This is an opinion column.

What are we doing? What are we doing to each other?

Sadly, the answer’s far too easy, tragically too easy: Too many of us are shooting each other. Shooting our own. Shooting people we know. Shooting and too often killing people we know.

Far, far too often, we’re shooting and killing people we don’t know, too.

Shooting and killing young people and children. People in wheelchairs. People stepping through the front door in the early-morning hours to see about all the commotion outside.

Shooting and killing and leaving behind far too much pain—pain that never heals. Far too many broken families—families that never mend. Far too many children without a parent’s love—a love that is never replaced.

Leaving behind far too much emptiness that will never be filled.

Over foolishness. Over a beef. Over money. Over a dice game. Over ego. Over a man or woman.

Over a drug deal gone, well, where drug deals often go…

Over nothing worth dying. Nothing worth The End. Nothing worth spending the rest of your (likely short) life in fear of retaliation. Nothing worth being a life-long guest of the Alabama prison system (which may or may not be safer than the streets left behind) and ending almost any prospect of a productive life.

I’m sickened by it all—and sick of it. I’m sure you are, too.

Sadly, we’re off to a grim start in 2024. That’s especially disheartening in Birmingham, which in 2023 saw the number of homicides (135) drop for the first time in five years. Yet between January and June this year, there were 75 homicides in the city, as reported by my colleague Carol Robinson. That’s 15 percent higher than the same period last year.

In Jefferson County, there were 98 homicides in the first six months of 2024, two more than in 2023.

If that wasn’t sickening enough, July hit us like a hail of automatic gunfire: Five homicide shootings in the first five days of the month. The fifth death was 55-year-old Renard “Keith” West. A “big-hearted man,” his brother told Robinson, who struggled with personal issues but was harmless to anyone. He apparently was awakened early Friday by noises outside and stepped through the front door to see about all the commotion.

Now, he’s dead. As are too many others. (Likely even more by the time you read this column.)

Birmingham isn’t alone. Late last month nine people were hit by gunfire in a mass shooting at a Sunday afternoon neighborhood party in Montgomery. On Mother’s Day, on another Sunday afternoon, 64-year-old Gloria Crews was fatally shot in front of her grandchildren at a family gathering in the backyard of her own Montgomery home.

Sickening—and I’ve been sick of it for a long time now.

I’ve variously written about crimes perpetrated by us against us. It’s never easy. Hard truths never are. More than two years ago on Dr. Martin Luther King Day, I challenged us to stop killing each in honor of the slain leader. Challenge not accepted, sadly.

What are we doing? What is being done about it?

Birmingham in recent years has launched myriad initiatives and partnerships aimed at stemming gun violence. Labeled “Common Ground,” the efforts include a conflict resolution curriculum in Birmingham City Schools; a hospital-based intervention program created to guide those who’ve been wounded out of violent environments; mental health services in schools to support and teach de-escalation strategies to students who’ve endured trauma due to violence, a juvenile re-entry program for youths 16-19 currently engaged with the state Department of Youth Services; and after-school education and personal services at 14 rec centers in the city; and a nine-week workforce training program in partnership with the National Training Institute for Healthcare Technicians; and a re-entry pilot program to reduce recidivism.

There are also several independent programs aimed at addressing violence and inspiring hope in young people and adults. Among them: The Surge Project, ZeroZero Foundation, Second-Chance Hiring Fairs hosted by the district attorney’s office, and Renew Birmingham.

It’s a lot, I know.

At times it seems as if we’re the elderly uncle who engulfs two handfuls of meds daily, yet remains sick.

Sick and tired.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed are clearly sick and tired of the gun violence plaguing their cities, as they should be.

On Friday, Woodfin unleashed a verbal can of clear frustration on those among us making deadly decisions.

“Hear me Birmingham,” he said in a statement, “we must learn how to walk away. We need to de-escalate situations before guns are drawn. Enough with arguing over petty stuff. Stop trying to live out your TV fantasies by attempting to rob drug dealers. End the needless retaliation that creates a never-ending cycle of back and forth. Murder cannot, must not, be a solution to petty, trivial problems.”

Last month, Reed said: “[W]e’ve got to make sure that in our city, there’s a greater appreciation for life, a greater appreciation for conflict resolution, a greater appreciation for de-escalating situations without pulling guns. This cannot continue to happen. We will not stand for it. This senseless violence just has to stop.”

There should be hope in the national decline in homicides in large U.S. cities. Earlier this year, Boston, with a Black population of 28.6%, was lauded for its staggering 78 percent year-to-year drop in homicides through early July. There have been only four homicides in the city over that period.

Experts and city officials tout an array of efforts dating back to the 1990s, including partnerships between police and communities, hospital intervention, and school conflict resolution programs, as well as gun laws maybe a tad stricter than in the gun-happy South.

“Boston, and Massachusetts generally, has low gun ownership rates, which contributes,” Northeastern University Assistant Professor Jacob Stowel told WCVB-TB in Boston.

Alabama’s overwhelmingly Republican state legislature has zero interest in new laws that might temper the flow of guns throughout the state. In 2023, it famously made it easier to possess a gun by passing a law eliminating the need for a permit to openly carry a weapon—a law opposed by law enforcement.

Rising homicides in Birmingham and Montgomery, perhaps in small part due to easy access to guns? Not our problem, they believe.

Sickening.

There may also be another contributing differential between the national trends exhibited in cities such as Boston and Dallas, and Birmingham and Montgomery: poverty.

The overall poverty rate in Boston and Dallas, according to the U.S. Census, is 17.5%. In Birmingham, where almost 70 percent of residents are Black, more than one in four families lives in poverty. In Montgomery, the poverty rate is 21.5%.

While poverty isn’t the only contributor to rising homicide rates, numerous studies and experts have proven the economic and psychological stresses of poverty significantly impact decisions and often lead to desperation. “[W]hen resources are unequally distributed, individuals may have incentives to undertake high-risk activities, including lethal violence, in order to secure material and social capital,” writes the Cambridge University Press.

As I noted, Birmingham isn’t lacking in efforts to address the many factors that lead to deadly shootings and killings, including many that mirror those that have worked in Boston and other major cities. Alas, it’s impossible to calculate how many lives those programs may have saved or will save because someone learns how to handle anger differently, how to settle differences without deadly decisions, and how to avoid violent circumstances and emotions.

Or because someone poured into them skills and a vision for a hopeful future with opportunities too many among us still cannot yet see.

So, we remain sickened, and sick of it.

Sick of this hard truth, too: Deadly violence among us won’t stop until those with their finger on the trigger are sick of dying, too.

Roy S. Johnson is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Hall of Fame, an Edward R. Murrow Award winner, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. His column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj.