…and it’s nothing but great news! Sure there’s more people getting shot all over the city, but if you do happen to get wounded by rival drug gangs, or a roving pack of violent muggers, you are statistically more likely to survive this year over last.
By July 1, the city had logged 927 shootings, 60 more than in the first half of 2008. Two months later, there had been a total of 1,335 shootings, 31 fewer than in the first eight months of 2008, police said.
Gold medal Chicago!
a gang feud sparked deadly shootings in recent weeks, said Talmadge Betts, senior program officer for Black United Fund of Illinois, based in the neighborhood.
Hmmmm. We wonder what they were feuding over. Funny though, because the article doesn’t get into that. Could it have anything to do with a feud over control of the black market drug trade?
“We need industry. We need … employment for people, particularly the males in the neighborhood, so there are some alternatives to joining the street [gangs],” Betts said. “Those things take time and they take even more time in an economy that is where it is today.”
That’s all well and good, but what they really need is an end to the drug war, so these drug gangs don’t have drug turf to kill each other over. If this were happening in wealthy neighborhoods that would probably be the solution, but because it’s happening in poor communities, most people don’t give a rat’s ass.
Fortunately they’re passing a new law in Chicago against carrying illegal firearms. So that should clear this problem right up.