Brady Receives "Challenging Cultural Norms Award" in Honor of Transformative Work to Prevent Gun Violence in Chicago, Address Gun Industry Accountability

The award, given by the Chicago Mayor’s Office of Community Safety, recognizes Brady's efforts to prevent violence, support survivors, and create pathways toward healing in communities impacted by violence.

CHICAGO, IL, October 8, 2026 — Brady, the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention group, was honored to receive the “Challenging Cultural Norms Award” by the Mayor’s Office of Community Safety in partnership with the Chicago Department of Public Health and Department of Family & Support Services. The award was bestowed at the Mayor’s “Safety is Belonging" ceremony, an annual event and citywide celebration recognizing community organizations, frontline workers, and leaders dedicated to redefining public safety, elevating survivor voices, and dismantling systemic drivers of gun violence.

The Challenging Cultural Norms Award recognizes Brady’s efforts in Chicago this past year to fundamentally shift how the city understands and addresses gun violence — moving away from traditional, reactive responses and toward proactive accountability for the gun industry. Put simply, the harm caused by gun violence is part and parcel of the gun industry’s business model, and while the industry profits, communities pay a staggering price. This is part of the untold story Brady is committed to spotlighting through our various initiatives.

This summer, Brady celebrated Mayor Brandon Johnson’s bold executive order to ensure that city agencies do not contract with firearms vendors that have repeated violations of federal firearm regulations, a responsible procurement standard motivated by Brady’s national leadership on the issue. Earlier this year, Brady joined the Chicago Mayor's Office of Community Safety and local partners in hosting a healing retreat for advocates and survivors of gun violence. The retreat challenged traditional narratives by directly connecting individual trauma and community violence to the broader practices of the firearm industry and its role in driving gun violence. 

“Conversations about accountability for gun violence in Chicago often pinpoint blame on individual people and ignore the root of the problem: where these illegal guns are coming from and how they’re getting into our communities,” said Steve Gates, Chicagoan and Brady’s Midwest Manager, Strategic Implementation. “Firearms don’t just show up in our neighborhoods. Keeping our communities safe requires shifting the spotlight to the industry supplying weapons and profiting from this crisis.”

In separate events at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago this past year, Brady convened local advocates to discuss narrative-change strategies and solutions to address youth access to unsecured firearms, firearm circulation within impacted communities, and the role of gun industry negligence in driving crime and gun violence. Brady also oversaw focus group research on the experiences of individuals living and working in Chicago communities experiencing persistent firearm violence, helping inform prevention strategies that move beyond crime statistics and shift attention to the role of the gun industry to reduce harm.

“As a Chicagoan, I am proud of the strides our city has made to reduce gun violence to historic lows. Amid that progress, it is such an honor to receive an award that celebrates the power of narrative change,” said Alison Kaplan, Chicagoan and Brady’s Midwest Senior Manager, Strategic Implementation. “At Brady, we know that lasting change requires more than passing laws: we must also change the conversation around guns in America. Our work in Chicago shows that when we reshape the cultural expectations around corporate responsibility, we build real pathways toward progress and safety.”