I’m calling this one out right from the starting gate. A $4 million federal grant has just been awarded to Pennsylvania through the U.S. Department of Justice Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI), claiming its goal is to expand evidence-based programs targeting root causes of violence and attempting to provide support to victims and communities. On its surface, the initiative sounds well-intentioned, however, upon further inspection, it feels a lot like one of those programs used to move money around to political allies in the name of public interest.
“Gun violence isn’t just a Philadelphia problem—it’s a Pennsylvania problem, and uniquely, an American problem … But it’s a problem we can and must do something about,” says Pennsylvania Lt. Governor Austin Davis.
Pennsylvania’s hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIPs) are the key focus of the grant. These programs purportedly deploy intervention specialists to hospitals with the intent to engage victims of gun violence in the immediate wake of an injury, claiming this action will disrupt retaliatory cycles and address violence as a public health crisis and community epidemic. But what does this all really mean?
Advocates for HVIPs are quick to point out that gun violence disproportionately affects communities of color, but they never address the crisis as being driven by the very same communities. A great deal of the effort is spent making excuses for the decisions of those who perpetrate violent crimes, often treating them more like societal victims than pointing out the opportunistic reality of the criminal mindset.
A frequently cited excuse is the lack of access to the support necessary for recovery and rebuilding, encouraging advocates to argue that federal grants, such as the CVIPI, are able to identify disparities and offer resources to address inequalities directly. If this causes you to question whether these programs are simply redistributing your tax dollars as a form of socialism cleverly disguised as a public service, stop scratching your head because you’re correct. If you also think the programs sound like a way to reward criminal behavior by attempting to purchase votes from particular communities, pat yourself on the back because you’re nailing it. For icing on the hypocritical cake, consider the kid-glove approach proposed here in contrast to the propensity of the state to criminalize Constitutionally protected activities of law-abiding gun owners.
When you look at Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s record, you’ll see a deeply embedded Biden ally. From his legal attacks against President Trump during his first administration and in the wake of the “election anomalies” of 2020 to his support for illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, gun control and red flag laws that have made him an Everytown sweetheart, it is no surprise to see the Biden DOJ rewarding Shapiro for being a loyal collaborator.
If Governor Shapiro and the DOJ really cared to put a dent in community violence, they would spend money to increase police presence and resources in areas with the highest saturation of violent crime. Additionally, the state would allocate greater resources for prosecuting and incarcerating those who put the community at risk. The truth is that budgetary increases for law enforcement agencies and keeping violent offenders off the street is too tangible a way to spend money, bringing what Democrat lawmakers fear the most right to the governor’s doorstep: accountability. Follow the money on this one.
Spending billions of dollars will never replace a father’s love and discipline in the family. He has always been the first person to stop, possible criminal activity in young people.
i just gave my daughter a fistfull of mega stupidity tax tix. if she pulls the billion plus jackpot she will no longer need my love and discipline. i gots big plamms.
The hot potato no party wants to catch, yeah no amount of hospital violence de-escalation will do anything to reduce gang activity. Active fathers gainfully employed and able to put compete welfare wages is ultimately the only realistic possibility and even that will take the better part of 2 if not 3 decades.
Two or three GENERATIONS, when I was a kid, back in ancient times, black families as well as white, asian.or hispanic worked hard to overcome the injustices of the past until the great society destroyed the efforts so many “minorities” overcame and rendered their world into a welfare mindset. LBJ was wrong, OPPORTUNITY is what makes people overcome adversity and PROSPER.
“Spending billions of dollars will never replace a father’s love and discipline…”
Neither will it replace a good, secure place to lock away the soon-to-be, and active career criminals to keep general society a bit more safe.
Funny how enough of both tend to help solve a lot of problems.
The same people who said a father is not necessary in the home. They also believed that the jails had far too many inmates. So they demanded that the jails be emptied.
The libertarians liberals and the Leftists. Are all the smartest people in the room.
The first person to educate a child about gun safety is the father. Or an uncle, older brother, grandfather. Not the US military. And a school just 60 years ago could be the place where gun safety was reenforceed.
our high school had bowling, archery and rifle ranges. fifty years ago they were all out of use.
I did the research on this for my college paper. A gun range was normal to have, in nearly every school in the major cities.
The rural schools didn’t need an indoor range. They just needed a designated safe area with a good backstop.
that makes perfect sense. and the amount of r.o.t.c. stories i’ve heard seems to have been the impetus.
How to keep government funds flowing:
Step 1: Invent a problem that doesn’t exist so as to not address the real problem.
‘Gun violence’ is not a problem, guns don’t do anything by their selves – the main problem is ‘people’ committing acts of criminal violence. So the question is why are they not calling it ‘criminal violence’? Well, the answer is ya can’t keep throwing money at ‘crime prevention’ any more like they used to do because its been exposed to have ended up in the pockets of politicians or lobby groups or simply ‘missing’ or sim-ply not to have really done anything. There there is the problem of trying to distract from the democrat ‘justice reform’ debacle that resulted in an increase in crime rate and the ‘lets defund police’ debacle that resulted in an increase in crime rate – while not explaining where all that money for ‘crime prevention’ was going. And heck, we suddenly don’t have criminals any more, but rather ‘Justice Impacted Individuals’ or ‘Justice Involved Individuals’. So hey, lets have a ‘Gun violence’ problem to keep the money flowing.
Even the ‘mental health’ excuse isn’t working any more to cover up the money flowing. A lot of the money thrown into that went and does go to line the pockets of ‘$300,000.00’ a year salaries of ‘administrators’ and for programs that only existed in name and no one knows where the money went for those but a lot of the ‘claimed employees’ of these programs that did not really exist started living some lavish live styles. And then even with ‘programs’ that actually existed that in reality helped no-one to very few, no one knows where the money went, for example > Where Did the Money Go? Ex-NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s Wife Has Some Explaining to Do > h ttps://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2024/12/29/where-did-the-money-go-fmr-nyc-mayor-bill-deblasios-wife-has-some-explaining-to-do-n2649726
Step 2: Make the invented problem an ’emotional appeal’ issue.
Studies have shown that ‘unclear baseless causes’ issues that have ’emotional appeal’ are more readily supported than ‘clear basis cause’ issues that are reality based. ‘people’ committing acts of criminal violence is reality based and clear, ‘Gun violence’ is not.
Most PA big city shootings are by the 14%ers ,therefore work withi that segment of society
Has anyone looked into the criminal history of the supposed victims and perpetrators? Odds are both will have extensive criminal records.
Grants are small potatoes compared to the public employee union grift – expand the number of government employees, continuesly ratchet up the pay scale, collect union dues, recycle those dues (which come solely from taxpayer funded salaries) as political contributions- primarily to Democrats but the GOP plays this game too – wash, rinse, repeat…
We shouldn’t have public employee unions for that reason. It’s so corrupt.