RICHMOND, Va. — Three simple words could make the difference in keeping Virginia teens away from gun violence, according to new research from the University of Virginia.
"That's all they need — for somebody to tell them, 'I got you,'" said Andrew Block, UVA professor and report co-author.
According to Block, three simple phrases — "I love you" and "you can do it" — can make a huge difference no matter a teen's age to keep them from ending up in correctional facilities due to access to firearms.
"We spend a lot of time thinking about what should we do with kids or young adults, or adults after they commit the offense, but I don't think we spend enough time thinking about how we can prevent them from getting in that situation in the first place," Block said.
That led Block to pose a question: "What's that relationship between fear and gun carrying for young people?"
Researchers talked to nearly 60 kids, teens and adults from neighborhoods where gun violence is most prevalent to get answers. Those findings are laid out in a report titled "In Their Own Voices."
"We had some quotes about 12-year-olds who wanted to get a gun, people told us because it's normalized and glorified online," Block said.
Block says a key takeaway is that while most places in Virginia don't have issues with gun violence, the report held a magnifying glass to the localities in the state down to the zip codes experiencing the highest rates of homicides from guns.
Of the top five zip codes that experienced the highest number of shootings involving juveniles from 2014 to 2025, Richmond's East End near Armstrong High School, in addition to the city's South Side near George Wythe, and Northside near John Marshall, as well as Petersburg were among the top five zip codes in the state.
The following localities have gun homicide rates that at least double or triple Virginia’s gun homicide rate:
- Petersburg, 38.4
- Portsmouth, 28.8
- Hopewell, 24.6
- Richmond, 22.5
- Roanoke, 16.3
- Norfolk, 16.2
- Danville, 15.9
- Hampton, 15.5
- Newport News, 15.2
"For a lot of kids in these communities who are caught up in this life, the algorithms are saturating their feeds with glorification of conflict and violence and guns and that life," Block said. "We want kids in schools so they don't get involved in tragedies as perpetrators or victims."
Those same zip codes, which are areas still feeling negative pandemic era impacts, also had high schools with chronic absenteeism rates near or significantly higher than the state average during the 2024-2025 school year.
Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards said in December 2025 that intervention efforts are making a difference.
"The average murder victim in our city is not a juvenile. It is a 30 to 35-year-old person who is our average murder victim. Unfortunately, we had three juveniles killed this year. We had one last year. We have tried to limit those numbers by intervening early in kids' lives," Edwards said.
Edwards says much of that intervention starts at the City Office of Gun Violence Prevention where its director Greg Hopkins is encouraging the state to continue investing in programs that yield results.
"Right now we have a heavy investment in OCWB which is Office for Community Wealth Building where we have the YES program which employed 700 individuals in the summertime," Hopkins said. "And our initial and most robust investment is with the YWCA with our family justice center and survivor and victims services."
To ensure programs to prevent youth gun violence are effective, both Hopkins and Block say proper planning is crucial.
"You should allow a locality to do a proper crime analysis first, that way you can find your drivers for crime, and you can create strategies to start addressing that. You need time to plan as well as execute. That planning process is normally going to take between 8 to 12 months. We do that with federal grants. It should be sort of the same situation at the state level," Hopkins said.
"On some level it's complicated, but on another level it's really not that complicated," Block said.
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