Melanie Eversley

USA TODAY

The stress of living in challenging circumstances and the usual ebbs and flows of violence might have been some of the reasons why more than 40 people were shot over the weekend in Chicago, national anti-violence advocates based there told USA TODAY.

Of those who were shot, 12 died, according to media reports.

The city has been in the national spotlight for increasing gun violence in recent years. The Chicago Police Department said in a statement Monday night that the majority of the shootings were attacks or retaliation during holiday gatherings by gang members.

"Ninety percent of those fatally wounded had gang affiliations, criminal histories and were pre-identified by the department's strategic subject algorithm as being a potential suspect or victim of gun violence," the statement said.

In addition to responding to the shootings, the Chicago Police Department confiscated 45 guns from city streets, starting Friday, a number that is slightly larger than what is typical, according to the statement.

The statistics join those that have been building up in recent years in the Midwestern city, which recently experienced its most violent month in more than 20 years. Chicago recorded 92 murders in August, its deadliest month since June 1993. The city has reported more than 100 more murders this year than New York City and Los Angeles combined, according to the department's data.

Chicago hits grim milestone of 700 murders for 2016 and the year's not over

Gary Slutkin, founder of the non-profit, Chicago-based group Cure Violence, said part of the problem is that his nationally recognized organization experienced a drastic reduction in state funding two years ago when Illinois made across-the-board cuts. His organization treats the gun violence epidemic as a public health crisis, he said. In doing that, it has been effective in employing people who have experienced gun violence to detect those in their communities who might be in danger of slipping into that life — and in mentoring them and pulling them back form the brink, said Slutkin, who also is professor of epidemiology and global health at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.

"A lot of individuals and organizations are calling us, and we're trying to figure out now how to re-engage in 2017 as fast as we can," Slutkin told USA TODAY. "The state gave some temporary money that’s lasting about a month. They won’t have another budget until the summer."

At its high point, the organization that launched in 2000 operated out of 18 districts, Slutkin said. That figure dropped to 14 when Illinois ran out of funds, then down to one, he said.

In 2015 and 2016, the only community to maintain a Cure Violence operation was the only Chicago district where shootings and killings declined, according to Chicago police data, the organization says. The neighborhood that previously had the largest Cure Violence operation (and therefore saw the largest decrease) saw the largest increase in shootings, according to the police statistics.

Public health mentors can teach people to change their behaviors to stop the spread of AIDS or Ebola, Slutkin said. Those methods work with gun violence as well, he said.

Tamar Manasseh, founder of the Chicago-based Mothers Against Senseless Killings, or MASK, said the weekend uptick, comparable with a weekend in July in which Chicago saw 55 shootings, could be due to hidden depression experienced by people in challenging circumstances.

"What I’ve learned is that ... some people honestly lack the courage to take a gun and put it to their head and pull the trigger, but what they’ll do is they’ll take a gun and go out and kill somebody else," Manasseh said. She said these people say to themselves, "I don’t want to be here, but I sure want to make sure that someone else wants to kill me."

Manasseh, a rabbinical student and mother of an 18-year-old and 20-year-old, founded MASK to help make the streets safer for her children. The organization works by employing people in the community who know the challenges of living there and can connect people with the services they need, whether it be finding an outfit for someone to wear to a job interview or getting someone to services to help them learn how to read, she said.

Manasseh said the weekend violence occurred because of the usual increase in stress and sadness that people experience over the holidays, but those in power need to target and engage in the problem, so they can understand what is happening and begin to fix it, she said.

"This is not a drive-through problem," she said. "This is not a problem that we're going to fix by driving through and marching through. You have to become a part of it, get in it and see it in order to fix it."

Regarding the violence over the holiday weekend, the Police Department said in its statement, "Detectives are making progress in several incidents. So far, multiple people of interest are being questioned, and we are following up on some promising leads The violence primarily occurred in areas with historical gang conflicts on the South and West Side of Chicago."