An article written by Professor Jooyoung Lee was published on Vice.com. Professor Lee and two other scholars, Joseph Richardson Jr. and Desmond Patton, discuss grief, intersectionality, and the role of social media in the wake of Parkland, among other potentially overlooked issues in the current debate.
Professor Lee is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto and his research focuses on the impact of gun violence on victims and their communities.
We have posted a short excerpt below. The full article is available here at Vice.com.
Three Gun Violence Scholars on What is Missing from America's Gun Control Debate
May 24, 2018
But there is room for hope after Parkland. Since that tragedy, we’ve witnessed the birth of the #NeverAgain movement and the #MarchForOurLives, both of which have led to small policy changes. The Republican-led Congress recently voted to reinstate funding to the CDC for gun violence research; state governments like Florida have already passed laws banning bumpstocks while raising the age (from 18 to 21) for buying a firearm; companies like MEC have severed ties with brands that do business with the NRA; and multimedia giant YouTube recently announced that they would prohibit people from posting DIY gun-making videos. Even if these motions don’t lead to drastic reductions in gun violence, they represent small symbolic steps toward sensible gun control laws. They show that people on both sides of the aisle don’t want to sit idly and wait for another mass shooting to happen.
But, in spite of these developments, the conversation about gun violence remains narrowly focused on mass shootings, which account for about three percent of the annual homicides committed with firearms in the US. Lost in all of the news coverage is a sustained discussion about gun violence in black communities, who are disproportionately at risk of getting injured or killed in shootings. African Americans account for roughly 50 percent of the gunshot victims in the US, even though they only account for 12 percent of the US population.