Maybe Chicago’s not so great after all… July 17, 2007 Jill From Bob Herbert today: Over the past school year, Mr. Obama said, the number of public school students killed in Chicago was higher than the number of soldiers from the entire state of Illinois who were killed in Iraq during that period.
They’re locking us out of that article unless we’re subscribers, Jill. But based on the excerpt posted above, I don’t understand how so many young people could be killed in Chicago. Certainly not with handguns; Chicago has banned them outright, and we all know gun control always works perfectly. Gosh, look what it’s done for D.C…
Clearly one city banning handguns is not going to change anything. I hesitate to say more until i can find an unlocked version of this article or the source information to compare the actual numbers. i will say that the way illinois funds its public schools* should be illegal. there is no reason richer people should be able to buy into de facto school segregation and better schools. way to entrench inequality. (*Illinois continually ranks last or near last in school funding and in school funding equity.)
Got one better than that for you Jill. A Chicago teacher shielded his kids from a shooting with his body, and was denied workman’s comp for his gunshot wounds and absenteeism—because that wasn’t part of his job duties. Here’s the link. He eventually won because of the bad press towards the Chicago School District. Angry parents were not happy with the district basically saying, “ya shoulda let the kids take a few.”
The elephant in the room is drugs and gangs. One recent year, the Chronicle kept track of all the murders in Oakland. At least three-quarters of the deaths were related to drug trafficking. I would be very surprised if Chicago were different. One of the problems is the deindustrialization of the Rust Belt. Black folks did not turn to drug dealing back when they could get good paying factory jobs. Once the factories shuttered, they had the choice of working for chump change (e.g. retail), or making some serious money by dealing drugs. Because the public schools are hardly preparing ghetto youth to become doctors and ibankers, the tragedy seems likely to continue.
Of course, while tragic, the chance that you will die as a soldier in Iraq is much higher than if you are a student in Chicago; though there may be more deaths students in Chicago than of a certain subsect of soldiers, there are also far fewer Illinois soldiers in Iraq than students in CPS. It’s a per-capita thing. I think a better thing to discuss the CPS problems is to discuss how it is better or worse than previous years. That I don’t claim to know anything about specifically. An article from USAtoday suggests that muder rates in 2004 went down in the nation, in part due to the 25% lower (from 2003) murder rate in Chicago. It goes without saying, but I will say: lower murder rates are great, but I know crime is still a problem in Chicago. Lots of it can be attributed to gangs, which of course is a result of economic and social issues relating to race, class, gender, etc.
You can read the full essay at this blog. The number killed, incidentally, is 34. Of the three cases mentioned, two are shootings and one was a stabbing. (In the fourth one, there is no cause of death mentioned.)
The cynic in me says that the military recruiters will be using this as a selling point when they tell inner city youth and their parents that being in the military in Iraq is safer than being a student in Chicago’s school system–and it’s a bigger, more heavily armed gang, as well.
Hey, Marksman, if you can spare the time from your gun range, take a tour around Chicago’s borders sometime. You’ll find plenty of gun shops just on the other side of the street from the city limits. Whom do you think they sell to? And when Jesse Jackson and an activist Catholic priest protested outside one of them, guys like you howled about how the poor shop owner’s precious Second Amendment rights were being violated. Gun control doesn’t “work” because it’s not uniformly imposed, mostly because of NRA types like you. And Lubu, the link you posted doesn’t work. Do you have any more details on this incident? I missed it entirely, and I read both major Chicago newspapers every day.
Crap. It was from 1994. A Chicago teacher was supervising kids at an afterschool program when gang members started shooting; he stood in front of the kids and started hustling them the hell out of there and got shot in the process. He lost partial use of one of his hands. The link was just a short blurb on the incident in the NYT; there were far better sources than that. The Chicago School Board fought the case for around a year before caving; their position was that protecting the children from bullets wasn’t part of his official job duties, therefore they shouldn’t be liable to pay workmen’s comp—that he should be responsible for his own medical bills as he willing took on that responsibility himself, and that he should use his sick time for his time missing from work. Because it’s so old, there may not be anything still available online (I don’t know why the link didn’t work). Since you’re up there, I’ll bet you could ask a friendly neighborhood Chicago teacher about it—it was considered an very important case for the CFT as the likelihood of a repeat incident for some other unfortunate group of schoolchildren and their teacher(s) was/is high. Or go to the library and scroll through the microfilm of Trib and Sun-Times.
You’ll find plenty of gun shops just on the other side of the street from the city limits. Whom do you think they sell to? I’ve discussed this with friends of mine who shoot sporting clays in Illinois. Illinois gun shops sell handguns to Illinois residents who have obtained a Firearms Owner Identification Card. Even so, there is a 72 hour waiting period between sale and acquisition, during which time a background check is run. To get an FOID card, you apply to the state police. Prohibited people include felons, the insane, and domestic batterers. Firearms kept in Chicago must be registered; however the city stopped taking handgun registration applications in 1982. This wouldn’t prevent a Chicago pistol target shooter from buying a gun and storing it in a suburban bank safe deposit box. To discourage gun trafficking, by federal law sales of more than one handgun to the same person in a five day period are reported to the local or state police as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
The Chicago School Board fought the case for around a year before caving; their position was that protecting the children from bullets wasn’t part of his official job duties, therefore they shouldn’t be liable to pay workmen’s comp. “First God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards.” —Mark Twain
When I saw the quote at the beginning of this post I knew it was going to go badly. Stories like this aren’t about guns, guns are just a tool of criminals. People arguing about gun control, about more prohibition, are missing the point. These kids aren’t being killed by maniacs with a taste for murder, this isn’t an action movie. These kids are being killed by the predictable consequences of bad drug policy. These kids are collateral damage in a war between men over drug territory, a war that exists because a black market exists. Why is it that when stories like this come up so few people bother to mention that simple reality? Why is it that only the libertarians and the far-left manage to bring up the point? But hey, its just a couple dozen poor black kids from the ghetto, anyway. Probably would have grown up to be drug dealers and gang bangers and welfare moms, right? As long as liberal white people get to act concerned and conservative white people get to act superior, as long as Jesse gets his screen time, and the journalists get their headlines and the politicians and activists get to beat whatever drum they brought, it OK, right? As long as all the people who matter get to make a buck or a point off a pile of dead kids, everythings cool. Makes me fucking sick.
But based on the excerpt posted above, I don’t understand how so many young people could be killed in Chicago. Certainly not with handguns; Chicago has banned them outright, and we all know gun control always works perfectly. Gosh, look what it’s done for D.C… When I saw the quote at the beginning of this post I knew it was going to go badly. Stories like this aren’t about guns, guns are just a tool of criminals. People arguing about gun control, about more prohibition, are missing the point. There is one line in the Herbert article about gun control. The vast majority of the column, including the vast majority of the how-to-fix-this-problem section, was not about gun control at all. So the complaint that people talking about gun control are “missing the point” seems to be kind of missing the point of the article itself.
There is one line in the Herbert article about gun control. The vast majority of the column, including the vast majority of the how-to-fix-this-problem section, was not about gun control at all. So the complaint that people talking about gun control are “missing the point” seems to be kind of missing the point of the article itself. You know, Jill, you’re right. I recognize that the article you linked didn’t focus on guns. I was responding more to some of the other comments and to the discussion about violence that has been going on in Chicago since, well, at least the late 70s. I should have been more precise and explained to what, exactly, I was responding. I live in Chicago and most of the debate here, especially when it comes to community activists and police, has revolved around guns instead of the underlying causes of gang violence. I thought I had made clear that I was responding to that tendency, but looking back I can see how I might not have. My apologies.
You’ll find plenty of gun shops just on the other side of the street from the city limits. Whom do you think they sell to? And when Jesse Jackson and an activist Catholic priest protested outside one of them, guys like you howled about how the poor shop owner’s precious Second Amendment rights were being violated. Gun control doesn’t “work” because it’s not uniformly imposed, mostly because of NRA types like you. Not uniformly imposed the way alcohol prohibition used to be? The way drug prohibition is today? If ever they make all firearms illegal–which might happen if your Communist Queen is elected to twin terms–then you will REALLY see what violence looks like, inside the ghetto and out. Oh well, just dial 911 if you need assistance. Cops have always been there to protect us, just like they were in New Orleans when Katrina came through.
Marxman, I want you to understand that this is coming from someone living in Chicago with a closet full of guns and ammo: learn to behave yourself. Really, c’mon here, ever heard of time and place? I’m not unsympathetic to your point, but all you’re doing is making those of us who happen to agree with you look bad. First of all, you’re making your argument on the backs of dead children, then you decided to climb onto hurricane victims of a bit of extra height. On top of that you stir in a bit of subtle racism (the crack about the ghetto, what are you thinking, man?), almost as if you’re trying to poison your own argument. But where you really shine, bub, is when you forget whose sandbox you’re playing in. You’re at Feministe, a feminist blog with a militant name and an image of a little girl with a tricked out combat shotgun as a mascot. What on earth made you think that a crack calling the a female candidate for president “communist queen” would change a single goddamn mind? I mean, aside from the shocking level of political ignorance (shes may be an opportunist and a populist, but calling her a communist is just downright inaccurate) the assumption that anyone with a womb is supporting a given candidate because of shared gender is just insulting. Thompson has gotten some press lately because it seems he has a dick, does that mean I you’re voting for him? And thats before we even start to talk about how your crack was asinine considering how little this blog talks about Hillary. Seriously, buddy. If you just want to spew some vitriol I’m sure there are sandboxes where it’ll be appreciated, but this isn’t really it. Try contributing to the discussion, building an argument, talking to people. Try being just a little bit respectful of someone else’s property. Would you spit that kind of rhetoric at a dinner party? Would you look kindly on someone behaving like that at your mother’s house? Right now you’re just making the pro-gun side of the argument look like assholess.
William: I know where I’m at, and I know what I’m saying. You’re the one who has lowered a blog discussion to personal attacks. And If I decided to pull every flaw from your diatribe up-top, I’d be here longer than I want to be. I will say, however, that it was filled with hollow logic and weak assumptions. Now I’ll leave you alone with your closet full of guns, Mr. Chicago. You seem to know it all, so there’s no point in me trying to enlighten you. “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” -Senator Hillary Clinton (San Francisco Rolls Out Red Carpet for Clintons, San Francisco Chronicle, June 28, 2004) “We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.” -Hillary Clinton (Non-Communist)