Oklahoma To Receive $3.6M In Efforts To Reduce Gun Violence

This week the Biden administration announced the awarding of more than $230 million to states to help reduce gun violence. Oklahoma, through a grant successfully written by the District Attorneys Council (DAC), will get $3.6 million.

The money comes from the Safer Communities Act, which President Biden called the most significant measure to curb gun violence in three decades. Law enforcement officials in Oklahoma say the need is real.

"It’s very real," said Matt Ballard, District Attorney for Craig, Mayes and Rogers Counties, and chairman of the DAC, "we know that gun violence is a problem across our state."

And D.A. Ballard said the funding will provide significant help in addressing one of the root causes -- mental illness.

"And these funds are going to be utilized to address that," Ballad explained in an interview Friday morning, "to provide things like specialty court programs -- veterans court, mental health court, things like that. They’re going to be very directly targeted to dealing with our mental health crisis, and trying to deal with the violence that often comes with that."

The latest reminder of the innocent lives that are at stake came this week at Michigan State University where a gunman shot and killed three students, wounded five others and then took his own life.

"Every day in this country, communities wake up and are groveling with the impacts of gun violence," said Stefanie Feldman, Deputy Assistant to the President, in an interview this week.

In the wake of mass shootings last year in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, President Biden called on Congress to ban assault weapons.

Republicans prevented that or any other traditional gun control legislation from being approved, but a handful of Republicans helped negotiate the Safer Communities Act, which takes on gun violence by trying to help communities address underlying causes of violence, such as poor mental health.

Feldman said the administration is confident the law will save lives.

"We do expect to see results," Feldman stated. "These are strategies that we know can prevent violence."

While the DAC doesn't know yet which organizations will ultimately share the grant money in Oklahoma, Ballard says it's likely some will be used by police to get guns off the streets and keep them out of the wrong hands. But he says this is not about taking guns away from Oklahomans, it's about getting more people who at risk of becoming violent the help and care they need.

"It’s hard being in law-enforcement and seeing the mental health crisis that we’re seeing and not having resources to address that -- it's difficult," said Ballard. "So, this grant goes a long way to addressing those concerns."

Ballard said they should be able to start doling out funding to organizations requesting it within the next few months. The state has until September 2026 to spend it.