Jay Inslee’s racial equity agenda must include gun control

Just like COVID-19, gun violence disproportionately affects communities of color. In January, Adrian Diaz, Seattle’s interim police chief, noted that 60% of 2020 homicides were committed with a gun; that most homicide victims were males between 18 and 50 years old; and that nearly 50% of homicide victims were Black. Even before the onset of COVID-19, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show increased gun violence disproportionately affecting Black and Indigenous communities. All this points to gun violence as a public health crisis in communities of color, and should push lawmakers in Washington state to pass three sensible gun control measures working their way through the