Thursday, September 22, 2016

New gun control laws target Chicago's violence

Alexandra Buchler
Staff Writer

According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago's 500th homicide occurred over Labor Day Weekend. This now makes 2016 the deadliest year in two decades for the city. In 2015 there were 480 killings in total, which is still horrible considering that that is more than one homicide per day, but there are still four months left in 2016. At this rate, Chicago could experience one hundred or more murders before the year is out.
"There are 500 more people that were in the city that are no longer here because of useless violence ... People don't have regard for life anymore,” says Chicago resident Stephanie Armas.
 Surprisingly, Chicago has a higher homicide rate than New York or Los Angeles. Most of the homicides in Chicago are gun-related. There are nearly 82 shootings per week. In just one weekend in August, there were eight gun-related homicides and 64 non-fatal shootings. So who’s to blame? Well, there is a deeply rooted distrust for the police force in Chicago after the murders of supposedly harmless people in recent months, causing outrage in the communities.
 Living in a society where you must train your children to avoid being shot on the street strikes many Chicago residents as truly terrifying.  
 "As they were babies, coming up, I had to tell them 'when you hear shots, you gotta get down,’” Armas claims.
 When it comes to shootings  Chicago stands out compared to most US cities, suggesting a level of armed interaction that isn’t happening in New York. The governor of Illinois recently signed a new gun control law in order to combat the sales of firearms in the deadly city. Still, the question is whether or not these laws in Chicago will actually stop the violence. Laws that have been enacted in places such as Virginia and Maryland have people driving down the interstate to neighboring states without strict gun laws to purchase their firearms. The killings in Chicago are tragic and the number of murders will continue to break records unless there is something done about it.