming what we are doing, we have given Americans all around the country an ideology to galvanize around solutions more so than further focusing on the problem. Our focus is solutions to violence. Our approach is conflict resolution. Our goal is saving lives and mitigating trauma. Our results have been and are healing while defending freedoms. This is the solutionary way that has been effective. In 2016, when we started Black Guns Matter, it was a result of a steady barrage of media images that depicted our communities as violent and savage. That year, one of my best friends was shot in the head because of negligence. As news of his death circulated, I couldn't---- Ms. Bass. Your microphone? Mr. Toure. As news--my microphone is turned off. Is it on? Ms. Bass. Ms. Goodwin, maybe you could move your mike over? Let us see. Mr. Toure. How about this one? Ms. Bass. Yes. Mr. Toure. Okay, cool. Try it again. As news of his death circulated, I couldn't help but think how easy it would have been to ensure he knew the basics of conflict resolution and safety. I recognized that in addition to doing a voter registration drive that year, we needed to do a license to carry drive by inviting people in my community to be safe and responsible gun owners. That year, we hosted our first class in North Philadelphia, where I am from, expecting 35 people. Instead, 350 showed up to learn. Guns are a taboo topic in urban America. Therefore, safety training has purposely been withheld in our communities, and the homicide rates are a direct reflection of that ignorance. That year we started Black Guns Matter, Philadelphia saw the lowest firearm-related deaths it had since 1979. After weekly ongoing classes, which continued to overflow from the space, we began getting calls in other cities. We need you to come to Baltimore, Chicago, Brooklyn, Milwaukee, Compton, to host some of these classes. With the support of crowdfunding, we started a 13 cities tour, began visiting cities with the highest homicide rates to inform members of the community on conflict resolution, de- escalation, and training. This is a place where people from both sides of the aisle can agree that this simple act of free education is saving people in my community from prison, negligence, and death. I want to take this time, this moment to provide a bit more in-depth information about what our classes include. Also I want to let you know that we have now trained over hundreds of thousands of people across the country and have been in almost all 50 States, taking an approach that not only preserves freedoms but empowers the people. The first component to every class is firearm safety. The power that comes with firearms ownership is also a tremendous responsibility. Safety training and education to prevent negligent death is something we control with proper knowledge around firearm safety. I have a little bit of time left. So I am going to cut back on some of this testimony. The LAW. Lawyers, prison, families, freedom. We have tremendous success in sharing local laws by inviting lawyers to teach beginners who may not know local carry, proper storage and handling laws, and things of such. The last one, conflict resolution. According to the CDC, of the 12,979 firearm homicides in the United States in 2015, 81 percent occurred in urban areas. For example, 2014, in Philadelphia's safest police district, which is approximately 85 percent white, no one was reported to be killed by gun violence. The homicide rate for black Americans in all 50 States is on average 8 times higher. Importantly, most urban areas, especially those that experience the most gun violence, are characterized by poverty, inequality, racial segregation, and a lack of education around firearm safety. In closing, in the last 4 years, we have developed a curriculum. This is developed. We have developed a curriculum based on lived experience and case studies all around this Nation and some of the areas that suffer the most poverty, human rights restrictions, and negligence in the country. Our experiences with applying these solutions have been that most people, regardless of political affiliation, respect our people-powered initiative. Communities can solve these problems on our own primarily because we have taken this holistic, solution-based approach more than the ``guns are bad, and the problems will just go away if you restrict them'' attempt. To add more restrictions to good Americans solves nothing. Education and solidarity around intelligence has been the most productive means of striking balance between solutions and respect for rights. And I don't in any way think punishment solves problems more than proper education from a holistic and freedom-based perspective. Thank you for your time. I know that we, as Americans, can solve this issue with logic and respect for our Bill of Rights. [The statement of Mr. Toure follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Ms. Bass. Ms. Goodwin. TESTIMONY OF AMBER GOODWIN Ms. Goodwin. Thank you, Chairwoman Bass and Ranking Member Ratcliffe--also a fellow Texan--and members of the subcommittee, for inviting me and having the opportunity to testify today. My name is Amber Goodwin, and I am the founder and director of the Community Justice Action Fund. Gun violence impacts every American community. Although black, Latinx, and indigenous communities bear the heaviest burden of violence, we often receive the least amount of attention from policymakers. Today, I speak not only as someone who has the privilege to be asked to testify before you, but also as a black woman with the responsibility to speak for the millions of people of color who have been impacted by gun violence and whose voices are absent from or sometimes silenced within the gun violence prevention movement. I started working on gun violence almost 5 years ago, working for one of my heroes, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. It is also where I met another one of my heroes, Congresswoman Lucy McBath. I love saying that. In 2015, in the aftermath of the shooting in Charleston, I listened and learned from leaders like Pastor Michael McBride and Erica Ford, who have been working on violence prevention for decades. When I looked around at other gun violence prevention organizations in the halls of Congress, I didn't see anyone who looked like me who was invited to the table to discuss issues of gun policy. I started an organization specifically to give voice to the communities most impacted by gun violence and center them in the debate on guns, but I can promise you I am not here to have a debate today. It is my hope that policymakers and advocates use their voices, information, and legislation today as a launching pad to pursue a comprehensive and holistic policy agenda that is responsive to, driven by, and done by communities directly impacted by gun violence. I believe and I know another world is possible. One where we are not just talking about which individual has access to guns, but one where people don't want to pick up guns in the first place. All of the community intervention strategies you will hear about today are thanks to our loved ones who have been on all sides of a gun and work of leaders around the country who put themselves in harm's way every single day. These people are our loved ones, and they are my heroes. While there is progress, there is no one framework or approach that aims to unify the systems or sectors needed to end violence in America. In States across the country-- California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, and most recently, in New Jersey--State lawmakers are creating change, and they are doing it through policy. What I am asking today is for the Federal Government to do the same. We must also support initiatives to combat gender-based violence because far too often, it is women who look like me whose voices go unheard. Black, Latinx, and indigenous women are dying at alarming rates, and we need to be empowered not to just say their names, but also demand change so their names are not just another hashtag. I could spend hours running down the list of our loved ones of color, including those most marginalized in our country, such as our trans brothers and sisters of color and those who are part of the disability community. Yet our issues are still not given the urgency, the resources, or political weight to even come close to making a difference. I have the following requests of this body today. Number one, funding. That you allocate adequate funding for public health-focused community interventions on gun violence and that you create a gun violence task force led by Members of Congress and leaders in the community. Number two, support. That you increase funding for gender- based violence prevention initiatives to ensure that programs are able to meet the needs of survivors and create streamlines of funding for researchers of color to continue to innovate on the proven strategies that you will hear about today. Number three, inclusion. That you commit to the full inclusion of individuals with lived experience on all sides of the gun crisis in all future decision-making in this body. Communities like mine are still working to address the generational trauma that comes from one incident of gun violence. Shirley Chisholm said if there is not a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. We are still bringing folding chairs to meetings and tables in Washington. I am appreciative of being given a seat at the table here today, but as someone who has not been personally impacted by gun violence, I understand the importance of giving the megaphone to those voices that have gone unheard in the debate for so long. I actually believe it is time we flip the table over and disrupt how we really think about the possibilities of ending gun violence in America. I also believe that if we are serious about building safe and just communities, we can't just focus on the safety of some communities while turning our backs on the ones that are most affected. We need to focus on the safety of people who live in the neighborhoods that some politicians will only visit during the daytime. I am entering into the record copies of research, reports, and policies led by people of color organizations on the front lines of this work to help support the asks that we have today. Chairwoman and members of the subcommittee, thank you again for taking the time to let me testify and look forward to your questions. [The statement of Ms. Goodwin follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Ms. Bass. Thank you. We will now begin questions. Every member of the committee will have 5 minutes. I will begin. I just wanted to say that oftentimes when we have this discussion about community-based violence that there is the mistaken belief that people who are pushing for reforms, whether we are talking about gun control reforms or different solutions, that we do not care about the victims. But I think it just needs to be registered that the people that do the work like you, Mr. Bocanegra, or you, Mr. Moore, you work with the victims, too. The perpetrators, the victims are the same people in the same community. And so when you are calling for solutions that involve criminal justice reform, it is not without the concern over the people who are the victims. But as long as we have certain zip codes in this country where the violence is concentrated, where the arrests and the cycling in and out of the criminal justice system is concentrated, where people don't have opportunities once they get out because we have locked them out of the legal economy, then we shouldn't expect the problem to be resolved. So I absolutely believe in a comprehensive solution not just focusing on gun control, that we need to address mental health, we need to address education, economic opportunities. But we have chosen so far, as a nation, to not seriously invest in those areas. And so what I would like to ask you, beginning with you, Mr. Bocanegra, what would you like to see from Congress? So you run a nonprofit organization. I don't know how you are funded. I don't know if you receive any Federal funding. But what type of assistance do you need? What type of legislation do you believe we need to do to expand and replicate your work? I would like to ask Bocanegra as well as Mr. Moore. Mr. Bocanegra. Sure. Thank you, ma'am. So, first and foremost, I want to say thank you for the opportunity just to be able to speak and to be able to raise the issues in our community in Chicago and communities alike. Currently, READI Chicago is about a $20 million program that serves about 500-plus men who are at the highest risk of gun involvement. So we use science--police data, hospital data--to identify those who are at the highest risk of gun involvement, whether they are victims or perpetrators. And in fact, there is so much research out there, to your point, that often perpetrators of violence were also victims of violence. However, at what point do we decide that they stop being a victim? So it is my job, with the support of a coalition of organizations, to really find these individuals in the community and to provide employment opportunities in which these individuals are employees of Heartland Alliance. Ms. Bass. What do you need from us? What do you need us to do? Mr. Bocanegra. So what we need from you and from the committee is the hope that more resources are allocated to this level of work, for people who are on the extreme margins of being excluded from the community. And just last to say that in addition to that, right now all of our funding is--for the most part is coming from the private sector. We need Federal dollars behind us. Ms. Bass. Right. Mr. Bocanegra. Especially as we are learning more about this population as well. Ms. Bass. Okay. Let me move on to Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. Thank you, Madam Chair. Milwaukee is one of several cities that received a ReCAST grant. ReCAST stands for---- Ms. Bass. What type? ReCAST? Mr. Moore. ReCAST, Building Resilience in Communities After Stress and Trauma. It is housed in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It is a 5-year grant, and we are entering the fourth year. And so I would ask if you would prioritize that those funds continue because they prioritize communities that have had high rates of gun violence as well as trauma. The other opportunity, Congresswoman Moore has a bill around conflict mediation that I think could support many of the things that have been presented today, but prioritizes building that capacity in local communities as far as formerly incarcerated and folks that are doing violence interruptions. Ms. Bass. Ms. Goodwin. Ms. Goodwin. I think one of the most important or, I guess, two very important pieces. One is on research. Most of the prison strategies that either you heard about today or you have on the record were innovated and actually started in the '90s. So that is Operation Ceasefire. That is Cure Violence. But what we haven't been able to do from a research component is, one, be able to really innovate on those strategies. There is someone who is based out of California named DeVone Boggan, who has been really incredible in innovating and started the office---- Ms. Bass. I am sorry to interrupt you, but before I run out of time. Ms. Goodwin. Oh, yes. Ms. Bass. Mr. Toure, you mentioned the curriculum. Is your program funded? Mr. Toure. We have raised about--I am back. I think they got me back online. We raised about $235,000 from crowdsourcing. We have been able to maintain this 50-State tour. We have a goal of $1 million that was raised incrementally. So we spend that and go to these different cities as we do that. But as far as our---- Ms. Bass. Okay. So let me ask you all, and you can just raise your hand with this. Do you have programs that Members of Congress could go and visit so that we could learn more about what you do? Raise your hand if that is the case. [Show of hands.] Ms. Bass. I would just like to say before I yield to the ranking member, last year, Representative Chabot, I invited him to Los Angeles to come to visit some programs that are doing similar work, and I think it was very eye-opening. And I would like to say that maybe one of the things we could explore after this hearing is to go around and look at some innovative programs that are taking place around the country. If you would be open, I would be more than happy to organize that. I yield to my colleague. Mr. Ratcliffe. I yield my time to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Cline. Mr. Cline. Okay. I thank the ranking member. I thank the chair for putting this hearing together. This is an excellent panel that has real results in all different localities around the country to address violence in our communities. It is something that we can all agree on that needs to be addressed. It is something that we should all--the best solutions are going to come from our individual districts, from our individual cities, from our individual experiences. And in my district, we have something called Project Safe Neighborhoods. The Roanoke Division's PSN program recently completed a successful operation, making several arrests and the seizure of illegal firearms, narcotics with a street value of $500,000, and $80,000 in currency. And we--and law enforcement gathered intelligence as part of an ongoing criminal investigation, and those arrested were charged with various State and Federal crimes. But more interesting to me was just the detail with which these successful programs were outlined. Mr. Moore, for example, your goals overview, the six goals--number one, stop the shooting. Stop the violence. Number two, promote healing and restorative justice. Number three, support children, youth, and families. That one, I think, in particular is critical. Promote economic opportunity. Five, foster safe neighborhoods. Six, strengthen capacity and coordination of violence prevention efforts. It is an excellent listing of all the different programs. Ms. Goodwin, you talked about all the different State programs that are addressing violence in communities-- California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey. Many times you have issues where there is not a lot of interstate activity. So it is best left to States. But there are times when you do have interstate activity that can involve the Federal Government. But for these organizations, you know, READI Chicago, great example that you are pursuing here, and your focus on the idea that much of the gun violence in Chicago being the result of split-second decisions by traumatized individuals who have grown up surrounded by violence. Recognizing that many times the perpetrators of the violence were victims themselves. And Mr. Toure, your three-pronged solutions for safety education, legal education, conflict resolution education, those are all going to the heart of the reasons why violence has become so endemic not just in our cities, but across our society. I represent a district that is--some of it is more populated cities. Some of it is very rural. But the violence persists across demographics, across different situations. And so, working together, I think we can find these solutions and decide. Are some of them able to be replicated at the Federal level with funding, or are some of them--do some of them need to stay at the State level and just receive support from Federal, whether it is through funding or otherwise? But rather than us legislate, simply support the efforts that you are pursing. So I have got 1 minute left. Mr. Toure, since I ended with you, if you can talk about in particular, as an attorney, I was taught, I tried to teach my clients that ignorance of the law is not a defense. So you can't just go into court and say I didn't know that it was illegal. Judge, jury is not going to buy that. Can you talk about your education program there and how that is having an effect? Mr. Toure. Yes, so each--because we have been to all of the cities that everyone here lives in. I moved to Chicago for a month to do conflict resolution for a month. South Side, whatever side. Point being is, each locality is different. So the people in that particular locality--for example, in Philadelphia, you know, I have had guys 25 years old have a job at the bank, purchase a firearm lawfully, not knowing that you have to spend $20 to get a license to carry. Get pulled over, doesn't know the proper storage laws for that municipality. Now you have the felony charge. Now your life is pretty much over. So now that may be different from Philadelphia than it is for New Jersey, you know? So having lawyers specifically that are already connected to the community to come to these classes, as well as the firearms instructors, as well as the mental health specialists at our actual free events. Now they are not free. I mean, you know, this isn't a socialist thing. They are in a space where we want to remove the financial barrier to entry for beginners that want to come learn. So having layers there is a critical component of it. I am not an attorney. I cannot defend you, nor can I give you legal advice. But that lawyer that is at that class can. And so this is something that is standard at every single one of our classes all across the country for the last 4 years. Mr. Cline. Great solution. Ms. Bass. Representative Demings. Mrs. Demings. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman, for convening us together for this very, very important topic. Thank you so much to all of our witnesses as well for being here with us. What a subject. As a former law enforcement officer, this is a topic that I have dealt with more than I care to admit, and I thank you so much, as I look at the work that each of you are doing in this area. With that being said, Mr. Moore, in your community-based, on-the-ground work that you have been doing, could you just describe for us how important--as we talk about reducing violence, gun violence in our communities, could you describe for us just how important the relationship is between the police and the community? Having that strong relationships of trust and mutual respect. Mr. Moore. Thank you. It is critical on a number of levels. As it relates particularly to gender-based violence, when you think about particularly undocumented families who are afraid to call the police in those situations. When you have people who want to come forward with information, but they are not protected by law enforcement in terms of being able to show up in court, all of those things contribute to the ability to solve crimes and to address at least the backend of violence. And trust is critical, and it goes both ways. And so, when you have, you know, high incidence where trust breaks down in communities, where people either don't believe their law enforcement would be responsive or that if they are, particularly in a mental health crisis, that that person could be injured or killed as a result of calling for help, those are all factors that we hear about in our community that have to be addressed. And so the relationship is something that we look at as a public health issue, and so we work across all systems in our city to try to address that. Mrs. Demings. Thank you so much. And Mr. Bocanegra--I hope I didn't mess that up too much-- there is a lot of talk about State rights and, you know, is this a State issue? Is this a local government issue? Certainly, there are major roles to play in those jurisdictions. But why is it so critical do you believe, and look at the program that you have as well, it is pretty comprehensive--why is it so important for the Federal Government--if we are going to make great strides in this area in reducing violence in some of the most vulnerable communities, why is it so important for the Federal Government to have a major role in that process? And what do you see? And if you have already said this, I am so sorry to have you repeat yourself. But if you could have any wish at all today as it pertains to a role for the Federal Government, what would that be? Mr. Bocanegra. Well, the question was asked earlier, but now I have a little time to actually process the question. So I appreciate that. I think, you know, currently, we are leveraging--most cities are leveraging VOCA funds, which are under your jurisdiction. And many cities are able to leverage that, support families and individuals who have lost someone to violence and for individuals who are impacted by trauma as one case. I would encourage the folks in this room to continue to invest and to push for VOCA resources in the future as well. The second thing that I would ask this committee as well is that in addition to that, I think it is imperative for us to think about--and I am not a gun expert, and I am not here to debate that. As someone who has three other siblings who serve in the Armed Forces, I respect people's Second Amendment. But I will tell you this, that a lot of the people that I work with are being killed as a result of guns. And the reason why they carry guns is because of safety issues. Safety issues because of like their current situation, circumstances that they were living. So as much as I want to convince people to put their guns down or to maybe go through the legal process of purchasing a gun, the truth is that by the time our kids are--you know, our men, by the time they're 15 or 16, they already have one or two gun offenses. On average, our program--participants in our program have 18 arrests filed and felony convictions. There is no way they can purchase a gun legally. So I think about how do we create more safer communities as well, and I think that by doing so, we increase the economy in our cities, in our government. There are more people that look like me in places like this as well. And lastly, I would say, you know, I know there is a big push around criminal justice reform. As somebody who's been incarcerated, right, I could tell you that people who are formerly incarcerated could add a lot of value to our society and our community. Mrs. Demings. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I yield back. Ms. Bass. Thank you. Representative Steube. Mr. Steube. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't think there is a coincidence, to me anyways, that most of these big cities have very, very restrictive gun laws, yet they have the highest crime rates. And we can--I will first talk about Chicago, and then I would love to hear Mr. Toure. Mr. Toure. Right. Mr. Steube. Toure. Mr. Toure. Yes. Mr. Steube. Did I get it right that time? Mr. Toure. You got it. Mr. Steube. Okay. And I will ask for you to kind of respond and what your thoughts are on this. But just looking at Chicago, and you have very restrictive gun laws there. Washington, D.C., has very restrictive gun laws, but they have a very high homicide rate and gun violence rate. I don't think there is a coincidence there. But the other side of that argument would be, oh, people are getting their firearms from Indiana and Wisconsin. So these are factual numbers. So some facts on that. You have in 2015, gun murders per 100,000 residents in Wisconsin and Indiana were 2.9 and 3.2, while gun ownership rates were 34.7 and 33.8. This contrasts with Illinois, which had 3.4 gun murders per 100,000 and 26.2 ownership rates. Chicago's gun homicide rate same year was 25.1 per 100,000 residents. So you have neighboring States where the gun laws are much restrictive and in my--I would say more freedom for law-abiding citizens, but they have more guns and less crime. Mr. Toure. Right. Right. Mr. Steube. So could you talk about that a little bit? Mr. Toure. Well, that is because some of the approaches aren't really about saving lives. You can't legislate evil. And I think what is happening is because a lot of communities have suffered from trauma, and that trauma is legit. I wouldn't be on this panel with this collective of people, understand we are in the community, right? So we are affected by that. But the problem is when you make legislative decisions for moral behaviors that don't solve the actual issue, that is wrong. That is wrong. John Lott--it is a book, ``More Guns, Less Crime.'' That is factual data. We cannot argue--I have friends, family members, loved ones that have been affected by this, but you know, the data is clear. Adding more rules does not save lives. Education does. Those areas that you are talking about that have equal or even more firearms, they also have a general culture of understanding of what your rights are as stated in the Second Amendment, but also what the responsibilities that come along with that. So that is a cultural and educational shift, as opposed to in those places like Philadelphia, Chicago, Compton, Detroit, the places that we go to regularly. Because there is not more education, openness about firearms responsibilities and rights, everything becomes taboo. That taboo means we are not going to discuss it. Perfect example for this, and it is somewhat similar, but it is a bit different. In the '90s, we had tremendous problems with teen pregnancy. Tremendous problems. We didn't like hide more, you know, talk less about sex. What we did was we talked more about sex and prevention, and teen pregnancy rates dropped. That is education. So in these places, when you just try to over legislate, which is a violation of our human rights and self-defense, that is clear, and then you ask for Federal Government to help to encroach on States rights, that is another clear-cut contradiction, that does not help. The solution is informing young people, just because a lot of these young men for the most part are ill-informed. They are not educated. It is taboo, and they still live in the same rough neighborhood like I live in, you know? So the answer here is more solution-based thinking in regards to educating. And I know it sounds weird when you say it. I know a lot of people say, well, you may be pro gun or you may be pro freedom. I think we all are. I don't think anybody is saying or genuinely saying we want to take something away from you, but you can legislate things away with an unintended consequence, you know? So the answer here, again based on the data, not my feelings, the basic answer here is educating people about their rights. When we have classes where guys are 19, 20 years old, and we educate them on, hey, these are your rights. If you stay on the straight and narrow, you can lawfully purchase firearms to participate in the shooting sports, you know, all of these particulars that go along with that, that young man is much more likely to stay on the right and narrow so when he is 21, he can lawfully have a license to carry. He can protect his home, his freedoms. And we are educating those people. The answer here is education, not more punitive damages for things that, again, like you said, the numbers are very clear. Mr. Steube. And I have only got 30 seconds left. So I will give it to you with one quick question. So how do you respond to people who accuse you of putting more firearms in their cities? Mr. Toure. Well, they are wrong, and that is the opportunity for us to educate. If someone thinks that, they are not familiar with all of the work that we do around healing and trauma. I am not having a conversation about firearms with anyone until I am having a conversation about safe and responsible ownership and mitigating trauma. If you come to our class because you are mad, it is not time for you to learn about firearms. And we invite those people to come into our actual classes. Mr. Steube. Thank you for your time. Ms. Bass. Representative McBath. Mrs. McBath. Thank you, Chairwoman Bass. And thank you so much to our witnesses today, and I somewhat actually had the opportunity to work with a great deal in the field over the several years that I have been working on gun violence prevention. But I kind of want to take a moment today to just kind of talk about a meeting that I had with some of my colleagues--Congresswoman Kelly, Congressman Clay, Congressman John Lewis, Congressman David Cicilline, and myself. We actually had a chance to go over to Senator Mitch McConnell's office yesterday. And we had the opportunity to go over and to speak with some of his very own constituents, gun violence survivors from his district, gun violence survivors, volunteers, activists from all over the State. We actually had a chance to go in, and they had a chance to tell their experiences of losing loved ones to murder, suicide, and also the shooting in Parkland, the shooting in Las Vegas. And they spoke about their injuries, the injuries that they bear that only not are physical injuries, but psychological injuries as well. One woman spoke of losing both of her children to gun violence in separate incidents more than a decade apart. And another woman spoke of two of her relatives a generation apart, that she lost both of them to gun violence. And we did talk about our failure to take action, which is leaving many, many generations in pain. And so many of these survivors, they are actually standing up now, and they are sharing their stories. And most, I have to say, unfortunately, are communities of color. Their communities, communities of color, are bearing a particularly heavy burden for the Senate's failure to address gun violence, for the Senate's failure to take up the legislation that we have already passed in the House to guarantee universal background checks, to fund gun violence prevention research, and to close the Charleston loophole. So I want everyone to understand that no one in this room is immune to gun violence. I know firsthand. I lost my son Jordon in the national loud music killing. No family, no place of worship, no school, no community is immune. And we owe it to every single American in this country to take action to keep them safe. And I applaud those of you that are sitting on the panel today, thank you for the work that you are doing in your communities to make a difference. You are taking action as we all wait for the Senate to finally take some serious action on saving lives. Ms. Goodwin, I would like to ask you a question. You know, there is a significant fiscal cost related to gun violence, which includes medical expenses, criminal justice costs, and lost income, most of which are borne by our taxpayers. How could we better invest so that we are getting a better yield for our taxpaying dollars? Ms. Goodwin. That is a great question, and just on talking about the costs, it costs upwards of $229 billion a year, just that is the impact of gun violence. What is not built into that cost, which is very important, is the cost of even shootings and violence that we don't know about that isn't reported or we don't have the research on, or people that actually may not even go to the hospitals. The hospital cost itself is $2.8 billion. And so, you know, one night in the hospital--and I know that there are survivors here in the audience, too, that I want to recognize--it is about $95,000 per night to stay in the hospital if you have been shot or injured. And so I think the cost savings for what a lot of us are talking about actually pays for itself, and we can look at what some of the States have actually been able to do. And I do think that there is a role either cross-jurisdictionally, we have seen some cities, we have seen some States, we have also seen some counties actually take initiative to reduce gun violence specifically in communities of color. And most of it has to do with funding, but it does have to do with healing, and it does have to do with looking at the entire life cycle of gun violence. So I will just say a couple of States very quickly. In New York State, of the last available data that we do have, the State spends around--the actual State government, about $20 million. But the cost of gun violence is around $5.6 billion. So we know that if you actually invest, in Massachusetts, they save about $7 for every $1 spent in the State of Massachusetts, which is the State that has passed legislation. Legislators came together and said how can we solve violence that is happening in our inner cities and in our communities? And so what we do know is that there is a cost for gun violence, and we can look and kind of talk and have those conversations for how much each shooting costs. And there is incredible research that is being done around the country from people like Pastor Michael McBride, DeVone Boggan, and David Muhammad out of Oakland on what is the exact cost per shooting. In some cities, it is over $500,000. In some cities, it is $1 million. And so there is an inherent cost that taxpayers are having every time someone is shot and survives. The disability community has been impacted every single day and sometimes do not have access to things like VOCA funds. So there is a huge cost of gun violence, but there is also an even less cost of actually doing something and taking action specifically on these programs that we are talking about today. Mrs. McBath. Thank you so much. Ms. Bass. Number-one reason why young men are in wheelchairs is gunshot wounds. Representative Gohmert. Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank all of you for being here. Just seems from observing that all of you, all four of you seem to have a heightened sense of right and wrong, a heightened sense of wanting to help others, and to make this world a better place. I greatly appreciate that. Appreciate you being here. Mr. Toure, you have talked about the classes that your organization provides, and it sounds like those were immensely helpful. I am wondering, are there any classes on parenting? Mr. Toure. Yes. So, one, we have groups--we usually have--I will give you a perfect example. We have had generations, 74- year-old grandmom, mom, granddaughter come to our classes the first time, to help with parenting and create scenarios there, as well as those are first time people have ever held a firearm, knew about what it was, so forth and so on. I think the bigger portion of that, again, because I know we are having a conversation about gun violence, or violence in general, but we are also having a conversation about culture shifting back in the direction of a nuclear family scenario. Mr. Gohmert. Yes. Mr. Toure. These are the conversations that we have---- Mr. Gohmert. So we talk about nuclear families? Mr. Toure. Absolutely. So we---- Mr. Gohmert. Because we talked about improving the poverty situation. Mr. Toure. Right. Mr. Gohmert. And the surveys seem to indicate very clearly you got a better shot at not living in poverty, regardless of race, if you have a nuclear family. Mr. Toure. A structure. Right. So I have a friend who does this event called Aiming for the Truth, and he famously says how, you know, you show someone in parenting how, okay, I am a parent. This is my wife. This is my--you know, or my husband, and these are our children. That is the equity for your family, right? You build that equity up. Firearms and the Second Amendment, safe and responsible ownership is how you defend that equity, okay? So these are things that we deal with at our classes. Again, every one of the panelists today have made this clear in the sense of--and I don't want to sound so ``broken recordish,'' but this is a holistic approach. The only area that we may have some sort of disagreement is the lack of legislating or asking more people as more so than education. So the parental component of that is definitely in our classes at every single one. Mr. Gohmert. It sounds like what you have been teaching is immensely helpful, but I think about John Adams when he became second President. He made the statement talking about our Constitution. This Constitution is intended for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. So it constantly occurs to me if we are not going to get back to teaching right and wrong---- Mr. Toure. Correct. Mr. Gohmert [continuing]. And the best place for that seems to be in the home, then we are going to end up not only getting rid of the Second Amendment, we can't have freedom of assembly because there will be problems. Freedom of speech, we got to cut that out. It only works if people are taught about right and wrong. Mr. Toure. Our classes deal with morality and understanding what those high levels of morals are. Again, as I said earlier, you cannot legislate morality. It has to be educated. It has to be cultural. We have to have a paradigm shift in these regards that makes a young person, like the brother said, not even want to pick up a gun to be violent in the first place. Or a knife. Or a bat. Mr. Gohmert. Well, right. Like in Rwanda, they didn't have guns hardly, but they had enough machetes to kill 800,000 people. Mr. Toure. Right, right. Mr. Gohmert. Mainly with machetes. It is the evil that is in the heart that needs to be stopped. Mr. Toure. Right. Mr. Gohmert. But I saw it over and over as a felony judge, the thousands of cases that came through my court. So often, there was no father or a mother was working three jobs, and she wasn't around as much because she was trying to do what she could. And it--regardless what you think or just like anybody about the Bible, I found it intriguing, I believe. But intriguing, the last verse of the Old Testament before it is silent for 400 years is talking about the end. ``When He comes, He will turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the hearts of the children back to the fathers.'' And it just seems like when those are out of synch and fathers don't care, we are in trouble. Mr. Toure. Correct. Mr. Gohmert. And I appreciate all that you are doing to try to make this a better place and hope we can work together toward that. Thank you very much. Mr. Toure. Thank you. Ms. Bass. Representative Deutch. Mr. Deutch. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thanks for holding this hearing. I represent Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Parkland, one of the safest communities in the country until 17 people were gunned down and 17 others were injured. And the kids, the survivors who started March for Our Lives, knew enough to address what Representative Clay referred to earlier as the ``slow motion mass shootings'' that are taking place in communities all across our country. And they knew enough to try to build a movement by going to L.A. and Chicago and Milwaukee and meeting their peers and engaging around the issues that we are talking about here today. They did a great job causing the conversation to continue about school shooting, but we have dropped the ball when it comes to the conversation that we need to be having today, which is why I am so grateful to the chair. Look, we have got to pass Representative Kelly's bill on straw purchasers and gun trafficking and deal with illegal guns. And we have to pass Representative Moore's bill on community-based approaches. But I want to, Mr. Moore, just go back to those photos you held up because it says something really important about why we are here. That picture of Sandra Parks, who you said was 13 when she was struck in her own bedroom in 2018, and that other picture you have of Quanita Tay Jackson, who was 20, who was a peace activist who was caught in a crossfire of two cars shooting at each other. And that other photo you have of 5-year-old Laylah Petersen, who was killed while sitting on her grandfather's lap. And these other photos that you have submitted, the 9- year-old Za'Layia Jenkins, who died while inside a relative's home, and Bill Thao, 13 months, was playing on the floor of a relative's home. And 6-year-old Justin Evans Jr. in his grandmother's yard. And 3-year-old Brooklyn Harris shot and killed inside a car. Let us be honest. There is just no question that if these horrific attacks were happening every single day, people dying, little kids dying on the floor of their home or sitting on their grandpa's lap or getting ready to go fishing, if they happened in other communities, we would be talking about them all the time. And--and the reason this is so--this hearing is so important and the fact that you are here highlighting the work you do is so important is because we have got to deal with gun safety, and that is a big piece of this. But your focus, Mr. Bocanegra and Mr. Moore, and the work that you do, Ms. Goodwin, too, on not just the gun issue, but the need for community- based solutions, recognizing that we have got a gun violence problem. And we also have an enormous problem with poverty and trauma and economic opportunity, lack of economic opportunity and mass incarceration. And that needs to be on the table every day, too. And Mr. Moore, your proposal or the plan that you submitted for the record, I think we all need to focus on. You walked through all kinds of really important things that we ought to do, and you talked about their risk factors, lack of housing and segregation and harmful norms creating a culture of fear and hopelessness, and limited employment opportunities. That has got to be--that has got to drive this debate, too. And so I guess my question for you is when half the dais comes to Milwaukee next summer, and we have an opportunity to highlight the really important community-based work that you are doing, what do you want to take us to see? What is it that we want to make sure the world pays attention to so that when we return from that, we will be further informed and empowered to do the kinds of important work that we are talking about here? Mr. Moore. I am going to need more than 30 seconds to answer that. But definitely, the Blueprint represents the hopes, dreams, aspirations, and ideas of the entire community. We interview thousands of young people who are part of the process. Law enforcement, hospital leaders, they are grassroots folks who are doing things every day. We hear the stories about the pain and what is not working. There is a lot that is happening in our city. Tay, for example, organized a basketball tournament in the park that she was killed in the next day on a day of a love. And that was organized by community members who wanted to elevate love in the city. And again, although she wasn't targeted, rapid gunfire in our city often fired by semiautomatic weapons are taking the lives of children in our city every day. But we are also fighting back and taking a public health approach to solving this issue. Mr. Deutch. Madam Chairman, I am really, really grateful for today and for our witnesses being here today. And I hope that we can do many more hearings like this to keep this issue front and center as a major part of what we do. Ms. Bass. Absolutely. And when we are finished, I am going to ask the chair if--the chair and the ranking member, if they will allow us to visit some of your communities so that we can go in a bipartisan fashion and see what communities are actually doing to solve the problem. Representative McClintock. Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Madam Chairman. We have been at this now for 50 years, debating these issues, and over the years, we do have experience with a lot of policies that have worked and a lot of policies that haven't worked. And it seems to me we ought to be approaching the issue in that manner. And I pointed out that in those 50 years, we have adopted many, many gun control laws that we didn't have back in those days, in the '60s and before. And you would think that if the gun control laws were a solution to the problem, the problem would at least be getting better by now, not getting worse. But it is clearly getting much worse. You know, I pointed out that in those 50 years we discovered that gun control laws are very effective at disarming law-abiding citizens. They, by definition, obey those laws. The problem is they have been very ineffective at disarming criminals and madmen and terrorists. In response to that argument yesterday, Ms. Jayapal said, well, of course, criminals don't obey laws, but that is not an argument for not having any laws. And it struck me what she and others seem not to be able to grasp is that gun control laws are unique. When law-abiding citizens obey gun control laws, they render themselves defenseless against the very criminals who don't obey these laws, and we end up creating a society where law-abiding citizens are defenseless and criminals are as well-armed as ever. That is a very unstable, very dangerous, and very violent society. And I don't think it is a coincidence that so many of these incidents occur in so-called ``gun-free zones,'' where criminals and terrorists and madmen all know law-abiding people can't fight back. Mr. Toure, you mentioned one of the things that has changed is obviously we have seen a big change in the culture over these past 50 years. But it seems to me another thing that changed is when somebody went out of their way to warn us that they were out of their minds and ready to do violence to others, we took them at their word. Mr. Toure. Right. Mr. McClintock. We committed them in mental institutions where we could treat them, care for them, and keeping them from harming themselves or others. We have emptied out those mental hospitals over the past 50 years, and one of the most common situations that we see in so many of these massacres is the person was out of his mind. Mr. Toure. Right. Mr. McClintock. They went out of their way to tell us they were out of their mind. We knew it, and we just didn't do anything about it. We used to, but we don't anymore. Mr. Toure. Correct. Mr. McClintock. We are in the business of making public policy. What would you recommend to us, what changes in laws do we need to make in order to bring this crisis under control? Mr. Toure. Well, for one, we have a lot of those laws already on the books. First, I want to say--well, he is gone now. But to the family members, he brought up Parkland, and that young man, first and foremost, to all of the families and victims of that, you know, our energy, support, love is consistently with them, among others. Not just Parkland, Chicago, Detroit, North Philly where I am from as well. In that scenario, you had someone who was--had the police called on him over 30 times, you know? Thirty-eight, if I am-- you know, don't quote me too hard. But you have someone that clearly had an issue. And in that space where we are trying to make sure that we look like we are actually safer than we actually are, you know, the coward of that particular county, they had a standing practice of ignoring some of those things, and unfortunately, it cost 17 lives. So my answer to that is I think we have the laws already in place. I think that people are not following those or executing them properly for their own whatever their individual or collective reasons are. Mr. McClintock. Well, then please tell me, at least in California--each State may be different. But tell me they are powerless to act until a person they know is dangerously mentally ill actually goes out and commits a crime. Then they can arrest him. Then they can get them away from society. Mr. Toure. Now there is the---- Mr. McClintock. But it used to be that they could get them committed, get them treated, and keep the rest of society safe from them and keep themselves safe from themselves. Mr. Toure. I think we are still talking about something more community-based. You know, there are also issues of a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago at this point, where the grandmother saw that the grandson was about to do something silly with a firearm. A grandmom, a nanny, right? A nana got involved and stopped that young man from doing things. This is going back to the conversation about morality. This is going back to the conversation of community development. This is the same type of holistic approach that we are talking about today. But where we are wrong is when we are ignoring those things for legislative or fiduciary reasons. I think that we all know that these are issues, and I think sometimes the things that I have done. You are going through a divorce. You have a lot of guns. Hey, man, let me clean your firearms for you. You got a bunch of them. Let me clean them for you for a while. Cooling period. That does not have to include more legislation. That is community involvement. Ms. Bass. Thank you. Representative Dean. Ms. Dean. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I am so glad you convened this important hearing. And I am struck by the conversation that just took place because really what it, I think, advises all of us is we should pass immediately red flag laws. Absolutely, we should have the ability to interfere, to intervene to save lives. To say you are in grave danger. You are having a crisis. You are not somebody who was 302'd sometime in your past. You are in the midst of a crisis. Let us help you. We know that the Charleston shooter, what happened there was his friend knew he was in grave crisis, took his gun away when he had gone into a terrible binge drinking episode. But fearing for his own liability, the friend gave the gun back. So you have made an eloquent argument for red flag laws. Mr. Toure. No. Ms. Dean. I also want to point out---- Mr. Toure. Not at all. [Laughter.] Mr. Toure. Not at all. I respect---- Ms. Dean. So I also want---- Ms. Bass. Excuse me. Excuse me. The representative is speaking. Ms. Dean. The other fallacy, the myth that we just heard over and over again, and Madam Chair, I hope maybe we can dig into this some more, which is bad guys are never going to follow the law, so you can't--guns is different. It is a different topic. I come from Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania State Police have the Pennsylvania Instant Check System. It is layered over top of the National Instant Check System. It is actually stronger because it doesn't have a 3-day default to sell the gun. It has a waiting period, and you cannot default sell the gun until you get clearance. What that--what the data shows, not the myths, but what the data shows is that in a single year, 12,000 prohibited purchasers attempted background checks to buy guns, and they were declined because they were prohibited purchasers. So sometimes bad guys, prohibited purchasers will try to follow these laws, and the laws work. Background checks work. We need to make it universal. I think I would like to pivot from that to just talk about the issue of suicide. I was thinking the numbers are so staggering. Forty thousand people a year die of gun violence in this country. More than half of those, 20,000-some are gun violence suicides. Another 134,000 people are literally wounded caught in the crossfire. Think about that. Recently, at a hearing, I was asked does that 134,000 identify people who are actually traumatized, never touched by the bullet, but traumatized. And of course, it doesn't. So I think let me start there. Mr. Bocanegra, could you talk to that issue of suicide? We know that suicide rates are up. Suicide rates, tragically, in all areas, whether it is veterans, our youth, black males, people who are poor and struggling with debt, suicide is up. Can you talk to the issue of suicide, gun violence suicide, and also the trauma? Mr. Bocanegra. So I am not an expert in that area, so I might defer to one of my colleagues here. But I would say this from experience. I have had the pleasure of working with veterans, United States combat veterans. And I could tell you that, unfortunately, we have lost some veterans along the way because of suicide. And not just PTSD, but moral injury specifically. The second thing that I would say is that my wife, Kathryn Bocanegra, for about 10 years has worked with families who lost their children to violence. And while we don't work with families who lost their kids to cancer or any of that, specifically the trauma that comes with someone who lost someone to violence, including suicide, needs a different kind of level of support as well for the surviving family members. And lastly, when I started my opening remarks, you know, I wish I had more time to have spoken on this. But when I was 17 years old, about to turn 18, I was going to sign up with the Marines. And I was going to sign up for the Marines because I, by that time, witnessed too many of my friends shot and killed, all of them gang members, including myself being one. And I told myself, if I die, I want, at the very least, my parents to be proud of the fact of who I was as a person. So I was going to join the Marines knowing that I was going to get killed. And so I didn't know this until grad school, but every time that I went to a rival gang without a weapon, and I antagonized the other gang members to shoot me, those are suicidal ideologies behind that. And many young black and brown people actually experience that, but we don't talk about that as well. And so when I think about the program that we are managing in Chicago and other programs alike, I think about how relevant trauma is. And unless it is--if we don't cure that, if we don't give it the proper attention that it needs, we will have an increase in those suicides in the different ways that typically we don't speak on. Ms. Dean. Thank you. And I---- Ms. Goodwin. I can speak really quickly on that, the suicide rate. Ms. Dean. Thank you. Ms. Goodwin. So, and this comes out of the Journal--I know we don't have too much time--Journal of Community Health earlier this year. Suicide rates are the second-leading cause of death of black children between the ages of 13 and 19. And this is taking the rate from 2001 to 2017. It is a 60 percent increase. So I am going to say that again, 60 percent increase from 2001 to 2017 of black boys between the ages of 13 and 19. It is 182 percent increase for black girls between the age of 13 and 19. The number one for black boys' way of dying by suicide is with a firearm. So there is an increase that is not steadily increasing. It is happening very fast in our communities. Ms. Dean. I can't say the words thank you, but I thank you all. Ms. Bass. Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you, Chairwoman Bass, for holding such an important conversation. We know that gun violence is an epidemic. It is a public health epidemic that is affecting our communities all over the country. I actually represent a portion of Miami-Dade County. And in South Miami-Dade, we have some of the highest rates of gun violence in the entire county for kids under the age of 18. So I think that gun violence is now affecting all people. It is affecting people that are trying to go about their everyday lives when they go shopping at the mall, when they are worshipping in churches, when they go to movie theaters, nightclubs. But I think we need to accept the fact that it disproportionately affects communities of color, and we have seen the facts. And I want to echo what my colleague mentioned earlier, Congressman Deutch, that we need to address the systemic issues of the cycle of poverty, lack of economic opportunity, and also we need to take action here in Congress to pass common sense gun reform. I mean, you are talking about a high rate of suicide among teens. And in my district, in my community, we have two huge gun shows where teenagers can go to the parking lot and get guns from other private citizens that are purchasing these arms. So there are a lot of things that how we can address reducing gun violence in our communities, but I do want to highlight some of the programs that I have seen that have helped. We have--I have gotten to know my constituent who I now call my friend. Her name is Romania Dukes, and she lost her son to gun violence in my community. Michael Dukes was only 18. He was hanging out with his friend when he was killed. He was hit by a stray bullet fired during an argument that had nothing to do with him. And this tragic and senseless instance of gun violence led Romania to take her pain and take action to help others. And she started this organization called Mothers Fighting for Justice. Romania's organization works to educate young teens about the dangers of gun violence. It has initiatives to build relationships between the police and the communities so that they can build trust. It highlights local leaders that help reduce crime and violence among the younger generation. And I think that these type of initiatives are so important to helping our communities. I also want to mention South Dade Major Charles, who has been dealing just in the past 2 weeks with several shootings in our community. And he brought out to my attention something very interesting that I don't think we talk enough about, and it is how do you monitor young teens to--through social media that are communicating through social media, getting arms from each other, organizing crime. And it is just something that I want to bring up since we are talking about this. But my first question is to Mr. Goodwin. Mr. Goodwin, you have talked about these community initiatives as being so important--or Ms. Goodwin, sorry. What do you think we can do here in Congress to facilitate these programs and raise more awareness? Ms. Goodwin. I think one of the biggest, the ask that I would have is that you look at the data and the evidence. And you know, it was said earlier today by the chairwoman, there is evidence in research from every almost Ivy League in this country that looks at the programs that you will hear about today or you heard about today that says that they are effective, and it says that they can dramatically reduce gun violence, mostly homicides, in places upwards of 60 to 70 percent. So this isn't us kind of throwing things around. This is the data and the research that says that it works. What we don't have and what we have had to do is we have had to over rely on philanthropy or good-meaning people who want to give money to the organizations that you may hear about today. And so we do need resources from the Government, and we do need statutory legislation that actually makes sure that this legislation won't go away, regardless of who is in office. A lot of places, and I am sure Reggie can speak to this as well, a lot of the work that has happened has, you know, has lasted through different mayors or through different people on city council. And so we need a codified law that actually looks like this at a department. Like he works within and works with the Department of Health, and so we believe that we need to have codified into law a department to specifically work on violence prevention in communities of color that actually works with people on the ground in the front lines of this. And then we need Federal dollars that can go into those 120 cities that we mentioned earlier this year that have the high rates of homicide. Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you. And Mr. Moore, do you want to comment on that? Mr. Moore. Yes. I want to talk about a very specific intervention called 414Life that we have launched in partnership with our Level 1 trauma center, Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin, where we have hired folks from the community to interrupt the cycle of retaliatory violence. Most of the shootings in our city are related to arguments and conflict. And so having folks with the street credibility to be able to detect and intervene and stop the transmission of violence is a public health approach that is showing results. Right now, we are 15 percent down in homicides and 20 percent down in nonfatal shootings as of today. Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you so much. I yield back, Madam Chairman. Ms. Bass. Representative Cohen. Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Chairman Bass, and thank you for calling this hearing, which is so important. My State of Tennessee, and particularly my City of Memphis, which is most germane to me, heavily impacted by poverty and by violent crime. A recent study by the Violence Policy Center cites that Tennessee has one of the highest rates of homicide of black victims in the Nation and that African Americans are disproportionately reported as victims of homicide. In Tennessee, there were 323 black homicide victims in 2016, and 87 percent of them died after being shot. Nationwide in 2016, although African Americans only represent 13 percent of the population, homicide of black residents made up 51 percent of all respondents to the reports. This is an epidemic that has long-term implications. A local publication in Memphis, the Daily Memphian, which is online but is kind of in lieu of a daily newspaper, or in addition thereto, I guess, recently published a three-part series of the impact that constant stress and trauma has on the brains of young people. Research showed that prolonged stress and trauma can impair the normal development of a child's brain and erode a child's immune system. Children who experience chronic stress, trauma in their first childhood experiences become more prone to violence, aggression, depression, substance addiction, suicide, illness and disease, not to mention academic failure. There is a definite need for more Federal resources to help combat this issue. And at this time, I would like to introduce that Daily Memphian report to the record and the Violence Policy Center report, as well as---- Ms. Bass. Without objection. [The information follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Mr. Cohen. Thank you. I introduced H.R. 3738, the Safer Streets Act, which would create a new grant program to help reduce violent crime in our communities. Specifically, the act would provide grants to units of local government that have crime rates twice the national rate. Fifty percent of the grant funding would be reserved for units of local governments with crime rates 4 times the national average, 20 percent would go to units of local government with crime rates 3 times the national average, and 10 percent to those crime rates twice the national rate. I think it makes sense to put the money where the problem is. The remaining funding would be reserved for emergency grants to help address spikes in violent crime. It is unfortunate, I read yesterday that one of the bills that I voted for in this committee and was kind of proud to do because I had to overcome my resistance to voting for something that the proponents of were not my favorites, but you try to do what is right. And that was the FIRST STEP Act. And then I read that the Leader said that he didn't want to use it in his campaigns. It was a loser and that he regretted somewhat him being behind it because he hadn't got the credit he deserved, and the people who liked it, like Van Jones, liked him for a day and then didn't like him afterwards. We need to be doing things that address these problems and not worry about somebody kissing your shoes or kissing your posterior or patting you on the head. That is a problem we have got in this country. Mr. Moore, let me ask you. If States and localities were given more Federal funding, how would you recommend it be spent to truly help solve the problem? Mr. Moore. Thank you. And I want to also underscore that Wisconsin has the second-highest black homicide victimization rate, which I think is highlighted in one of the reports you presented from the Violence Policy Center. So this is a racial justice issue as well. Particularly as it relates to funding public health approaches to violence prevention, one of the things that could be supported is 414Life, as an example. You know, we need all the support that we can get on that, both from the local level, the State level, but also if there are Federal resources that could support training and engaging folks in conflict mediation and de-escalation, which it seems like there is agreement for that among this panel. That is something that could substantially help. I also want to underscore on the prevention side because I see that more on the intervention. On the prevention side, there is also funding after school. When you look at cuts to the 21st century community learning centers, funding those types of programs are also important. Youth employment is also an area of focus that should be strengthened as well. Mr. Cohen. Let me ask you this, Mr. Moore, and I may be presumptive here because of where you are from. But are you going to be for the Brewers or the Nats? [Laughter.] Mr. Moore. The Brewers all day. Mr. Cohen. Well, I hope you have an awful October the 1st. [Laughter.] Mr. Cohen. I yield back the balance of my time. Ms. Bass. We will close out with Mr. Jeffries. Mr. Jeffries. Thank you, Madam Chair, for convening this hearing. I want to thank all the witnesses for your presence here today. Let me just start with Ms. Goodwin. I think you said in your testimony that black, Latinx, and indigenous people, of course, make up a disproportionate amount of gun deaths due to homicide, interpersonal violence, and domestic violence. Is that right? Ms. Goodwin. Yes. Mr. Jeffries. And I think you also testified that black men make up 6 percent of the U.S. population, yet account for more than half of all gun-related homicide victims in America. Is that right? Ms. Goodwin. Yes. Mr. Jeffries. And you know, from an explanatory standpoint, every gun-related death is a tragedy in America. The mass shootings tend to get a disproportionate share of attention, but the day-to-day violence is just as consequential, as hurtful, as devastating to individuals, to families, and communities. And so if you could just lay out for me briefly how you think we can take steps to address that day-to-day gun violence disproportionately impacting, as you pointed out, black and Latino individuals? Ms. Goodwin. Yes, absolutely. So I think having a comprehensive approach--and I know that kind of sounds like a buzzword. But all of the programs, almost everything that was addressed today, whether it is suicide, trauma, most of the programs that most of us work on actually address and hit on every single thing that you heard about. In Oakland, in Boston, in Chicago, in places across the country, across the South, they are actually building in comprehensive approaches that have healing counselors that come to whenever there is a rapid response. Erica Ford in New York City, she has a bus that actually goes around to different communities after there has been mass tragedy happening in communities of color. And so I think that comprehensive approach, but I also want to make sure that I add into that comprehensive approach really making sure that when we look at the homicide rate in this country of a little over or almost 8,000 homicides of black folks in this country, a large number of that is not women, but women are being killed and getting killed by firearms, especially black women. And so I think that is also part of what we need to build into a lot of the comprehensive approaches that we see in cities and counties and States. Mr. Jeffries. Thank you. Mr. Moore, it is my understanding that there are roughly-- or the United States has roughly 4 percent of the world's population, but about 40 percent of the world's guns, and so that translates into over 300 million guns circulating throughout America with law enforcement not really having a handle on who has those guns, who may get access to those guns in an unlawful fashion or in a fashion that may result in someone doing harm to the American people. And while we want to balance, of course, the interest inherent in the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms, the Supreme Court, in a decision written by Justice Scalia, indicated that reasonable regulations are constitutional and within the purview of the Congress to move forward in the best interests of the safety and security of the American people. So I would be interested in your thoughts, being in a State like Wisconsin that I believe has not been very proactive in terms of its gun violence prevention policies, operating within that context in Milwaukee, what have some of the challenges been? Mr. Moore. I think--and I stated in my remarks earlier that there has been an overreliance on punishment as opposed to prevention. And again, we work with families where we understand that accountability is the first step to healing, brings them to justice and people being, you know, found as far as perpetrators. Unfortunately, there has not been an equitable investment on the prevention side. And so at the State level, for example, we are trying to push for a comprehensive policy plus resources as it relates to gun violence prevention from the State to support municipalities, particularly Madison and Milwaukee, who have the largest populations, in dealing with this issue. The other piece is looking at gun tracing. And so understanding to time the crime in terms of where guns are coming from and understanding that there are dealerships, gun dealerships, 5 percent of them account for 90 percent of the crime guns that are found. And so really addressing that issue of the flow of firearms, both legal and illegal, into our community. Mr. Jeffries. Well, thank you very much. And Major Toure, did I get that correct, your title? Mr. Toure. Yes. Toure. Mr. Jeffries. Toure, you--I think you sell T-shirts on your website. Is that correct? Mr. Toure. Yes. Mr. Jeffries. And one of them is ``Make the 'Hood Great Again.'' Is that right? Mr. Toure. Absolutely. Mr. Jeffries. And what is your recommendation as it relates to how that actually would be brought about? Mr. Toure. You do that by having a respectful balance between mitigating and preventing against trauma like this, as well as preserving freedoms. I think that we make the mistake when we lean, just like Mr. Moore said, when we lean so heavily on legislation and adding more punitive measures, more so than preventing, you know? So I think that is one of the primary ways, when we strike that balance between mitigating the trauma, educating people, while preserving freedoms. And I think that is definitely how we make the 'hood great again. Mr. Jeffries. Thank you. Madam Chair, I think I am out of time. I yield back. Ms. Bass. Representative Jackson Lee. Ms. Jackson Lee. Ms. Chairman and Ranking Member, thank you for your courtesies, one from the great State of California and one from the great State of Texas. I rushed back here because I think you all are part of the most important hearing that we may be holding on the Hill today. There are many things going on. But what we are trying to do here is saving lives. Let me first start with this detrimental concept from the schoolhouse to jailhouse--forgive me for the answers you may have already given. I see that as a pathway to the loss of life of young people. Some years back, before it became duck for an active shooter, school systems in States began to think the way you deal with children is you assess them for truancy, you assess them for gum chewing, and I say assess them, penalize them criminally for gum chewing, for making an outburst, for stomping out of a classroom, and you begin to define who they are. Would you just go down the row and answer that question of what that begins to do in a child's life, when they start out in school like that even as young as 5? Mr. Bocanegra. Forgive me, Eduardo. Mr. Bocanegra. I need a second or two to think about that. That was a really heavy question. Ms. Jackson Lee. All right. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. I think when we look at the trauma that has been produced and we further traumatize young people, you may have heard about some of the issues we have had in Wisconsin with Lincoln Hills, where we took young people who had been harmed and put them in a place that caused more harm for longer periods of time, and we expected them to return back to the community feeling stronger and safer. Unfortunately, that is not what prison incarceration produces. And we have to have a serious conversation about how we are treating young people not just when they do something wrong, but way long before that, and understand the fact that there is research out there that states that confining young people does not produce better outcomes for them long term. Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Mr. Toure. Mr. Toure. Famous quote. You know, it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men and/or women. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men or broken women. You know, I am paraphrasing that part. I think from the school perspective, I think, again, the answer is very clear. It is less punitive. An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. And I think that in something as extreme that is clearly an issue that we have in our Nation today, something as extreme as firearms, we have to take that same approach and educating and changing the thought process around this seemingly taboo subject to prevent more death and more trauma. So, for me, it is education more so than just only, you know, punitive measures. Ms. Jackson Lee. So I am going to ask a question, Amber, in the mix so that I get my question in. My goal and vision has been, working with this great committee, to overhaul the juvenile justice system with omnibus legislation that deals with complete alternatives for juveniles when they have to be in the system at all. So incorporate in your answer the idea that where you place a child, if you have to place them, really reflects on what will happen to them. We introduced the anti-bullying juvenile block grant money as an anti-bullying, prevention of bullying. Not enough money, I believe. But the point is, is that it was in the Department of Justice to give organizations money to try to deal with this. So what is the need, adding to the question I have, for the overhaul of what they call the juvenile justice system-- detention, indefinite stays--as relates to your work and as relates to changing the lives of children? Is it on? Ms. Goodwin. We see the levels of recidivism when young people especially are going through the criminal justice or the juvenile justice system. But I just also want to put a fine point on it. You said that there are several hearings that are happening today. There is a hearing today in a different just about school safety, right? That is actually talking about gun violence. Ms. Jackson Lee. And I was there. Ms. Goodwin. Yes, and we have these conversations that are just focused on what is happening in schools. But our babies have to leave schools, right? And the ones who look like us have to deal with trauma when they walk home, what they witness and what they see. And we have evidence that shows that children are harmed in numerous ways just whenever they witness violence, when they witness gun violence. They don't even have to be a part of it, but they are harmed in different ways. A couple of ways that I know, and this is coming from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, exposure to gun violence specifically with children, post traumatic stress disorder, antisocial behavior, depression, stunted cognitive and emotional development, risky alcohol and substance abuse, and then high-risk behaviors whenever it actually comes to firearms. And so we see these cycles of violence, but I think one thing that will be very helpful is not to silo away these conversations, whether it is in this body or outside of this body, because we know that there are ways that, you know, stop a bullet, but we need to make sure that we are figuring out why people are picking up guns in the first place and not just be thinking about the legality of guns as well. Ms. Bass. Thank you. Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the witnesses. I thank the chairwoman for her---- Ms. Bass. Absolutely. And I hope that this is the beginning of a discussion. I think that we all, from all of the witnesses today, understand that it really is not rocket science to figure out how to address these problems. There is tons of research. We know what to do to address the root causes. And we also know of programs that have successfully addressed the problem, and I think we have examples of those programs that are with us today. It is my hope, and I will ask the chairman, if we can--the chairman and the ranking member if we can follow this up, if we can visit some of the programs so that we can really look at how we support a comprehensive solution. And I think we saw today that today was not the point to just look at one aspect of a solution, but to look at communities in their totality and understand that communities have the capacity to address the problems. They just need the resources. And with that, we are adjourned. [Whereupon, at 2:16 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]