Violent Chicago Weekend Leaves at Least 11 Dead, 70+ Injured

Chicago police say weekend (August 4-5, 2018) shootings across the city have left at least 11 people dead and about 70 wounded.

The violence peaked early Sunday with several shootings, including one in a courtyard on the city's South Side that injured eight people. The Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune compiled the totals.

Police Patrol Chief Fred Waller said Sunday that gang members are using large summer crowds as cover in some cases. He says they "shoot into a crowd, no matter who they hit."  (KOMO 4 News, August 6, 2018)
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Chicago has become synonymous with gun violence, attracting attention from the press, politicians, and advocates on both sides of the firearms debate. In one of the final installments of a New York Times series on shootings in the city, Reverend Michael Pfleger, a prominent anti-gun activist and pastor on the city’s South Side, described Chicago as “the poster boy of violence in America.”

But despite the soundbites, Chicago remains in the middle of the pack when homicide is measured on a per-capita basis. In 2016, the city had a rate of 27.9 killings per 100,000 residents — half that of St. Louis, whose 188 murders amounted to 59.3 homicides per 100,000 people and preserved that city’s status as America’s murder capital. Baltimore placed second, with a homicide rate of 51.2, followed by Detroit, New Orleans, and Cleveland.

What we should note however is that the cities with the highest murder rates also have strict gun control laws that severely limit the right of the average person to own a firearm and carry it for personal defense. Gun control laws simply don't work.

What might work however are programs that disrupt gangs, programs that take the profit out of drug trafficking, and programs that provide mental health counseling to individuals and families in crisis.

There is no single right answer to solving the problems of violence in cities like Chicago, or St. Louis, or Baltimore, but current attempts to address the problems have been a failure.