In Wisconsin, the number of guns and the number and rate of firearm-related deaths have increased dramatically in the last decade, according to the Gun Violence Snapshot released by Public Health Madison & Dane County.

District 8 Alder MGR Govindarajan spoke about his concern surrounding gun violence in Madison, as well as what constitutes the majority of these crimes.

Most of the shootings that have occurred in the last couple of months were law enforcement-initiated. Police are doing what they can to scope out what they consider to be high-risk areas, which can scare wrongdoers into committing violent acts, MGR said.

“One specific situation, for example, they came across someone who was being a little sketchy,” MGR said. “Turns out they were on parole and should not have a gun on them, but they did have a gun. Apparently, this individual thought that the best decision was to shoot the gun.”

Few of these instances involve University of Wisconsin students; rather, they involve general city residents living outside downtown Madison, MGR said. MGR said the Madison Police Department should focus on separating individuals when fights break out.

The biggest indicator that someone might commit a crime is if they have already done so — a lot of the time, shootings involve repeat offenders, MGR said.

Bars have begun frisking people at the door to prevent violence inside, MGR said.

Additionally, activating the downtown area, specifically State Street, has proven to decrease crime. The State Street Pedestrian Mall increased the number of events and therefore the population of the area. When there are more people in an area it makes it harder to get away with committing crime, MGR said.

UW expert on the psychology of gun violence emerita Professor Janet Hyde spoke to the broader issue of gun violence across the country, adding that the large majority of gun-related deaths in the U.S. are suicides, not homicides.

“One of the problems is if you attempt suicide with a gun, you’re 90% likely to kill yourself, whereas with other methods, you don’t have this high a death rate,” Hyde said.

To effectively prevent gun violence, the issue of suicide must be addressed first, Hyde said. One of the primary methods recommended by gun violence prevention experts is the “time and distance” approach, which involves creating both time and distance between a person at risk of suicide and their firearm, Hyde said.

MGR discussed how the City of Madison can only do so much, adding that the state legislature is necessary to enact larger changes.

“I would love if the state passed Red Flag Laws or basic background checks on people,” MGR said. “If you have just committed a crime, let’s say in the past couple months or a year, maybe you shouldn’t easily be able to hold a gun.”

Red Flag Laws permit Extreme Risk Protection Orders, meaning if someone is worried about another person attempting suicide by gun, they can put in an ERPO and law enforcement will take their gun away, Hyde said.

Universal background checks are another popular method in reducing deaths by gun violence. In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration passed a federal law called the Safer Communities Act which mandated universal background checks on all gun sales, Hyde said.

“Someone who is a convicted felon cannot buy a gun, someone who has a domestic violence restraining order against them can’t buy a gun according to the law, but they’ve been able to get them through loopholes,” Hyde said. “This 2022 law tried to close those loopholes.”

Additionally, if we look at mass shootings, 98% of these shooters are male, Hyde said.

When it comes to psychological factors of gun violence, the demands of masculinity play a major part, as well as a lack of emotional restraint. Emotions like anger and resentment are common in shooters, Hyde said.

“There is a demand that men be aggressive and strong, and one of the few emotions they’re allowed is anger, so if their masculinity is challenged — like kids who are bullied in school — that makes them angry and think they have a right to revenge,” Hyde said.

Hyde spoke to the need for stricter regulatory laws and their proven success in the past.

In 1994, the Clinton administration passed a major regulatory law surrounding the use of firearms, but the legislation was only set to last 10 years. During this decade, gun violence went down and as soon as 2004 came around, gun violence went back up, Hyde said.

The easy availability of semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 has increased overall gun violence substantially because these weapons can kill huge amounts of people in short amounts of time, Hyde said.

“That is another piece of legislation we need, is the banning of assault weapons or military-style weapons,” Hyde said. “They don’t belong in civilian hands.”

When you look at the difference between gun-related deaths in the U.S. compared with other countries, the data is jarring, Hyde said.

Compared to other Western nations, the U.S. gun death rate per capita is off the charts, almost 10 times higher than any other industrialized nation, Hyde said. This is partly due to the sheer amount of guns distributed in the country.

“We have 400 million guns owned in the United States and our population is only 340 million,” Hyde said. “We have more guns than people. In other countries, it’s just a fraction of that and they have a fraction of our gun deaths.”

Collective trauma is a concern on campus and gun violence affects a span of people beyond direct victims, Hyde said.

Though students have not been directly involved, according to MGR, there is still a prevalent safety concern on the UW campus.

“The number one issue I always hear from students is about housing, but over the past month or so, it’s about safety,” MGR said.