Johns Hopkins University is the home of the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Yes, that Bloomberg. Daddy Bloombucks spares no expense in funding the university’s anti-gun research and advocacy efforts, which is primarily directed out of the Center for Gun Policy and Research.
That operation is run by Professor Daniel Webster, the Garen Wintemute of the east. In an effort to ensure that the ranks of “gun violence” advocates stay stocked, stoked and energized, the CGPR brought a gaggle of yoots to Charm City this week for an indoctrination educational session on gun policy and research (no doubt with a decided civilian disarmament bent).
It’s the first time the Center for Gun Policy and Research has brought high schoolers onto its Homewood campus for this kind of program, a reflection of a larger push by the public health school to expand access to its bevy of gun violence prevention research.
At ages 15 through 18, the assembled students are already leaders of grassroots efforts in their communities. They’ve founded organizations to fight gun violence and crafted legislative proposals to their local elected officials.
On Tuesday, they furiously scribbled in college-ruled notebooks as Hopkins researchers clicked through PowerPoint presentations on where to find reliable data on gun violence and convey it to the public in a meaningful way.
Gun policy researcher Cassandra Crifasi cautioned students not to allow themselves to be in a situation where they have to argue over the credibility of their numbers rather than the strength of their message.
– Talia Richman in They grew up practicing lockdown drills. Now, they’re at Hopkins to steer the conversation on gun violence