The victims of gun violence include working-class families in our nation’s cities, high school students in the suburbs, as well as rural Americans who suffer in high numbers from our nation’s gun suicide problem. Urban America, however, suffers from a gun violence epidemic out of all proportion to the rest of the country. This is especially the case in the African-American community.

In August, the U.S. Department of Justice released a special report [pdf document] titled, Black Victims of Violent Crime, that showed just how staggering the difference is. “While blacks accounted for 13% of the U.S. population in 2005,� the report said, “they were victims in … nearly half [49%] of all homicides.�

The report continued, “Black victims of homicide were most likely to be male (85%) and between ages 17 and 29 (51%). …About 53% of homicides against blacks in 2005 took place in areas with populations of at least 250,000 people, compared to about 33% of homicides of white victims.� With regard to guns, the DOJ reported that “[b]lacks were killed with firearms in about 77% of homicides against them in 2005, compared to 60% of white homicide victims.�

These numbers may be new to some, but the experiences behind them are far too familiar for too many of our fellow Americans. Too many men, women and young people go to work and school every day and play by the rules, only to then worry about dodging bullets on their way home. And way too many of us feel that this state of affairs is “normal,� or isn’t really our concern, and that there’s nothing we can do to make these neighborhoods safer.

That’s wrong. It should concern us all, and there is much we can do.

While social scientists and dedicated community activists work hard to address the social issues related to this violence, we should do everything we can on the other side of the equation to keep illegal guns off the street and out of criminal hands – to give social policies a chance to work, and law-abiding residents of a neighborhood the chance to live and prosper.

In the short run, bills like the NICS Improvement Act – designed to fill the “records gap� in the Brady gun purchasing background check system – are a step in the right direction. It is stalled in the Senate, so we should do all we can to see that it is brought to a vote as soon as possible. But there is much, much more we can do in the effort to drastically cut gun murders: Limit bulk firearm purchases to reduce illegal gun sales; increase funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to crack down on corrupt gun dealers who sell to obvious “straw purchasers� and don’t follow the rules; and, require a background check for every single gun sale. No background check, no sale. No exceptions.

The DOJ report reveals a serious and complex problem. No single organization can solve it alone. But we can each do our part to make America safer, and I hope you will join us in that effort.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)