Well, its name says it all Hope and Heal Fund.

This California-based group says gun violence can be prevented and that healing begins when trauma is addressed.

In 2021, the Center for Disease Control reported over 48,000 Americans died from gun-related injuries.

And let's be clear, this is not normal.

Homicide rates in the U.S. are three times higher than Australia and 77 times higher than Germany.

I spoke with Brian Malte, chief executive officer of Hope and Heal Fund, and I asked him, what are we getting wrong here?

When I first started in the gun violence prevention movement almost 30 years ago, there were about 30,000 annual gun deaths in the United States.

30,000.

And now we're about 45 to 48,000 What we are trying to do in our first six years, 5 to 6 years of existence at the Hope and Heal Fund is to really understand what the media narratives are.

We really want to understand who the credible messengers are.

Well, one such credible messenger is Jose Osuna.

He's a civil service commissioner for the city of Long Beach, California.

And he understands gun violence firsthand.

I'm the child of two immigrants, and my mom and my grandmother were very loving and caring.

And my dad was always at work.

The neighborhood that we ended up moving to has a lot of criminal activity.

I had my first weapon, my first gun at the age of ten.

Wow.

I felt the need to carry that gun around.

Guns were pulled on me.

I was shot at so it was a way to defend myself, first and foremost.

And our next edition, we'll learn would help Jose change his life and why addressing trauma is one part of the solution.

For KCET, I'm Bonnie Boswell.

Bonnie Boswell Reports is brought to you by the California Wellness Foundation.