Thread by @LizSzabo

The biggest honor anyone can bestow on a journalist to share their story with us, to trust us to represent them accurately and fairly. I feel so privileged that Diego trusted me with his life story. 1/x

newjerseymonitor.com/2023/03/11/pan…

Diego never imagined he’d carry a gun.
Not as a child, when shots were fired outside his Chicago-area home. Not at age 12, when one of his friends was gunned down. Diego’s mind changed at 14, when his friend was shot 9x in front of him. 2/x
indianacapitalchronicle.com/2023/03/13/pan…

Instead of hymns, Diego heard gunfire, and then screaming. A gang member shot two people.
“My friend was bleeding out,” said Diego. As his friend lay on the ground, “he was choking on his own blood.” 3/x

Diego, one of a growing number of kids who witness gun violence, was traumatized and afraid to go outside without a gun. Adolescents exposed to gun violence are 2x as likely to perpetrate a serious violent crime within 2 ys, perpetuating a cycle that can be hard to interrupt. 4/x

Diego asked his friends for help finding a handgun and — in a country supersaturated with firearms — they had no trouble procuring one, which they gave him free. “I felt safer with the gun,” said Diego, now 21. “I hoped I wouldn’t use it.” 5/x

Why did homicides spike in 2020? One factor: Gun sales soared 64% from 2019 to 2020, while many violence prevention programs shut down. As one outreach worker told me, kids who can't afford new shoes can easily get guns. 6/x

“There are just so many more guns on the streets,” said Juan Campos of @EBAYCprograms. “Before, there were fistfights. Now, there are shootings.” 7/x

Although a small number of teens become hardened and remorseless, Pratt said, he sees far more youth shootings caused by “poor conflict resolution” and teenage impulsivity rather than a desire to kill.
stltoday.com/lifestyles/hea… 8/x

“Fundamentally, violence is a contagious disease,” said @GSlutkin. When kids are exposed to chronic violence, “their bodies are constantly ready for a fight,” said Gianna Tran of @EBAYCprograms.
9/x

Research shows that chronic exposure to trauma can change the way a child’s brain develops. Trauma also can play a central role in explaining why some young people look to guns for protection and wind up using them against their peers. 10/x
kinyradio.com/news/news-of-t…

Kids who live with constant fear are more likely to look to firearms or gangs for protection. They can be triggered to take preemptive action — such as firing a gun without thinking — against a perceived threat, said @GarbarinoJim 11/x

Unlike mass shooters, who buy guns bc they’re intent on murder, most teen violence is not premeditated, @GarbarinoJim said. In surveys, most young people who carry guns — including gang members — say they do so out of fear or to deter attacks, rather than perpetrate them. 11/x

Everyone hated the covid lockdowns. But some young people spend their entire childhoods in a poverty-imposed lockdown, never venturing far beyond their neighborhoods, learning little about opportunities that exist in the wider world. #gunviolence
12/x

Although no one can say with certainty what spurred the surge in shootings in 2020, research has long linked hopelessness and lack of trust in police — which increased after the murder of George Floyd that year — to an increased risk of community violence. 13/x

“The only thing I remember is the sound of the shots,” Diego told me. “Everything else was going in slow motion.”

To read more of Diego's story, go to this @khnews report. khn.org/news/article/t… 14/x