Anytime you see a group billed as a “gun violence prevention” organization, you’ve got to be a little skeptical about what that actually means. For many, it’s about reducing the number of firearms in law-abiding citizens’ hands, at least to some degree.
Local organizations can do a lot of good, but most opt to just be a local voice for anti-gun initiatives.
And we, the American taxpayers, have been funding an awful lot of them.
But now, they aren’t even eligible for grants from the federal government.
The Trump administration has released solicitations for a grant program meant to stop gun violence in underserved communities. But this year, the non-profits the grant was built around are disqualified from applying, according to an application notice released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in September.
The Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI), was created in 2022, to support groups working in rural and urban communities struggling to address violence and fund research studying the programs’ efficacy.
The pioneering program was born out of a recognition by the Biden administration that such community-centered programs were among the most successful tools in combating the US’ deep-rooted gun violence problem, and had played a crucial role in helping reduce homicides in major US cities.
Before Trump’s inauguration, community-based organizations, non-profits and local and state governments were eligible to apply for the grant. Now, only city, county and tribal governments are allowed. And the stated goal of the program has been changed from “comprehensive, community-based prevention” to “supports law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and improve police-community relations”.
Since 2022, the federal government has awarded more than $300m to over 120 non-profits, city and county governments and research institutions through the initiative, according to an archived list of grant recipients.
The department of justice, which oversees CVIPI, did not respond to a request for comment.
Of course, some of the groups are very upset at the implication that only law enforcement can do this kind of work, but the truth is that if these groups really want to complain, look to those who took taxpayer money, then turned around and advocated for gun control.
No one would say anything about organizations that simply focused on de-escalation in violent neighborhoods, counseling for shooting victims, and other prevention strategies that didn’t even hint at infringing on people’s right to keep and bear arms.
But a lot of them did.
“The grants didn’t fund that advocacy!” some rainbow-haired individual with a nose ring will undoubtedly bellow.
And they’re only kind of wrong. The grants didn’t go to that, true. What the grants did, though, was free up money that would have been spent on the exact same thing, so more money could go toward anti-gun advocacy.
In other words, the organizations that were doing the right thing are getting their butts in a crack because of the ones that wanted to get involved in politics.
Then we have the fact that a lot of these organizations did stuff that never worked. Some employed people who were supposed to prevent violent crime, but who sold guns illegally, and engaged in a host of other problematic behaviors.
Plus, when you look at it, I’m actually kind of glad my tax dollars aren’t going toward organizations just trying to do their own thing, rather than supporting law enforcement, which we also pay for with our tax dollars.
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