Chicago battles rise in teen murders (20 students killed since September)

[Indy Lurker]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23824652/



Since September, 20 Chicago Public Schools students have been killed, 18 by gunfire. Last school year, 24 of the more than 30 students killed were shot to death, compared with between 10 and 15 fatal shootings in the years before.
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Chicago Public Schools is one of the only urban districts to track how many students are killed by guns — though none of the slayings have occurred on school property.
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Chicago's overall homicide rate, like that in other major cities, dropped to a record low in 2007. But the murders that do occur are hitting young people hard, frightening students and parents, and prompting everyone from Mayor Richard M. Daley to activists to call for action.
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Antigun activists and officials say the violence highlights a dangerous reality: Arguments among young people that used to be resolved with fistfights now end in gunfire.
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The strict gun laws of Chicago do not seem to be helping students.

[jody]

1. My guess is convicted felons serve sentences concurrently so that having a firearm does not increase

the years to be served.

[L1A1Rocker]

2. This only proves that we need MORE and BETTER gun control laws.

It does not matter that those on the books have not worked. It just means we need to be smarter about it.



Definition of insanity: To continue the same action over and over again while expecting a different result.

[DonP]

3. Daley's distraction scheme

We've gotten used to it here, It's become as ritualized as Kabuki theater.

There is a gang related shooting and the local ministers march with community activists. Daley makes another speech on gun control, conveniently forgetting that he already has complete gun bans in place as far as his sphere of influence can reach. Now he's talking about trying to force Indiana and Michigan to pass more strict gun control. Yeah, if Chicago gun control isn't working it must be their fault, right?

But when the police try and get some information on the shooters the local people clam up and follow the "don't snitch" cause the gangs are watching rules.

Fixing the problems in "gun free" Chicago wouldl require a multi-generational, commited approach to addressing the real social problems at the root of the gang related violence. And no politician seems to have the guts to say that out loud.

The sad part is that the funding is there, but it's all being siphoned off to crooked city run programs, $40 million (at least) to a hired truck program last year. Phony, but well connected white friends of the mayor and aldermen with a minority front, picking up hundreds of millions of $ in city "set aside" contracts leech the money from the programs where it should be going.

Now we have the highest sales tax in the country at 10.5%, property taxes went up over 30% in some residential middle class neighborhoods in a single year.

The regular death toll of students is a media staple. None of them are shot at or near a school, but it sounds more spectacular, even if a 20 years old gang member is shot at 4 AM they refer to him in the story as "another student".

Neither the political infrastructure here nor the community leaders are willing to do anything expect make symbolic gestures about stopping the killings. It's far too risky to actually call or push for real change. It may risk a delicately balanced political coalition that runs the city.

Not to be too rude about it, but until Daley leaves office, there will be no real change.

[SteveM]

4. Last act in theater of the absurd: WGN covers anti-gun groups slavishly.

[sav99]

5. That report can't be true

Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. We all know that restrictive gun laws make criminals not want to commit violent acts. So I don't see how this could possibly be happening there. Must just be some pro gun propaganda attempting to prove that gun bans don't stop violence.

[gorfle]

6. I wonder...

I wonder how many of these deaths are drug or gang-related?