Three actions NC must take to reduce firearm deaths, especially among children
By Gerald D. Givens Jr.

When my friend Chris Miller called two months ago, I could feel his grief, pain and anguish. His 16-year-old daughter Haley was shot Sept. 3 in Fayetteville while trying to run to safety. Haley died a week later.

A bright child who loved her family, Haley loved cooking Saturday breakfast with them. Her mother, Leann Miller says, “She touched everyone around her. People don’t know what they’re stealing from families. I can’t kiss Haley and tell her I love you anymore. There must be change.”

As I prepared a speech for Haley’s funeral, I thought about the many times I’ve lost family members to gun violence. By the time I was 15, I’d experienced gun violence four times. Once, my coat and shoes were taken at gunpoint. During a basketball game, shots were fired and I escorted my girlfriend away. I’ve lost six family members to gun violence — my grandfather, uncle, brother and three cousins.

For over 40 years I’ve heard the cries of relatives, siblings, friends and neighbors who have lost a loved one to gun violence.

Gun violence is tearing families and communities apart throughout North Carolina. And 2020 was our state’s most violent year since 1999. Gun deaths, excluding suicides, rose by 31% in 2020 over 2019. According to the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics, child firearm deaths rose from 56 to 105 last year, an 88% increase. The number of N.C. youth who have taken their own lives with a gun doubled from 2008 to 2018.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There are common-sense, evidence-based solutions that prevent gun violence.

Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs focus on individuals at the highest risk of violence, and employ intervention strategies to reduce retaliation and violence. Such programs emphasize employing effective social services to address issues such as education, employment, substance abuse, trauma, and other root causes of gun violence, thereby preventing shootings in impacted communities.

Boston’s CVI program spurred a 63% reduction in youth homicide. Winston-Salem recently adopted a CVI program after the deadly shooting at Mount Tabor High School. CVI programs seek to break the cycles of retaliation. Local and state leaders should invest in them.

Maintaining North Carolina’s Pistol Purchase Permit law is also critical. Indeed, our gun violence epidemic would be worse without pistol permitting. It is a proven, effective gun violence prevention law.

When Missouri repealed its law in 2007, the state’s firearm homicide rate increased 47% from 2008 to 2016. The firearm suicide rate increased 24%. Yet, our General Assembly passed a bill that would repeal our Pistol Purchase Permitting system. Thankfully Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed it. We call on all lawmakers to uphold the veto.

None of my loved ones lived in states with a permit to purchase law. If they had, they might be with us today.

Finally, we need to promote the safe storage of firearms to prevent child accidental shootings and suicides. According to the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics, before the pandemic one in three parents owned a gun and one in four of those guns were unsecured.

Our state should fund an educational safe storage awareness initiative to encourage safe firearm storage.

As an N.C. NAACP State Conference officer, NAACP branch president and a board member of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, there is nothing more important to me than public safety. Reducing gun violence is central to that safety. We need to take action and break this cycle of deadly gun violence. The youth are depending on us.

Gerald D. Givens Jr. is president of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP. He served 20 years in the U.S. Air Force and is retired in Raleigh.