Gun control has taken front and center stage in American politics as of late, with President Obama introducing his own gun control measures last week. While Second Amendment advocates cry foul, those seeking to tighten up gun legislation have used examples of mass shootings at schools in Colorado, Virginia and Connecticut recently to build their case.
However, garnering less attention is the story of gun violence and how it’s affecting one American city on a massive scale.
That city is Chicago, where 513 people were killed in 2012, most by gun violence. The number is 15 percent higher than the previous year, and higher than more populous cities such as New York and Los Angeles — where the homicide rate has been decreasing in recent years. The mayor has set up a taskforce to tackle the gang problem the city has had, which is connected to to the issue of gun control.
However, some are hoping gun control legislation will be able to turn back the tide of violence, while a new study from the University of Chicago recommends taking a more holistic approach to the problem in an attempt to bring about peace.
All fired up over Obama’s gun legislation
Annette Holt, a Chicago native, journeyed to the White House last week to be present during President Obama’s address to the nation unveiling his plans for gun control. Holt’s son Blair, a teenager, was shot to death five years ago on a Chicago city bus. He died a hero, but lost his life shielding a fellow student from gunfire.
“After we buried him, we’ve been on a mission to change what happens to young people, especially in the city of Chicago, because we didn’t want other parents to be like us,” Holt recently told NPR. She said that she has been counting the days since her son was killed, waiting for legislators to pass new gun control policies.
More guns are seized by the Chicago Police Department than any other police department in the United States. Just last year, more than 7,400 guns were collected by the department.
Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy relays that while we are not even a full month into 2013, so far over 300 guns have been collected since the beginning of the new year. Some are assault weapons, and McCarthy says he consistently called for banning those specific weapons because they are military grade.
“I submit that assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are military-grade weapons that don’t have a place in our society, except for in the military,” he said, adding that he is in support of the president’s Ppan, which could curb the trend of violence on Chicago streets.
Washington takes aim at gun control
The president’s recently unveiled plan, which is being heralded as the most sweeping proposal to address curbing gun violence in over two decades, rests upon pressing a reluctant Congress to pass legislation.
Obama’s plan calls for universal background checks, a ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines (similar to the ones used in the Newtown, Conn. school shooting last month).
In the wake of that tragedy, Obama also took executive action to enact 23 measures which did not need the backing of lawmakers. Those measures include ordering federal agencies to make more data available for background checks; appointing a director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and directing the Centers for Disease Control to research gun violence.
But the president has said that only lawmakers can enact the most effective measures for curbing violence due to guns.
“To make a real and lasting difference, Congress must act. And Congress must act soon,” Obama said, vowing to use “whatever weight this office holds” to press lawmakers into action on the $500 million plan.
Obama also wants improvements in school safety, including putting 1,000 police officers in schools and bolstering mental health care by training more health professionals to deal with young people who may be at risk of going on a rampage.
Shooting for peace, a University of Chicago study proposes a solution
“There has been little outcry by the national media, and not much public attention paid to Chicago’s crucible by either national political party. Just the sterile news stories in the local papers every morning recounting the details of yet another young person’s life cut short and another family ripped apart thanks to senseless violence,” writes Tom Bevan, the co-founder and executive editor of political website RealClearPolitics, in an open letter to the president published this week in the Chicago Tribune.
Bevan calls on the president to go beyond the scope of his plan in tackling the broader issue of violence in Chicago and America. “Almost nothing proposed this week in Washington, D.C., by your administration will do anything to stem the tide of gun violence in our inner cities. Most of these crimes were not committed with semi-automatic assault weapons, they weren’t committed by the mentally ill, and they won’t be stopped by universal background checks.
If you are serious about doing everything in your power to curb gun violence and save lives, then you must harness your immense popularity in Chicago — and in other big cities — to address the elephant in the room: the failures of a society grown coarsened, desensitized to violence, and too tolerant of such carnage,” he says.
“This is true of American culture broadly: Hollywood has become too blithe in its glorification of murder, and makers of ultra violent video games share some of the blame, too. But it’s particularly true within the African-American community, where too many fatherless young men have given up hope for a better future and embraced a nihilistic gang culture that not only accepts brutal violence on a daily basis but encourages it,” Bevan relays.
A recent study from the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab points out that the problem of violence in America has gotten too little attention historically. The studies’ authors say “data and evidence are generally taken more seriously in medicine than in the area of violence. Before any new cholesterol drug or heart stent is used by the public, the Federal Drug Administration requires a rigorous series of randomized clinical trials to determine whether these medical innovations are actually effective. In contrast, federal, state, and local governments throughout the United States have implemented a wide variety of innovative programs to reduce gun violence by youth and young adults over the past 50 years—but almost never in a way that can be rigorously evaluated.”
The study by the University of Chicago Crime Lab, in partnership with Chicago Public Schools and local nonprofits Youth Guidance and World Sport Chicago, provides rigorous scientific evidence that a violence reduction program succeeded in creating a sizable decline in violent crime arrests among youth who participated in group counseling and mentoring, thus reducing youth violence in Chicago.
The study demonstrated that violent crime arrests among youth who participated in the BAM-Sports Edition program decreased by 44 percent and school engagement among participants increased.
Over the next three years, the Crime Lab will work with several partners to create a follow-up study that will provide academic tutoring and mentoring programs to more than 2,000 Chicago Public School students.
So, while lawmakers and Second Amendment supporters haggle over the details of the president’s plan, some folks are trying to make a difference — one young person at time.
Maybe cities across the country will follow Chicago’s lead in adopting more holistic ways of reducing violence and working for peace.