Unite Kentucky’s Public Safety Panel

On February 10, 2026, a gun violence survivor-turned advocate, a hip-hop artist running the mayor's violence reduction program, a pediatric emergency medicine physician, and a high school senior sat down together at Lexington’s Central Library’s Farrish Theater for a lively discussion of non-partisan ways to address gun violence.

Speakers & Key Messages

Whitney Austin co-founded Whitney/Strong (W/S) with her husband after she survived a mass shooting. W/S focuses on finding common ground to end gun deaths through data-driven, responsible gun ownership solutions. For the past seven years, she has worked with legislators on both sides of the political spectrum to advocate for bipartisan gun safety legislation. She brought this perspective to the panel, emphasizing, “The individual level and community level change is so important… The[re’s] community violence intervention work that can be done in a more urban environment, but there are also opportunities to make change in a rural environment.”

Dr. Naomi Warnick is a pediatrician at a Louisville emergency room who sees the public health impact of gun violence firsthand. She also holds a law degree, which allows her to bring a unique perspective to public health policy and gun violence. She highlighted the importance of looking at gun violence as a public health issue and the critical role of communication to raise awareness of the issue, stating, “We have to have uncomfortable conversations. We have to have them about a lot of other [issues], and this shouldn’t be different.”

Hegal Banjade is a senior at Henry Clay High School and the lead of Team ENOUGH’s Lexington Chapter. He has spearheaded youth mobilization efforts in Lexington, partnering with the ONE Lexington Office to distribute hundreds of gun locks and facilitating youth participation in the 2025 Moms Demand Action Advocacy Day. When asked about what students hope to see, he said, “All I ask from adults is just care a little bit and try harder.“

Devine Carama is the director of ONE Lexington, the mayor’s youth gun violence reduction program. He is also the founder of a youth-focused non-profit called Believing In Forever Inc., an award-winning hip-hop artist, author, educator, community activist, and motivational speaker. With roots in both local government and community organizations, Devine stressed the importance of grassroots and local action, “We’ve seen a 60% decrease [in violence] in Lexington, but we should be going harder. Just because we’ve seen progress doesn’t mean we should put our foot off the gas… so stay engaged.”

Beyond the Binary

For twenty years, the national gun violence conversation has seemed to go nowhere. Firearms are either sacred articles of self-defense or tools of death and chaos. ONE Lexington Director, Devine Carama, summed up the dire consequences of this binary: “It’s being framed politically. And once it gets there, it’s not about humanity anymore… Meanwhile, people are dying.”

Over 46,000 Americans, including nearly 1,000 Kentuckians, die every year from gun violence. In reality, gun violence rarely fits as neatly into the dueling partisan narratives. Most gun violence is deeply interpersonal and has no single cause. It can be an accidental shooting by kids fooling around with Grandpa’s gun without supervision. Or a temporary mental health crisis turns deadly because pulling a trigger is easy to do impulsively. Other times, it's a domestic dispute amped up by the presence of a deadly weapon. Any real solution to the problem has to start by looking beyond the binary and examining the many faces of gun violence.

Unite Kentucky’s Civic Conversation Series brought together violence prevention specialists from across the Commonwealth to share their unique perspectives, add nuance to the standard narrative of gun violence, and identify solutions. 

Safe Gun Storage

Most gun owners cite personal protection as their primary reason for purchasing a firearm, so many want their gun loaded and readily accessible in case of emergency. The reality is that a loaded, accessible gun increases the likelihood of an accident, particularly for households with children. In fact, the risk of an accident is much higher than the likelihood of needing to use that gun for defense. But it’s important to understand and acknowledge the very real fear that drives gun ownership and risky storage practices. 

Whitney Austin, co-founder of the Whitney/Strong Organization and Legislative Fund, says that to have productive conversations with gun owners about safe storage practices, we need to start from a place of care and understanding, not shame. “The most important thing is if you show people you care about them… I care about you, I don’t want your kids to find guns that are loaded and for accidents to happen.” 

Every day, eight children and teens are shot with firearms procured from the home of a friend or family member that are not securely stored. These shootings are wholly preventable, and Austin recognizes that we don’t have to wait for legislation to make things better. Whitney/Strong provides secure storage devices, such as lockboxes or gun locks, designed to prevent unauthorized use, to communities in urban and rural Kentucky. Her organization also has conversations with gun owners to promote secure storage practices. Austin’s example shows that we can change the norms to make secure storage part of a new American culture of firearm safety, and it starts with talking to our neighbors.

Gun Violence as a Public Health Issue

Culture change can also come from the institutions we interact with in our daily lives. Dr. Naomi Warnick, a pediatrician based in Louisville, is part of a growing movement of health professionals who reframe the issue of gun violence as a public health issue. They assess firearm ownership as a part of a constellation of risk factors, as studies have found that rates of outcomes like firearm suicide triple when a firearm is present in the home. Pediatricians, in particular, have a unique role in assessing and mitigating risk in the home, already advising parents to cover sharp corners and keep medications on high shelves out of their children's reach. Firearms, even if they are meant to protect the family from harm, present similar risks of misuse by children. 

The approach taken by physicians like Dr. Warnick can turn the doctor’s office into an intervention point for gun violence prevention. Dr. Warnick says that when physicians build on their relationship with their patients and have respectful conversations about secure storage, it can be an “effective way to change policy in your home and then that can move towards extended family, your friends, [and] your neighbors.”

The Impact of Violence on Youth

Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States, and Gen Z’s prevailing feeling is one of resignation to the threat. The mass rollout of lockdown drills and school hardening measures across the country has sent a clear message to students about the risk of mass shootings: the question is not if, but when. 

One youth advocate in Lexington, Hegal Banjade, a Senior at Henry Clay High School, is fighting against the feeling of hopelessness by uplifting student voices and agency. Hegal describes the work as “creating opportunities for students to speak with lawmakers, teaching about legislation, and getting [students] involved with community action.” 

Like many young people, Hegal sees the solutions adults propose as out of step with the experiences of students, particularly when it comes to school safety. For Hegal, bills putting more guns in more places, such as HB 517, which would allow for concealed carry in Kentucky schools, approach the issue of violence prevention too simplistically. “In America, we look at issues like traffic and think ‘Maybe one more lane might fix it’, but they don’t because issues aren’t that one-dimensional.” Banjade says if it were really true that more guns made us safer, “America would be the safest country in the world because we have more guns than people.”

Hegal believes this thinking leads to “one-dimensional solutions” that do more harm than good. As a student, he has a firsthand perspective on what our schools are doing effectively to curb violence, and what is missing. He highlighted the Sources of Strength program at Henry Clay High School, which connects students to foster connection and create more fulfilling lives. He is also working on an initiative with Fayette County Public Schools to provide parents with safe storage information at the beginning of the school year, aiming to prevent unauthorized firearm use by young people. The rationale behind the initiative is that if schools already screen for firearms with metal detectors, they ought to support efforts to prevent students from acquiring firearms from the home.

Supporting Communities in Crisis

While all the panelists have done extensive work to address the upstream causes of gun violence, unfortunately, guns still take the lives of community members every day. Those that remain, family members of the deceased or survivors of violent injury, are left with mental and physical scars that stay with them for life. ONE Lexington, Mayor Linda Gorton’s Violence Prevention Office, provides support to communities affected by violence through Neighborhood Engagement Walks and wraparound services for victims of gun violence in the immediate term. Even with these investments, ONE Lexington Director Devine Carama reflects on the difficulties of lingering trauma, “You’re so wrapped up with the families that are dealing with trauma in the immediate, but what about the families who lost a loved one a year ago, two years ago, five years ago. That pain doesn’t stop.”

These scars contribute to poor financial and health outcomes, and can continue the cycle of violence, as some survivors pursue retaliatory violence after a shooting. Carama describes trauma as “the metronome of our work.” “80% of young adults between the ages of 18-29 have been directly affected by gun violence previously in their life… a lot of those in the cycle of violence have been dealing with untreated trauma.” Having witnessed the cyclical nature of trauma while serving the community, Carama says ONE Lexington is now “incorporating some type of trauma support in every program that we do.” Carama describes how the It Takes a Village Summer Program, which serves hundreds of students in Lexington, incorporates trauma education: “Yeah we’re going to Malibu Jacks, we’re doing college visits… but every Tuesday, we’re gonna bring in some mental health folks and do some group trauma exercises to help give them tools, give them the language to be able to express what they’re going through.”

Improving Public Safety

Whitney Austin, Dr. Warnick, Hegal Banjade, and Devine Carama shared diverse experiences, perspectives, and solutions to the challenge of gun violence. They inspire those around them to take action. Getting involved in organizations like ONE Lexington, volunteering with Whitney Strong, or signing a petition for temporary transfer laws all tackle different aspects of the gun violence problem, but together help build a safer Commonwealth.