Harris County declares June 2026 Gun Violence Prevention Month

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare released firearm-crime data on June 23, 2026 showing guns were involved in 3,452 aggravated charges in 2025 and 3,870 in 2024, a 10.8% drop. Weapons charges fell to 5,325 from 5,980, an 11.0% decline. Teare said the numbers remained above pre-pandemic levels when he announced that he had joined Prosecutors Against Gun Violence.

Harris County Commissioners Court unanimously approved a resolution designating June 2026 as Gun Violence Prevention Month during the court’s June 25, 2026 business meeting, after Harris County Public Health had already marked the month as Gun Violence Awareness Month in a June 2 release. Judge Lina Hidalgo highlighted the declaration on social media with photos from the meeting. County health officials call gun violence a public health crisis and center their work on community-based prevention and healing.

Harris County Public Health’s Relentless Interrupters Serving Everyone program, known as RISE, works in Sunnyside, Cypress Station and Cloverleaf using credible messengers to reduce gun violence. The Holistic Assistance Response Team, or HART, now operates in all Harris County Sheriff’s Office districts in unincorporated Harris County, giving the county a wider crisis-response footprint than a single proclamation can provide.

Harris County established a violence and injury prevention task force to study gun violence, passed a resolution calling for a special session of the Texas Legislature after the Uvalde school shooting, hosted eight gun buyback events with commissioner precincts and directed a report on youth gun violence in the county from 2015 to the present.

A 2026 U.S. House resolution backed June 5, 2026, as National Gun Violence Awareness Day and June 2026 as National Gun Violence Awareness Month.