Part 6: Promising strategies to minimize youth gun possession and to reduce youth and young adult gun violence
Increasingly, public health experts agree that the most effective strategies to reduce gun violence among both youth and young adults are not found in law enforcement and court prosecution. Rather, the most promising strategies seek to identify and address the reasons why youth and young adults obtain guns and become involved in gun crimes, and to intervene strategically with the limited population of young people at greatest risk for gun violence.
“[Because] the majority of violent crime in any given city is committed by a very small percentage of high-risk individuals, a more strategic approach to gun-related cases is needed,” concluded a recent report by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, “one that includes as many off ramps as possible for individuals who do not actually pose a threat to their communities.” These off-ramps are especially important for youth.
Recommendation: Develop, fund and support effective community violence interruption efforts in areas where gun violence is widespread.
America’s gun violence problem is highly concentrated geographically, and even within high crime neighborhoods only a small number of people – typical young men – comprise most of both the shooters and the victims.
Violence interruption initiatives aim to break the cycle of violence in these neighborhoods, Typically, these efforts involve partnerships between law enforcement and community organizations, which often employ social workers as well as “credible messengers” – individuals with experience in the justice system, many of them formerly incarcerated – who work directly with young men at highest risk for gun crimes.
These initiatives have a proven track record in reducing gun violence. For instance, violence interruption initiatives have been credited with reducing youth homicides by 63% in Boston; lowering group (or gang-member) homicides by 32% in New Orleans and 41% in Cincinnati; decreasing gun violence injuries by 50% and 37% in the East New York and South Bronx sections of New York City; and reducing average monthly shootings by 73% in New Haven, Connecticut. In Sacramento, California, the Advance Peace violence interruption program targeted 50 youth and young adults at high risk for perpetrating gun violence. Participants received daily support from a credible messenger mentor, developed life plans, earned $1,000/month stipends, and received other support such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, anger management, and substance abuse treatment. At the end of the 18-month program, 90% had no new gun charges; further, gun violence dropped 18% citywide, and 29% in one targeted neighborhood.
Based on these promising results, the federal government established a Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative in 2022, allocating $300 million for violence intervention programming, training, evaluations, and related research. However, in April 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the termination of 373 justice department grants, with total project costs of $820 million, including $153 million for violence intervention programs and related research. In a May 2025 report, the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice concluded that: “these funding cuts put public safety at risk and undermine hard-won reductions in violent crime.”
Recommendation: Invest in state-of the-art cognitive behavioral interventions for youth at high risk for gun violence.
Adolescents are at heightened risk for delinquent conduct due to lack of emotional and psychological maturity: the parts of the brain that control judgement, perspective-taking, and impulse control do not develop fully until age 25.
Cognitive-behavioral therapies that help young people accelerate the development of their thinking skills and improve their judgement are among the most effective strategies for reducing youth offending. Offering these interventions to youth at high risk offers a promising and important opportunity for reducing gun violence. In Baltimore and multiple sites in Massachusetts, Roca, Inc., has been offering individualized cognitive behavioral treatment along with mentoring and a variety of other supports to youth at high risk for gun violence, with very promising results. In Chicago, several programs offering cognitive behavioral therapies have proven highly effective in reducing young people’s likelihood of committing violent crimes. These models should be replicated or adapted in many other jurisdictions to reduce gun violence. The federal government should provide more funding for these efforts, rather than defunding them.
Recommendation: Adopt and enforce common-sense rules to limit young people’s access to firearms.
States and local jurisdictions should adopt reasonable gun control laws that reduce the availability of firearms that might fall into the hands of youth and rules requiring the safe storage of firearms to minimize young people’s access to weapons.
Studies find that gun control laws requiring universal background checks on gun sales, banning assault weapons, prohibiting gun sales to individuals at high risk for violence, or limiting gun carrying in public places lead to lower rates of gun violence, as well as less youth gun possession. For instance, two recent studies have found that youth gun possession is lower in states with stricter gun control regulations.
Laws requiring safe storage of weapons – keeping firearms locked away unloaded, and stored separately from ammunition – have been shown to significantly reduce both homicides and suicides among young people. Also, multiple studies have found that when family physicians provide families with brief counseling on gun safety during routine pediatric check-ups, children’s access to firearms falls significantly.
