Experts at more than a dozen colleges and universities in the Washington region will research solutions aimed at reducing gun violence.
Fifteen members of a consortium of local schools will pool their resources, researchers and faculty experts in areas including maternal and child health, public policy, mental health, criminology and technology, officials said. The goal is to provide lawmakers and the public with steps they can take to drive down gun violence.
“We have people who think all day and generate new knowledge, new ways of doing things. And, we graduate students,” said Gregory Washington, president of George Mason University, a consortium member. “We feel that it’s our responsibility to do whatever we can.”Washington said the idea for the initiative started to take shape this spring, after three students on his campus in Fairfax died by suicide with firearms.
“We’re both engineers,” Pines said, “and the background of engineers is that we’re interested in solutions to problems, however complex they are.” The men decided to include other campuses in the region, which lead to the creation of The 120 Initiative. The name is a somber nod to the more than 120 people who die on average daily from gun violence, leaders said.
Pines said he wants to “take the politics out” of the gun debate and get to solutions — quickly. Over the next six to 12 months, he said officials will start having actionable items to present to the public.
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