PROVIDENCE — “This is for my boys,” the gunman declared.

And then about five shots were fired, according to victims and witnesses.

So it went in South Providence early yesterday morning, as two more young men were wounded in a resurgence of gun violence in Rhode Island’s capital city.

Joseph Stanton, 28, and Coty Eldred, 18, were each shot once in the leg across the street from 12 Harvard Ave., where Eldred lives. Stanton lives one block over, at 113 Comstock Ave. Both were treated at Rhode Island Hospital.

Police commanders said yesterday that there is no one reason for the resurgence but that a familiar formula is at work: impulsive young men with easy access to guns have been pulling triggers to settle their disputes without regard for the consequences.

“The majority are young men on both sides of that weapon, young men who know one another,” said Police Chief Dean M. Esserman.

And the reasons for the disputes are familiar, too: drugs, debts, perceived disrespect, possession of turf by one gang or another, longstanding grudges of unknown origin between neighborhoods, and rivalry over the affection of a female, among others.

As for yesterday’s shooting, the motive is under investigation and no arrest has been made, the police said.

There were 49 shootings in Providence in 2006, and 59 last year, according to Police Department data.

And the trend is getting worse. On a year-to-date basis, there have been 32 shootings as of July 1 compared with 17 shootings on the same date a year ago, according to Esserman.

“We’re very concerned,” he said. “We are rolling up our sleeves, looking for every strategy that will interrupt this recent violence.”

Corrosive social changes that the police say underlie the irresponsible youth behavior apparently leave the law enforcers with no quick strategic response to the resurgence of gun violence.

But the police have quietly begun two initiatives aimed at keeping young people off the streets and out of trouble: Assigning on-duty officers as camp counselors for the Providence After School Alliance and a campaign to urge the business community to provide more summer jobs. With schools closed, school resource officers have been reassigned to the alliance as camp counselors and, as has been done before, to augment the police antigang unit.

The chief blames part of the resurgence of shootings on a shrunken police presence on the streets even as a tough economy causes joblessness and mortgage foreclosures that, in turn, raise family and neighborhood tensions. Due to federal-aid cutbacks, the department has less money to keep its 489 officer patrolling and investigating on overtime.

For example, from 2005 through 2007 the department got nearly $1 million less in federal money than it had been getting through a potpourri of programs that carry names such as Weed and Seed and Safe Streets. And that diminution of resources continues this year, police commanders said.

“We absolutely believe that cops count,” Esserman declared. Studies championed by the chief show that the more visible and active the police are, the less crime and violence occurs.

Esserman disclosed that the 12-member Neighborhood Response Teams has been suspended due to state budget troubles. The NRTs, as they have been called, paired a city officer with a state trooper patrolling in the same cruiser in high-crime and violence-prone areas in the summertime and holiday weekends.

Six troopers participated while on overtime, but the state police for the moment lack the money to pay for the overtime, Esserman explained.

In an effort to fill the breach, the state police and the FBI, who administer a federally funded statewide task force under the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, have deployed more task force officers in Providence.

Esserman said he is “very grateful” to Col. Brendan Doherty and Maj. Stephen G. O’Donnell, state police superintendent and deputy superintendent, and the FBI.

While Providence had been enjoying a decrease in gun violence before the recent resurgence, the police say they have been caught up in a national trend. Esserman cited a tally of shootings in other cities during the first six months of 2008: Hartford has had 109; Boston, 96; New Haven, 77; and Bridgeport, 39.

Assaults with a firearm also have been occurring more frequently in Providence: Up from 49 to 93, or 90 percent, from 2006 to 2007. An assault with a firearm includes all shootings as well as times when a shot was fired but missed and when someone threatened someone else with a firearm.

Esserman said he did not have handy a figure for assaults with a firearm for the first six months of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007.

gsmith@projo.com