The city of Philadelphia still bills itself as the City of Brotherly Love, a reminder that the place was settled by Quakers who sought to create their pacifistic Utopia here in the New World.

Based on the violent crime rates we see out of the city, though, it’s pretty clear they didn’t succeed.

In fact, crime is absolutely awful in Philly, and I’m not talking about fights at Phillies games, either.

No, there are way too many shootings and stabbings for anyone’s comfort. Violent crime is bad and it takes a toll on everyone, even people who aren’t directly impacted.

Now, a Philadelphia hospital is trying to do something about it. They’ve formed a gun violence “task force.”

Desperate to do something, the team at Einstein sold t-shirts and raised $10,000 to buy gun locks that they’re giving away in the hospital.

“We aren’t making a dent in it, so we gotta figure out something to do,” Way said.

Way, along with Einstein’s gun violence prevention task force, thinks the gun locks can help protect children and reduce accidental shootings, as well as make gun owners more responsible.

For Way, who is a lifelong Philadelphian, it’s personal.

“When you see your loved ones, when see community deteriorate, you can’t sit back and not do something and this is the least we can do,” she said.

Einstein’s gun violence prevention task force has a number of community outreach efforts, including mental health services and Stop the Bleed training programs.

Now, when I first read the headline of this piece, I was fully prepared to blast them. After all, when a hospital starts talking about “gun violence,” they usually try to push gun control.

Instead, Einstein Medical Center is actually doing things that help directly, rather than just making demands for laws.

Mental health services, gun locks, and Stop the Bleed training may not sound like much, and it’s far from the answer to Philadelphia’s problems, but this is productive work. This is stuff we should all be supporting and want to see out of our local hospitals.

“They shouldn’t have to do that,” someone will quip, but they’re wrong.

Providing mental health services will help save lives beyond the homicides that make the headlines. It’s a key in preventing suicides, which make up roughly two-thirds of all gun deaths in the United States. Further, it addresses the root issue, not just pretending that the weapon is responsible for what happened.

Gun locks can keep firearms out of unauthorized hands. While they aren’t necessarily going to stop a criminal from taking the weapon, it does keep young kids from hurting themselves or another accidentally.

And I’ll fight anyone who takes issue with Stop the Bleed efforts. The truth is that this is a tool that everyone should have in their toolbox. Stopping a bleed is something that anyone could find a use for that isn’t just for use in gunshot victims. Auto accidents, industrial accidents, animal attacks, and a host of other causes may precipitate someone needing just that training.

So yeah, I like what I’m seeing from this Philadelphia hospital. We all should hope to see this in our hometowns.