Police to solve gun violence by prohibiting going outside.

*not The Onion.

Eudora, Arkansas, is an economically gutted rural town. The young people have no hope and little to do, which is a recipe for deadly violence in a state flooded with guns.

Let’s see … what to do … start more after-school programs? Gun buybacks? Gun control?

Reparations? The town is predominantly Black. It’s named after the daughter of a large slave owner. According to Encyclopedia of Arkansas, slaves outnumbered free whites and helped build levees that protected the land around the Eudora plantation.
After the civil war its residents were subjected to cruel Jim Crow laws.

Federal or state economic investment to bring in (non-prison) businesses to the city? A public works program? Currently, the largest employer is a catfish meat plant, earning the town the nickname Catfish Capitol of Arkansas.

Or you could always just make it illegal to go outside after 8pm.

The New York Times reports.

“Please help us bring these senseless acts of crime to a stop,” Mayor Tomeka Butler pleaded in a brief video posted online on Dec. 27 to announce the emergency declaration. “Should you be caught during curfew hours, you will be subject to being stopped and searched.”

The curfew has prompted complaints from residents concerned about losing their ability to move freely. The proprietors of a liquor store and a chicken wing spot — among the few businesses typically open past 8 p.m. — worried about losing money.