Washington, DC — Over the weekend, Nevada AG Aaron Ford and Illinois AG Kwame Raoul joined MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin to discuss the efforts they are leading in their states to reduce gun violence.

On addressing the gun violence epidemic, Illinois AG Kwame Raoul said, “Well, we know that the guns that are being used in gun violence in the communities most harmed by gun violence are neither manufactured there or legally sold there or legally transferred into the hands of those who are perpetrating this gun violence. He added, “And so are our efforts towards gun violence, recognize that there should never have been a place where we expected gun violence to occur. Now, we are all up in arms because it can occur anywhere, but we’ve tolerated for decades gun violence happening in predominantly black and brown communities, and we tolerated the things that aided that along.”

Nevada AG Aaron Ford emphasized securing funding for Red Flag Law education and training. AG Ford said, “We were able to secure $400,000 in the red flag training programs that we want to implement, and we are in the process of doing that. But that was just another step in a long line of efforts we’ve undertaken in Nevada to address gun violence issues dating back to my days in the State Senate where we champion background check legislation, where although my predecessor did not want to enforce the background check legislation that was passed, we were able to get it authorized and enforced.” He continued, “And so we’re gonna be working hard to ensure that we can continue pushing back on the gun violence epidemic that we see here in our state as well.”

When asked about the federal government’s role in reducing gun violence, AG Raoul said, “It’s got to be all hands on deck and the federal government has to be involved. […] The Department of Justice has embraced the fact that we got to get to know the shooter. What I mean by that is, there’s nobody who came out of the womb with a gun in their hand and a heart to take their neighbor. We’ve got to intervene in the lives of people who are more likely to either be a victim or perpetrator of gun violence. We’re not going to simply do it by passing gun laws or by way of enforcement, we got to realize we got to invest in communities and into the lives of people that would be vulnerable to choosing gun violence, or otherwise being a victim of gun violence.”

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