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Travis County officials host summit on gun violence

Survivors of gun violence spoke at Wednesday's community meeting.

TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas — Two weeks after the Uvalde school shootings, Austin Mayor Steve Adler and other Travis County leaders hosted a town hall to discuss gun violence and hear from survivors of all gun violence incidents.

The meeting was from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and it was open to the public. The event was streamed on Facebook Live for those who were not able to register.

Policymakers talked about plans and strategies to prevent gun violence in Austin schools, bars and public areas.

Mayor Adler, Travis County District Attorney José Garza, Mayor Pro Tem Alison Alter and Travis County Judge Andy Brown hosted the meeting, and Travis County Commissioner Jeff Travillion, Travis County Attorney Delia Garza, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez and Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon joined as co-hosts.

The meeting was planned before the tragedies in Uvalde, Buffalo and other cities where mass shootings have occurred recently. Chacon said the conversation surrounding gun violence is more urgent than its ever been. 

"I've never seen before, where we have local officials, policymakers, lawmakers, law enforcement, our prosecutors all have come together with one common goal, and that's to eliminate gun violence in our community," Chacon said. 

When addressing gun violence in Austin, Chacon said they can tackle the problem by looking at both prevention and enforcement. 

"On the prevention side, what we're doing with our Office of Violence Prevention doing youth engagement and doing safe firearm storage, because I've been talking quite a bit about responsible gun ownership. And then on the enforcement side, making sure that we're holding people who commit these crimes accountable, that we're being very focused in the enforcement and then the prosecution of those individuals," Chacon said. 

They also hosted daytime discussions earlier in the day Wednesday at 8 a.m.

Wednesday's meetings come a day after Travis County commissioners voted to declare June as "Gun Violence Awareness Month."

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