Project Exile
Combating Gun Violence in America
By BRIAN A. MONAHAN, M.S., and TOD W. BURKE, Ph.D.

Gun violence presents a myriad of dangers to large cities, suburbs, small towns, and rural areas throughout the United States. Consequently, officials at the local, state, and federal levels of law enforcement have developed a multitude of programs aimed at reducing gun violence. For example, some programs have included an increased police presence in high-crime areas, gun buyback programs, task forces devoted solely to violent crimes, and, in some instances, lawsuits against
firearm manufacturers. Several of these programs have proven moderately successful, as evidenced by a reduction in the overall crime rate in many regions of the United States.1 Despite the apparent success of such programs, many cities experienced little or no reduction in gun-related crime. In fact, Richmond, Virginia, incurred significant increases in gun-related
violence and crime and sought to implement an alternative strategy in the fight to eradicate gun-related crime and violence.

In 1996, gun-related crime was certainly not a new phenomenon to the city of Richmond. The community suffered from annually escalating rates of homicide and gun violence since the 1980s, with such crime rates reaching nearly epidemic proportions in the latter half of the 1990s. In 1996, 140 murders occurred within the Richmond city limits, 122 of which were committed with a firearm. In 1996, someone was shot or killed in the city approximately every 40 to 45 hours, bringing Richmond to the second highest per capita murder rate in the United States that year.2

Richmond officials developed and implemented numerous aggressive and innovative initiatives aimed toward combating handgun