White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday that the spate of shootings over the weekend is “a gun problem” — but that the President is “implementing funding for community violence prevention programs,” to address rising crime.
When asked during her daily briefing whether there is a “crime problem in this country,” Psaki answered: “I would say certainly there is a gun problem, and that’s something the president would say, and there are communities where local violence, community violence is an issue. That’s one of the reasons that we have proposed and now are implementing funding for community violence prevention programs across the country.
“I will say,” Psaki added, “that we don’t often highlight … the fact that between mass shootings, mass shootings that get a lot of attention, that we lower the flags [for], there are hundreds, thousands of people who lose their lives, and that’s one of the reasons the president will continue to advocate for the Senate passing universal background checks, but also advocate for actions in states where we have seen the greatest level of activism over the past several years.”
According to CNN, there were 12 mass shootings across America between Friday night and Sunday. One of those shootings happened at a Cumberland County, New Jersey house party, killing two people and injuring 12 others. In total, the 12 shootings killed 11 people and wounded 69 others.
CNN defines a mass shooting as any incident in which at least four people are killed or wounded, excluding perpetrators.
New York City was not exempt from weekend violence, with at least 29 people shot — one fatally — as of Sunday afternoon.
The increase appears to be a continuation of the trend from 2020. A study released in February of this year that looked at crime rates in 34 cities of varying size found a 30 percent spike in homicides in 2020 compared to 2019.
The study, released by the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice and Arnold Ventures, also found aggravated assaults rose 6 percent in 2020 over 2019, and gun assaults jumped 8 percent.
Despite, the alarming rise in killings caused by guns, homicide rates in the U.S. have dropped sharply over the past quarter of a century. The overall homicide rate for the 34 cities studied was 11.4 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2020, compared to 19.4 deaths per 100,000 residents in 1995.
With Post Wires