Politics

gun violence in chicago being called chiraq

February 1, 2013
There is a big discussion going on now in American Politics about gun control and how to stop the growing number of mass murders in our country. What is also becoming more apparent is the number of senseless lives we lose to gun violence in our communities everyday. In 2012 the total Chicago body count broke 500, over 400 of that number due to gun violence. By June 2012 more Chicago residents died on our land than troops in Afghanistan  228 here verses the 144 over seas, and by October they had reached a body count of 400.  
By: Lindsey Rand
To put into perspective how ridiculous this is New York City, with a population 3 times the size of Chicago, had a record low 414 homicides last year. Meaning walking around in New York City is about 3 times safer than Chicago, go figure. So outrageous that the news and twitter have been calling this phenom #CHIRAQ. To make matters worse only about 25% of the homicides committed have been solved by the Chicago police department which will be taking a $67 million dollar cut this year, to make things “more efficient.” 
Those numbers seem outrageous but this year they are on pace to set new records. With 40 deaths in January alone Chicago isn’t losing it’s Murder Capitol title anytime soon. Obviously there is a lot going on and these numbers truly mean nothing if nothing is done to stop the perpetuation of this problem. By allowing this problem to go unnoticed we are also aiding in the decimation of our communities. It is to late to just try and stop the current problem, we need to reform an entire system to enable a better lifestyle for the next generation. We don’t ask that you get immediately involved but be aware, understand what a culture of violence and ignorance does to our communities and if you can pose questions and speak out against systems designed to fail those it’s meant to protect. 

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