Gun Violence Prevention Advocacy

Gun violence kills more than 44,000 Americans every year. That number includes mass shootings, homicides, suicides, and accidents. But behind every statistic is a family that will never be the same. I know this because my family is one of them.

My mother Joyce died by suicide with a firearm when I was 20 months old. I have no memory of her voice, her face, or her touch. What I have instead is a lifetime spent turning that loss into something useful. That is what this work is about. Not grief as performance. Not advocacy as a hobby. This is the thing I cannot walk away from, and I have spent decades learning the data, building the relationships, and staying in the rooms where decisions get made.

This page is the hub for everything I write and speak about regarding gun violence prevention. It connects my personal experience with the research, the policy environment, and the practical steps that actually reduce gun deaths. If you are here because this issue affects your family, your community, or your conscience, you are in the right place.

The scale of gun violence in America

In 2024, more than 44,000 Americans died from gunshot wounds. That is more than car accidents. More than house fires. More than every natural disaster combined in a typical year. And yet most people cannot name a single policy that has been proven to reduce those numbers. The disconnect between the size of the problem and the public understanding of it is one of the biggest obstacles to progress.

The media covers mass shootings because they are dramatic and terrifying. They should be covered. But mass shootings represent a small fraction of total gun deaths. The majority of gun violence happens one person at a time, in homes and neighborhoods that never make the evening news. Understanding that distinction matters because the solutions for different types of gun violence are different. What prevents a mass shooting is not necessarily what prevents a suicide or a domestic violence homicide. Effective policy requires precision, not slogans.

The suicide crisis most people miss

Here is the fact that changes every conversation I have about gun violence: 62% of all firearm deaths in America are suicides. Not homicides. Not mass shootings. Suicides. In 2024, nearly 27,600 people killed themselves with a gun. That number has risen for six consecutive years. Firearms are now used in more than half of all suicides nationally, the highest share in at least 25 years.

Most people picture a stranger with a gun when they hear “gun violence.” They do not picture their neighbor, their colleague, their family member in a moment of crisis reaching for a weapon that turns a temporary impulse into a permanent outcome. That framing problem is not an accident. It is the result of decades of political messaging that has turned gun violence into a partisan issue instead of a public health crisis.

The data on means restriction is clear. When someone in crisis cannot immediately access a firearm, most do not substitute another method. They survive. The crisis passes. With firearms, 85 to 90 percent of attempts are fatal. With other methods, nine out of ten people survive and most never attempt again. My mother did not survive because the gun was there in that moment. Removing access during a crisis is the single most effective suicide prevention intervention we have.

I wrote about this at length in my personal story of gun violence prevention, including the specific data on Extreme Risk Protection Orders and how they save lives. If you want the deep dive on the research, start there.

What the evidence says works

Gun violence prevention is not a mystery. We have decades of research showing what reduces gun deaths. The problem is not a lack of evidence. It is a lack of political will to implement what we already know.

Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) allow families and law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from someone in documented crisis. Twenty-one states plus DC now have these laws. A 2024 study found that for every 13 ERPO orders involving someone with documented suicide risk, one suicide was prevented. Connecticut saw a 13.7% reduction in gun suicides after implementing its ERPO with public education. These are not theoretical benefits. They are measured outcomes from real implementation.

Safe storage laws reduce youth firearm access. Firearms stored locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition are significantly less likely to be used in youth suicides, accidental shootings, or school violence. Child Access Prevention laws are associated with measurable reductions in youth firearm deaths.

Community violence intervention programs use credible messengers, people with lived experience in affected communities, to interrupt cycles of retaliatory violence. Cities that have invested in these programs, including Richmond, Oakland, and parts of Chicago, have seen significant reductions in shootings. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 allocated $750 million in part to support these evidence-based approaches.

Universal background checks close the gaps that allow prohibited purchasers to buy firearms without a check. States with comprehensive background check requirements have lower rates of gun homicide, gun suicide, and firearms trafficking.

None of these policies require banning guns. They require treating gun violence like the public health crisis it is and applying the same evidence-based approach we use for every other cause of preventable death.

The economic reality nobody talks about

Gun violence is not just a public health crisis. It is an economic catastrophe. Estimates of the total annual cost of gun violence in America range from $280 billion to over $557 billion when you include medical costs, criminal justice expenses, employer costs, and the economic value of lost lives. That is not abstract money. It shows up in higher insurance premiums, reduced property values, diminished business investment in affected neighborhoods, and the tax burden of emergency response and long-term care.

As someone who has built businesses in communities affected by violence, I see these costs in ways that policy researchers might miss. A neighborhood with frequent shootings does not attract new businesses. Existing businesses pay more for insurance and security. Employees in those areas carry stress that affects their productivity and health. The economic argument for gun violence prevention is as strong as the moral one, and I break down those numbers in detail in the real cost of gun violence beyond headlines.

Gun violence and Business leadership

Most business leaders treat gun violence as something that happens outside the office. It does not. Employees who have experienced gun violence, whether directly or through their families and communities, bring that trauma to work every day. It affects their concentration, their relationships with colleagues, their ability to trust leadership, and their long-term health. Ignoring it does not make it go away. It just means the cost shows up in turnover, absenteeism, and disengagement instead of a line item on a report.

Psychological safety, the concept that team members can take interpersonal risks without fear of punishment, is one of the most researched predictors of team performance. But most companies implement it superficially. They put up posters about mental health awareness and call it done. Real psychological safety requires leaders who understand that trauma is not a personal failing to be managed quietly. It is a systemic reality that affects how people show up, and leadership either creates space for that reality or pretends it does not exist.

I have managed teams where employees were dealing with gun violence in their families and communities while trying to hit their numbers at work. The leaders who acknowledge that reality and create genuine support structures get better performance than the ones who stick to the script about “leaving personal issues at the door.” I explore this intersection in depth in what business leaders get wrong about psychological safety.

My path into this fight

I did not plan to become a gun violence prevention advocate. I planned to build businesses. I started Penebaker Enterprises as a commercial roofing company and grew it from $1.5 million to $15 million in revenue with 50 employees. After that, I helped build Roofed Right America to over $35 million with 180 people. Right now I serve as Regional General Manager at Great Day Improvements, overseeing four markets across the Upper Midwest. Business is my career. Advocacy is what I do with the platform that career has given me.

The turning point came in 2016 when I ran for Congress in Wisconsin’s 5th District. I lost the race, but I was invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention about my mother’s death and gun violence prevention. Standing on that stage, saying those words to a national audience, changed something in me. I could not take them back. I did not want to.

After that, I served as a DNC representative for Wisconsin from 2017 to 2023. I became an Everytown for Gun Safety Wisconsin Fellow because I wanted to learn the policy cold, understand the research, and sit in the rooms where legislation gets written. I served as Board President of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s C4 from 2021 to 2024 because the same communities affected by gun violence are often the ones fighting for access to healthcare. Public health crises do not exist in silos.

I bring the same approach to advocacy that I bring to running a business. Data matters. Relationships matter. Showing up consistently matters more than showing up loudly once. You do not move policy by making noise. You move it by building trust with the people who can act, and staying in the fight long enough for the window to open.

Wisconsin’s unique challenges

In 2024, an estimated 735 people died from gun-related injuries in Wisconsin. Sixty-nine percent of those deaths were suicides. Wisconsin holds the worst gun homicide disparity between Black and white residents of any state in the country. Since 2020, firearm deaths have outpaced motor vehicle deaths in Wisconsin, and guns became the leading cause of death for children in the state.

Between 2018 and 2022, the firearm suicide rate among Black Wisconsin residents more than tripled. The communities being hit hardest are the ones with the fewest resources to respond. Milwaukee, where I am based, sits at the intersection of these crises. It is where I live, where I work, and where I see the human cost of inaction every day.

Wisconsin does not currently have an Extreme Risk Protection Order law. Neighboring states Minnesota and Michigan both passed ERPOs in recent years, with Michigan filing 391 petitions and Minnesota filing 137 petitions in their first year alone. The evidence from those states will continue to build the case for Wisconsin to act. I am committed to being part of that effort for as long as it takes.

What You Can Do

If you are reading this, you already care enough to be informed. That matters more than most people realize. Here is how to turn that into action:

Contact your elected officials. Find yours at usa.gov/elected-officials. Be specific. Mention ERPOs by name. Tell them firearm suicide prevention is a priority. Elected officials respond to constituents who show up repeatedly, not once.

Support the organizations doing the work. Everytown for Gun Safety, Brady United, and Moms Demand Action are all places where your time or money goes directly to policy change at the state and national level.

If you own firearms, store them safely. Locked, unloaded, ammunition stored separately. The evidence is overwhelming that this single step prevents deaths, especially during crisis moments. If someone in your household is struggling, consider temporary off-site storage.

Tell your story. If gun violence has touched your family, consider saying so. The more people willing to say “this happened to us,” the harder it becomes to treat gun violence as someone else’s problem.

If you are a business leader, take the time to understand how gun violence and trauma affect your workforce. Build genuine psychological safety into your team culture. Your employees are dealing with more than you know.

I learned this lesson the hard way. When I ran Penebaker Enterprises, I focused exclusively on safety as a physical concern: harnesses, hard hats, fall protection. It never occurred to me that the same crew member who followed every OSHA protocol on the jobsite might be going home to a situation where a firearm was present during a domestic crisis. Workplace safety and community safety are not separate issues. They are the same issue viewed from different angles. Business leaders who understand this connection are better equipped to support their people.

Explore the series

This pillar page connects to a series of posts that go deeper on specific aspects of gun violence prevention:

• Why I Still Fight: My Story of Gun Violence Prevention – The personal story behind my advocacy, including the data on gun suicide and what works to prevent it.
• The Real Cost of Gun Violence Beyond Headlines – The economic and community costs that rarely get discussed, from healthcare spending to lost business investment.
• What Business Leaders Get Wrong About Psychological Safety – How trauma, including gun violence, affects workplace performance and what leaders can do about it.

Frequently asked questions

Last updated: March 10, 2026