Congresswoman Sarah McBride hosted a gun safety roundtable with former Arizona lawmaker Gabby Giffords and Delaware public safety leaders to discuss how the state can continue trending downwards in gun-related crime.
Executive Director of Coalition for a Safer Delaware Traci Murphy notes Delaware has almost reached John Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solution’s top ten safest states.
Five years ago, Delaware was ranked 22nd.
“Which I think is a huge amount of progress in a very short time, and it speaks to not only our approach on the public safety side, which has been ongoing and deliberate, but also our approach on the public health side, which is really starting to understand and lean in on community-based solutions and not just law and order," Murphy said.
State leaders expressed similar levels of pride over Delaware’s declining number of firearm deaths, recidivism rates and crime rates overall, crediting those low numbers to ramped up efforts at the state-level
In May, Gov. Matt Meyer signed an executive order creating the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety, and the state legislature recently passed a bill to create an Office of Suicide Prevention that awaits the governor’s signature.
Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security Josh Bushweller says Wilmington’s Group Violence Intervention project, a collaboration between social service agencies and law enforcement to prevent gun violence, has been widely successful. But one of Secretary Bushweller's top concerns is how gun violence offenders are becoming younger and younger.
Office of Gun Violence Prevention Director Vaughn Bond also attributes much of the state’s success to the Group Violence Intervention project but wants to see that program spread downstate, which is currently in the works.
“A lot of what you, what we've seen in Wilmington and New Castle County, sadly, we saw an increase in violent crime taking place in Dover now, when years ago, that was unheard of," Director Bond said.
Other state leaders expressed concern over federal funding cuts for these types of programs and repeatedly expressed the need for more funding for nonprofits to continue providing community-based intervention programs.
Congresswoman McBride pledges to continue fighting federal funding cuts and support federal legislation to ban assault weapons and implement a nationwide Clean Slate program.
