AUSTIN, Texas —  March For Our Lives co-chair Trevon Bosley knows firsthand about the devastating effects of gun violence. In 2005, his cousin was shot and killed in his home. The following year, his brother was shot and killed in a church while getting ready for band rehearsal.   

He’s worked in gun violence prevention for nearly two decades now, and on March 8, he moderated a panel at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, called “Finding Hope in the Fight for Gun Safety.”  

It was an appropriate location. Texas has seen more than its share of gun violence in recent years. The 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde claimed the lives of 19 teachers and two students and another the following year at an outdoor shopping center in Allen ended with eight dead.   

Perhaps no state that has seen as much gun violence as Texas has done so little to address it. Still, according to the panelists, there is hope. And it starts with everyday people.  

“Nothing happened in Texas (following Uvalde). It’s infuriating. It still makes me angry every single day,” panelist Amber Goodwin said.  

Goodwin, an Austin resident, attorney and advocate, worked for former Rep. Gabby Giffords. In 2011, Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, had just begun her third term when she was shot in the head just outside Tucson. She survived.  

“Gun violence is the most critical and important issue of our time,” Goodwin said.   

To underscore the point, Bosley mentioned that in 2006, gun violence became the leading cause of death for Black children. In 2020, it became the leading cause of death for all U.S. children. It claims more children than cancer or automobile crashes.  

“Gun violence has been pervasive as long as probably America has existed and there have been actual guns,” Goodwin said.   

Goodwin said that when she started, gun violence was thought of as something that could only be tackled at the federal level.  

“If you look back at the history of the gun violence prevention movement, for a very long time the movement only addressed what was happening in Congress,” Goodwin said. 

Things have changed. Beginning around 2016, gun violence started being discussed as a public health issue. Violence in Black and brown communities was addressed. It was no longer strictly a criminal justice issue. 

“Every year, there is between 40,000 to 50,000 people that we know of — we don’t know of every single person that is shot and killed — that are shot and killed every single year in America,” Goodwin said. “That’s a lot of people that are shot and killed but that doesn’t address all the communities that are impacted when their family member or their loved one or someone in their community is shot and killed.”    

Youth movement

Panelist Asya Ardawatia is a grassroots violence prevention leader from Texas. Just 17 years old, she said that two years ago she got fed up with nonstop mass shootings and found March For Our Lives Houston on Instagram. She is now the co-executive director.   

She said her peers are getting more involved, and in her age group, gun violence prevention is less of a partisan issue. 

“The main thing is we see a lot more support from the youth when it comes to gun violence prevention. It’s become a more bipartisan issue in my generation,” she said. “A lot more of my conservative friends support gun safety because they’re living under this constant threat of ‘if I go out, will I be shot?’ They’re beginning to realize that this is an issue, and it doesn’t matter where you are in the political spectrum. This is something we need to tackle right now.”   

Ardawatia said a lot of change is apparent on social media — people her age reposting stories about gun violence and discussing it. Younger people are supporting candidates who have gun safety platforms. 

“On the flip side, however, unfortunately, I’m also seeing a lot of desensitization,” Ardawatia said. “Because we’re growing up in a generation, in a time where we see somebody getting injured or shot or killed from gun violence every single day, we begin to normalize it and it becomes an issue that’s not so important to us.”   

Seeking across-the-board solutions

Goodwin said things kicked into high gear approximately six years ago. Eleven people were killed and six injured in 2018 when a gunman opened fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue.  

“In March 2018, March For Our Lives kicked down the door and was like, ‘We’re going to address these issues and we’re going to talk about it right now,’ and really started to work with a lot of folks on the ground,” Goodwin said.   

Goodwin said that although the movement lacks adequate funding, its members are catching the attention of the right people.  

“We have won a lot in local communities, statewide, the federal level — not just the federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention. There’s been federal bipartisan legislation like the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and other pieces of legislation that have passed when Congress has not wanted to do anything else on the issue of gun violence.,” Goodwin said.   

For Ardawatia, the biggest recent win occurred in Texas. A gun safety bill made it to the Texas House committee floor during the last legislative session. It didn’t pass, but it was a start.  

The future of the movement

Goodwin said a big part of the job is holding politicians and the media accountable.  

“When a Black or brown person is shot and killed in this country, it still is, ‘Well, what did they do?’ ‘Why were they there?’ But when a person who’s not Black or brown or a person of color is shot and killed, it’s like, ‘How did society fail them?’ ‘What’s the policy solution?’” Goodwin said. “There was an immediate policy response anytime someone was shot that was not of color.” 

Ardawatia said part of the challenge is getting people to think of gun violence as an ongoing community problem rather than a series of mass shootings every few months. She cited the number of veterans who take their own lives with guns.  

“Definitely in the last few years, since COVID, since gun deaths exponentially rose, we’ve seen more people talk about this. And it’s unfortunate that more deaths means that more people will talk about it,” Asya said. “Even the most patriotic people, even the people who support the army, cannot just ignore this problem because it’s our people who are dying every year because of our lack of... our neglect toward firearms.”  

Goodwin said part of the challenge is getting lawmakers from defaulting to gun bans and incarceration as solutions.

“Politicians have a long way to go. When I talk to them, they’re still very much like, ‘let’s do (an) assault weapons ban, but let’s make sure that these people get locked up.’ And we’re like, ‘that’s not the answer.’ Let’s think about this in a different way and if we ban this, this doesn’t mean we want to criminalize the person,” Goodwin said.  

“There’s different ways to go about it that I love, that people are thinking about that don’t just say, ‘OK, we have to take away everyone’s guns and we have to lock everyone up.’ When I got started, that was it, and that was how people addressed gun violence,” she continued.  

Bosley, who does much of his work in Chicago, said beefing up police departments is not a viable solution.  

“We can’t police ourselves out of gun violence,” Bosley said. “And although there are a lot of people who wish that was the way to go about it, it’s not simple as that. You just can’t put everyone in jail.”  

“What we need to be doing is to be providing these resources, these workforce development programs, these education programs, these mental health facilities — all these things are the real answer to actually addressing gun violence, and over time, that will breed the real solutions and the long-term solutions versus what we have currently,” Bosley continued.  

What can everyday people do?

Bosley said that people who would like to get involved in the movement but don’t know where to start need look no further than their time and expertise. 

“Provide whatever you have to those around you. It doesn’t always have to be something huge. One of the initiatives we did was tutoring for the community. That had a tremendous effect,” Bosley said.  

For Ardawatia, change begins at the ballot box.  

“I’d say voting. Vote for politicians, candidates at all levels of government who support gun violence prevention policies and have a platform based on that,” Ardawatia said. “Don’t skip any elections. I see people skipping primaries.” 

“This issue doesn’t have to be here forever. But if we decide to do nothing about it, it will,” Bosley said in concluding the panel.