You have to think peanut butter for a good analogy to clearing MA streets of illegal guns. Speaking with us on Left Ahead today, head of Citizens for Safety, Nancy Robinson, spoke of combining criminal justice with public health models to get guns away from criminals and youth.
The trope relates to if there’s a toxin in PB sickening people, the public-health folk don’t just order the batch off the shelves. They trace the product to its source. Then they shut down the plant or farm, or make them clean it up to keep consumers safe. She said likewise we can’t arrest our way out of gun violence, by locking up one shooter at a time.
Instead, she speaks of their effort Where Did the Gun Come From? in working on multiple levels. Sure, track a gun in a single crime to get one or two illegal weapons. Also, go back to lax dealers to get 20 or 40. Aim though to go the the prime source to keep perhaps 1,000 from migrating from loose-law states here.
Robinson holds that Boston doesn’t have a gun problem so much as a gun-trafficking problem. Listen in as she describes how her group works with law enforcement and others to change that.
