Filling in for Joan Esposito, William Muck is joined by Kathleen Sances, president and CEO of Gun Violence Prevention PAC, or G-PAC.

Sances discussed the organization's origins and focus on state-level legislative efforts to combat gun violence. G-PAC, founded in 2013 by gun violence survivors, has passed seven gun-reform bills in Illinois, including a certification system for gun dealers that has resulted in a decrease in thefts from gun stores. "It's down to almost it's 2 percent," she said.

Sances emphasized the need for federal legislation to complement state efforts. G-PAC's strategies include building a database of supporters and holding lawmakers accountable through report cards.

She also criticized President Donald Trump's threats to deploy the National Guard in Chicago, and highlighted the importance of community-based interventions and mental health services in fighting crime.

"We know what we're doing," Sances said of the state of Illinois and city of Chicago. "We don't need somebody else coming in to fix our problem, because there isn't a problem. We still have gun violence, and all of it is too much, but we use evidence-based systems to reduce it.

"We also wanted to point out to this administration that they have reversed all of the federal help that we had been getting in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. So they rolled back all the funding that community violence-intervention groups were getting. They rolled back funding for mental health services. They have diverted the ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] members who normally would be out inspecting gun dealers, are now working for ICE [Immigration and Customs and Enforcement], and they also took away any funding for gun violence research, which informs our work about how best to solve the problem."

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