13 people shot in 30 minutes in Chicago

[bmb777]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...d67_story.html

glad to see that whole gun control thing is working out in Chicago

[ryls]

These inner city areas are a disaster, we have the same problem in St. Louis, these kids have no fear of the police, no fear of parents, no fear of God, this is becoming worse all the time, I don't even want to go downtown in a big city for fear of being robbed or killed , these punks need to understand if they shoot a gun it carries a sentence of atleast 10 years. I would like to see some kind of outreach to the gangs to ttalk to them and try to make peace but if they won't listen put them in jail and throw away the key, there doesn't seem to be reason to believe this is going to get better.

[Illini2016]

Gun control doesn't work. Plain and simple. The cities with the strictest gun control are the cities with the highest crime rates.

[DaytonIllini]

Originally Posted by Illini2016

Gun control doesn't work. Plain and simple. The cities with the strictest gun control are the cities with the highest crime rates.

Oh come on! Everyone knows that the minute you pass gun control laws all the criminals line up to turn their guns into the authorities. Sheesh. Common knowledge!

What we really have to do to get rid of guns is make them illegal. Just look at how good drug control works. Drugs are illegal in all 50 states and we clearly don't have a drug control problem in this country.

[Sure Shot]

Originally Posted by Illini2016

Gun control doesn't work. Plain and simple. The cities with the strictest gun control are the cities with the highest crime rates.

At least not the way we do gun control now. And what would actually work, no one wants.

But lets be straight here, the humanitarian disaster (and that's what it is) that is developing on the south side of Chicago has a gun control piece to it, sure, but it's really a potpourri of everything that's wrong in America. Crappy education, crumbling infrastructure, the War on Drugs, bad police work, a screwed-up justice system, obesity and other health ailments, cultural and moral degradation, problems with the welfare system, the lack of jobs, racism, sexism, environmental problems, you name it, it's all there.

[ryls]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot

At least not the way we do gun control now. And what would actually work, no one wants.

But lets be straight here, the humanitarian disaster (and that's what it is) that is developing on the south side of Chicago has a gun control piece to it, sure, but it's really a potpourri of everything that's wrong in America. Crappy education, crumbling infrastructure, the War on Drugs, bad police work, a screwed-up justice system, obesity and other health ailments, cultural and moral degradation, problems with the welfare system, the lack of jobs, racism, sexism, environmental problems, you name it, it's all there.

I agree there are a lot of reasons for this disaster but the destruction of the family has to beneath the top of the list, how many of these young kids committing these crimes have a father that takes an active role in their lives and provide a positive role model, I would guess very few

[Sure Shot]

Originally Posted by ryls

I agree there are a lot of reasons for this disaster but the destruction of the family has to beneath the top of the list, how many of these young kids committing these crimes have a father that takes an active role in their lives and provide a positive role model, I would guess very few

Yeah, I would agree. But that becomes chicken and egg at some point too. Why have the families broken down? What happened in the father and mothers lives? There are decades of moral and economic decay built into those communities.

How do you break the cycle? Hard question.

[ryls]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot

Yeah, I would agree. But that becomes chicken and egg at some point too. Why have the families broken down? What happened in the father and mothers lives? There are decades of moral and economic decay built into those communities.

How do you break the cycle? Hard question.

I agree, I know what we have been doing as a strategy has been a complete failure, I think we need a lot more police, we have to find a way to help those kids who want to make something of themselves and find a way to get those who want to cause trouble out of the way. I don't think anyone has publically come up with a strategy to turn these inner cities around, I guess this will just continue till it affects us in the suburbs even more.

[Sure Shot]

Originally Posted by ryls

I agree, I know what we have been doing as a strategy has been a complete failure, I think we need a lot more police, we have to find a way to help those kids who want to make something of themselves and find a way to get those who want to cause trouble out of the way. I don't think anyone has publically come up with a strategy to turn these inner cities around, I guess this will just continue till it affects us in the suburbs even more.

The only thing that bugs me about your statement is the idea that the suburbs are not already affected by all of this. These communities cause danger well outside their borders, drain government resources, exacerbate social problems, and most importantly, destroy the lives of people who have the potential to help us all. How many great scientists or inventors or political leaders or artists or whatever have been lost to crappy education, poverty, violence, and hopelessness on our city streets? We will never know.

And I only bring that up because I think an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude makes it harder for us to address these issues.

[illinicb]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot

Yeah, I would agree. But that becomes chicken and egg at some point too. Why have the families broken down? What happened in the father and mothers lives? There are decades of moral and economic decay built into those communities.

How do you break the cycle? Hard question.

Easy question. Hard answer. I don't have a clue about what the answer is. As you suggested earlier, there are tons of contributing factors. If I grew up in that environment, God knows what would have happened to me.

[ryls]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot

The only thing that bugs me about your statement is the idea that the suburbs are not already affected by all of this. These communities cause danger well outside their borders, drain government resources, exacerbate social problems, and most importantly, destroy the lives of people who have the potential to help us all. How many great scientists or inventors or political leaders or artists or whatever have been lost to crappy education, poverty, violence, and hopelessness on our city streets? We will never know.

And I only bring that up because I think an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude makes it harder for us to address these issues.

I didn't mean to say it doesn't affect us now, I just think it's going to get worse, we as a country have to realize this is unacceptable that people are living this way in our country and it is affecting us all, some drastic action needs to be taken and taken now, I just don't know if as a country we are willing to do what it takes.

[Sure Shot]

Originally Posted by ryls

I didn't mean to say it doesn't affect us now, I just think it's going to get worse, we as a country have to realize this is unacceptable that people are living this way in our country and it is affecting us all, some drastic action needs to be taken and taken now, I just don't know if as a country we are willing to do what it takes.

I think if it was tied into an argument about rebuilding the competitiveness of all of us, it might have a better chance than just looking at it as trying to fix "those areas". Because as I've said here before, the suburban high schools are failing kids too, just not as much and not in the same way. We need a solution for everybody.

Unfortunately our political system is a million miles away from being up to the challenge.

[uiba99]

You either pay for it now, or you pay for it later. I'd much rather see us focus on education, economic outreach, and other programs than on paying folks like me (gasp!) to put these guys in jail. But that will take generations to fix because it took generations to create, and politicians don't want to tell the truth to taxpayers...that this stuff ain't cheap.

But we have to do it. It's far more expensive to incarcerate someone than to make sure they get a good education. Then again, much of it has to do with environment, personalities, parenting, and a whole host of other factors that can't be legislated.

[bmb777]

Originally Posted by DaytonIllini

Oh come on! Everyone knows that the minute you pass gun control laws all the criminals line up to turn their guns into the authorities. Sheesh. Common knowledge!

What we really have to do to get rid of guns is make them illegal. Just look at how good drug control works. Drugs are illegal in all 50 states and we clearly don't have a drug control problem in this country.

I had a thing on my facebook page that said "More gun laws will prevent shooting sprees? Please tell me more about how criminals follow laws'""

[IntenselyOrange]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot

At least not the way we do gun control now. And what would actually work, no one wants.

But lets be straight here, the humanitarian disaster (and that's what it is) that is developing on the south side of Chicago has a gun control piece to it, sure, but it's really a potpourri of everything that's wrong in America. Crappy education, crumbling infrastructure, the War on Drugs, bad police work, a screwed-up justice system, obesity and other health ailments, cultural and moral degradation, problems with the welfare system, the lack of jobs, racism, sexism, environmental problems, you name it, it's all there.

You start with a good idea and loose me. Racism, sexism and cultural degradation? Unless you are referring to their continuing degradation of their own cluture and their reliance on the racism card for not having jobs, I don't see it.

It's education and family which go hand-in-hand. That's about as difficult a problem as there is to solve, but that is the problem.

[Fighting Billini]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot

Yeah, I would agree. But that becomes chicken and egg at some point too. Why have the families broken down? What happened in the father and mothers lives? There are decades of moral and economic decay built into those communities.

How do you break the cycle? Hard question.

Welfare. It lead to a gigantic increase in the percentage of single mothers and created a hopeless, reliant culture.

[Sure Shot]

Originally Posted by Fighting Billini

Welfare. It lead to a gigantic increase in the percentage of single mothers and created a hopeless, reliant culture.

Even taking that to be true, what's the solution? Just yanking welfare away wholesale?

[Fighting Billini]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot

Even taking that to be true, what's the solution? Just yanking welfare away wholesale?

No, the problem is far too entrenched. And any efforts for legitimate reform are met with cries of racism and "you want people to die in the streets". Things are made 1000x worse with the existence of parasites like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who have made millions off of promoting the status quo and ensuring the suffering of their people. Just like with our school system, politicians are afraid to take a realistic look at it and do something radically different. Instead, they just add or slash a few millions here and there, keep the same bad policy, rinse and repeat.

[Sure Shot]

Originally Posted by Fighting Billini

No, the problem is far too entrenched. And any efforts for legitimate reform are met with cries of racism and "you want people to die in the streets". Things are made 1000x worse with the existence of parasites like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who have made millions off of promoting the status quo and ensuring the suffering of their people. Just like with our school system, politicians are afraid to take a realistic look at it and do something radically different. Instead, they just add or slash a few millions here and there, keep the same bad policy, rinse and repeat.

Sure, but what do we do? What is "legitimate reform"? What will actually work?

[Fighting Billini]

Well, to quote BHO, that's above my paygrade. I'd start with putting in job search requirements, limiting the months one's eligible, capping payouts as more children are born, and so on. I would even be in favor of creating some kind of agency and basically forcing people to work for it in exchange for a little more than the current welfare payouts. The majority of people on welfare are not unemployed due to disabilities. That would give the people a sense of accomplishment rather than entitelment, and at least they would be contributing to society through whatever menial work they were given.

[FeelYourPaign]

Originally Posted by Fighting Billini

Well, to quote BHO, that's above my paygrade. I'd start with putting in job search requirements, limiting the months one's eligible, capping payouts as more children are born, and so on. I would even be in favor of creating some kind of agency and basically forcing people to work for it in exchange for a little more than the current welfare payouts. The majority of people on welfare are not unemployed due to disabilities. That would give the people a sense of accomplishment rather than entitelment, and at least they would be contributing to society through whatever menial work they were given.

As I was reading through this string, I was thinking "why is no one mentioning welfare?". Then it came to the top and I see that it has stayed there.

I agree 100%. Welfare was a well intentioned disaster. Personal opinion obviously, but once people did not have to do much to survive, it became institutionally attractive (read "cool") to stop working and take it from the Man. Remember high school? The coolest kids were rarely your friends, because they didn't achieve anything. they just played.

That has become a city problem and it will be VERY hard to fix. There is no backbone in politics (just check budget balancing for a sense of that). But I believe that when you give people something . . . their appreciation is 20% of what it is when they work for it. So, you have to work for it. So, in my dictatorship, when you want my welfare handout, you have to practice working. You have to be somewhere 4 days out of 5. You have to have interviews. You have to give society something for the support that society gives to you. And it stops being a handout and becomes something that you want to work your way out of and above. You start wanting to achieve.

It is hard, just like so many things. But I think it is what you have to do.
And I have ZERO hope of it happening.

[stevo99]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot

At least not the way we do gun control now. And what would actually work, no one wants.

But lets be straight here, the humanitarian disaster (and that's what it is) that is developing on the south side of Chicago has a gun control piece to it, sure, but it's really a potpourri of everything that's wrong in America. Crappy education, crumbling infrastructure, the War on Drugs, bad police work, a screwed-up justice system, obesity and other health ailments, cultural and moral degradation, problems with the welfare system, the lack of jobs, racism, sexism, environmental problems, you name it, it's all there.

Don't know why obesity is part of this, but overall good post. IMO, the hopelessness over the lack of jobs is HUGE.

Another contributing factor also seems to be that the Mexican cartels have arrived in force in Chicago and they want their piece of the drug profits.

[DaytonIllini]

According to the FBI

There were 24700 murders in the US in 1991.
There were 14748 murders in the US in 2010.

During that time the population increased from 252M to 308M (Source US Census estimates).

Things have gotten dramatically better in this country in the past 20 years when it comes to violent crime.

During that time about 80 million guns have been sold in the US (Brady Campaign).

During that time unemployment has increased from 6.8 to 9.6% (source BLS).

So what has changed? Why do we incorrectly think this problem has been getting worse? Why do we incorrectly correlate it with the number of guns or the unemployment rate or obesity?

We hear a lot more about this stuff because of the news. The news is on constantly now and they have nothing to talk about so they make a murder rate that is cut in half look like we are suffering an epidemic.

[Sure Shot]

Originally Posted by DaytonIllini

Why do we incorrectly think this problem has been getting worse?

Do we?

I don't know if that's what we think, I think we just find the numbers to continue to be unacceptable.

[FeelYourPaign]

Originally Posted by DaytonIllini

According to the FBI

There were 24700 murders in the US in 1991.
There were 14748 murders in the US in 2010.

During that time the population increased from 252M to 308M (Source US Census estimates).

Things have gotten dramatically better in this country in the past 20 years when it comes to violent crime.

During that tiweme about 80 million guns have been sold in the US (Brady Campaign).

During that time unemployment has increased from 6.8 to 9.6% (source BLS).

So what has changed? Why do we incorrectly think this problem has been getting worse? Why do we incorrectly correlate it with the number of guns or the unemployment rate or obesity?

We hear a lot more about this stuff because of the news. The news is on constantly now and they have nothing to talk about so they make a murder rate that is cut in half look like we are suffering an epidemic.

We think it is worse because chicago is up 31% from last year