Reducing violence in our cities

To reduce the violence in our cities, we need to kick the politicians out of the room and bring in independent experts, such as economists, psychiatrist, sociologists and problem-solving experts such as engineers and quality control experts. The latter are trained in problem-solving techniques, like the "Five Whys," where you ask why at least five times to get to the root cause of a problem.

For instance, take gun violence.

1) Why do guns shoot people? Because someone pulls the trigger. With the first question, you see that you have a people issue and not a gun issue. Politicians don't like people issues, because they are complex and people are voters.

2) Why do people shoot guns? Target practice, self-defense and hunting are all legal uses of a gun and don't need to be explored further. Accidental shootings are another reason, but these could be greatly reduced if everyone took an age-appropriate training class. Mental Illness (suicides account for about 64% of all gun deaths) and crime would be the last two that I can think of.

This is where the experts need to step in and work on solutions. We need to stop wasting time and money on ineffective gun control laws and start working on real solutions to improve mental health services, education and more.

For instance, per the FBI data, only 2% of all homicides in the U.S. were committed using a rifle compared to 3% using hands or feet, 8% using a knife and 37% using a handgun. So, banning what some people call assault rifles, which are only a subset of all rifles, is not going to reduce gun violence, since they can easily use a different type of gun.

Bruce Bohren

Gurnee