PITTSBURGH — The sounds of gunshots flying through the air have become life to many Pennsylvanians.
“I kind of just live it every day, I see it, I hear about it every day. Sometimes it’s triggering, it’s triggering for my whole family,” Barbie Sampson said.
Sampson lost her 24-year-old daughter Jasmine in 2021 to gun violence joining thousands of other families just in our state impacted by this epidemic.
“Here I am, I’m just a statistic, same as the other mothers,” Sampson said.
Now the question becomes: How can the state help to combat this trend so other mothers don’t feel the pain of this cycle?
“I know what it’s like to come from a community that is ravaged by gun violence and most people quite frankly don’t feel safe. We can’t thrive as a Commonwealth if we aren’t meeting the basic need of safety and security for folks,” Lt. Gov. Austin Davis said.
That’s why in the governor’s budget address he proposed opening an Office of Gun Violence, only the second state to make that move.
“That office would work with stakeholders on the ground that are doing community violence intervention work. They will with different agencies in state government to help coordinate resources to make sure we are attacking the issue of gun violence in an effective way,” Davis said.
Plus the state is looking to invest $100 million, but is it enough?
“I think it could be a great thing, but there should be certain things that come out of it like where is the money actually going, it should be monitored,” Sampson said.
Davis said that’s in the plans to track the money and progress to keep Pennsylvania’s numbers trending down, but Sampson fears this plan misses the element of policing she believes is needed to control the problem.
“I don’t think there is enough money to prevent gun violence. We don’t have enough officers in the communities to do patrolling, we don’t have enough manpower to look into what’s really going on with underlying issues,” Sampson said.
Davis said the state is investing in law enforcement, but they don’t want to just police the problem. He believes this plan meets a need from all angles.
Right now it is just a plan as the House and Senate will have to agree on it and vote by July 1.
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