MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union

MISSING PIECES
Yet model programmes exist to assist survivors of gun violence that can be
adapted for replication in diverse settings. Two programmes in the city of
Chicago (USA) focus on the disabling injuries that guns cause: one is designed
to help short-circuit the cycle of gun violence in heavily affected communities;
the other assists survivors cope with and overcome the life changes
that a serious injury brings.
The ‘In My Shoes’ project of the Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital serves a
number of high-crime neighbourhoods in suburban Chicago. 27 It pairs a staff
person with a volunteer who has been paralysed or otherwise seriously injured
by a gun, who together visit schools and community centres to discuss how
‘one shot can change everything’. The volunteers share their experiences
of gun violence, provide a perspective from ‘the other side’ of the injury,
and convey what therapy is like and how people’s attitudes change toward
a person with disabilities. Since 1997, this project has reached about 24,000
at-risk youth.
‘Disabling Bullet’, a project of the University of Illinois at Chicago, aims
to help young people seriously injured by a gun shot wound adjust to their
new life. 28 The programme uses peer mentors—from the same economic
and ethnic backgrounds and who themselves have been disabled for more
than one year—to help recently injured youth navigate available services and
support. Mentors help the newly injured locate jobs, understand disability
laws, access educational opportunities, and secure housing. The relationship
is also designed to provide safe space to discuss a wide range of issues,
from violence to sexuality.
COUNTING THE COSTS
In the long run it is far more cost-effective for governments to invest in
prevention efforts than to continually absorb the costs of treatment and
rehabilitation, as well as the financial drain to society in years of lost
productivity that come with gun injuries. States must not only bear much
of the direct costs of emergency medical treatment and care (which victims
are often unable to afford); gun violence also drains health systems—
which may already be thinly stretched in low-income countries—diverting
essential health resources from other pressing health priorities. 29
In the US the estimated costs of gun-related violence including psychological
costs and quality of life have been calculated at USD155 billion per
year, or equivalent to 2.3% of GDP. 30 While these costs are very high, in
poorer countries they can be even greater relative to national economic
productivity. Brazil spends 10% of its annual GDP treating victims of violence,
Venezuela consumes 11% and Colombia and El Salvador consume
up to 25% each of their GDP. 31
El Salvador provides an example of how the cost of firearm violence
could be allocated to firearms owners. Recognising that firearms repre-
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