Baltimore Mayor Finds Old-School Solution to His City’s Murder Problem: Public Boxing Rings

The mayor of Baltimore has proposed an unorthodox solution to his city’s problem with shootings and murder: a public boxing ring.

“You know gun violence is something that has been plaguing this city for 10 years,” Jack Young told CBS affiliate WJZ at a rally on Sunday. “And you know the murder rate in this city and non-fatal shooting rate in this city has increased.

After suggesting mediation as an option, Young put out a challenge to the perpetrators, urging them to take their street beefs into the ring.

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“You know if they really want to settle them, we can have them down at the Civic Center — put a boxing ring up and let ’em go and box it out,” he said.

“The best man win and the beef should be over,” he added. “Those are some of the things I’ve been thinking about — hoping we can get these people to put these guns down.”

Baltimore’s gun violence problem

According to FBI statistics on crime released in September, Baltimore’s 342 homicides in 2017 made it one of the deadliest cities in America. A Baltimore Police Department homicide analysis conducted earlier this year revealed that more than half of the city’s 309 homicide victims in 2018 were shot in the head.

The bloodshed in Baltimore is is keeping with the situation in other major cities, like Detroit and Chicago. Just this weekend, Chicago saw a rash of gun violence that left 10 dead and 52 wounded.

An old-school solution

While there have been no shortage of unconventional ideas aimed at stopping gun violence, Young’s is a throwback in that it embraces, rather than vilifies, traditional manhood, now known as “toxic masculinity.”

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