Wilmington, Delaware: A Small City With a Big Problem

Photo courtesy of WDDE - Delaware's NPR station

In places like Chicago, New Orleans and Detroit gun violence has been an ongoing crisis that is particularly devastating to poor communities of color; but as we all know too well, the issue isn't confined to large urban areas.

A couple hours ago I heard a rebroadcast of  very interesting 'All Things Considered' segment on my local NPR station WHYY about efforts by city officials and community leaders from Wilmington, Delaware (population 71,000) to try and tackle the out of control gun violence problem from an innovative angle; by declaring it a pandemic to try and seek the assistance of the Federal government to analyze the root issues from a more clinical standpoint.

The piece runs just under five minutes and is definitely worth a listen if you didn't happen to catch it on this, the first day of 2014.

The photo above was clipped from the WDDE 91.1FM Website. It's from a January 16th, 2012 story by journalist Kathy Canavan; the first in a three-part series that chronicles some of the heart-rendering ways in which the epic of gun violence impacts the everyday lives of children living in the community of Wilmington.

It's a startling examination of how prevalent trauma caused by witnessing and experiencing the after-effects of gun violence first-hand is for children in this city that sits just outside Philadelphia.

The ironically named City of Brotherly Love is certainly no stranger to gun violence with a homicide rate of 247 for 2013 (down 37%) and experts there have been trying to tackle the issue from a public health perspective for some time as well.  

Our current GOP-led Congress has shown absolutely no willingness to try and create gun control legislation for even basic common-sense things like criminal background checks for handgun purchases, or mandating technology that will make it impossible for anyone but the registered owner of a gun to fire it - despite a vast majority of Americans backing such laws.

We can only hope efforts from groups like  MomsDemandAction.org, CeaseFirePA.org and Mayors Against Illegal Guns will continue to build on the momentum boosted in the aftermath of the high profile shootings that have taken the lives of so many innocent men, women and children in this country.

Politicians seem more frightened by the prospect of taking on the NRA (or loosing their campaign contributions) these days than they do protecting American citizens, so perhaps switching tactics to building bigger grass roots support for stricter gun laws and framing gun violence as a public health issue can help turn the tide.

And what a tide it is, take a look at the list of shootings that took place over Christmas around the country posted on the GunCrisis.org site.

Delaware is not alone.