Newtown and Chicago (Paris, Oregon, Detroit: crime rate, how much, neighborhoods)

[edsg25]

I would hope the terrible, tragic, heart breaking event in Newtown on Friday will remind us all that when it comes to the availability of true weapons of mass destruction, we're all in it together. and if there is a way out or at least a way to reduce this senseless violence, we're all in it together.

I have found the discussions of Chicago's horrific murder rate most disturbing. These discussions are often absurd; they suggest Chicago is somehow at fault and could reduce these numbers drastically. Yet Chicago, like any municipality, any state, in the United States has little or no say about the ability to gain their firearms and use them.

Newtown, CT, a small and by all evidence safe community now has a per capita murder rate this year that runs rings around Chicago, Philadelphia, or Detroit. So what? It is a meaningless statistic. What happened on Friday in Newtown could happen anywhere. One crazed, sick individual, one with serious mental issues, can get ahold of a gun and do untold damage. and there isn't anything we can do about that, given how available these weapons are.

We're all in the same boat here. city. suburb. rural. maine to california. and we differ from Canada, much of Europe, Japan, Australia, and all those other so called "civilized" nations out there that do control the availability of guns and prevent them from falling into the very hands they fell into on Friday.

Yes, Chicago's murder rate is a tragedy, an unspeakable tragedy. But it does not speak of Chicago. It speaks volumes of the United States, this wild west among nations, this crazed land where we cling to some notion that the 2nd Amendment was designed to arm us to the hilt to protect us from each other (when the 2nd Amendment was in place so that a citizens' army could be mobilized to fight off some future foreign enemy like Britain in a nation hell bent not to have a standing army). The guns are part of a macho culture of this nation, which ironically in my opinion speaks far less about Chicago than other parts of the nation in the south, the southwest, the mountain west, the great plains, the rural areas, the less globally connected, often the less enlightened than it does over the rather sophisticated city that is Chicago in a rather sophisticated metro area that is Chicago.

I'm so sick of the finger pointing at Chicago, the absurdity of comparing us to other cities.....all of which, even the "best" of them, suffer from incredible murder rates that would be shocking in major cities in those "civilized" lands I spoke of. New York is in the same boat as Chicago, a sad sinking purely American boat, not in that boat that carries the likes of Toronto, London, Paris, or Tokyo. If there is a "Murder Capital" of the United States, all cities share the honor.

Sorry for the rant. I hurt today as do all of you. I hope that the Newtown is the turning point. If the slaughter of 20 innocent, 7 year olds isn't a wake up call for the United States, there is no wake up call. Chicago is irrelevant to the discussion; no municipality is capable of handling this issue on its own. This is a national problem and we damned sure better start owning it and doing something about it.

[chet everett]

Wow what tortured logic. So when Gary was the murder capital a few years back that should have just given them a free pass?

Amazing that someone could manage to equate a single maniacal killer to the thousands of criminals that carry the lawlessness of Chicago's worst neighborhoods to new lows.

Pretty much par for the course for those who defend the indefensible failings of things like Chicago's many corrupt political leaders, it attrociuos disregard for citizen access to information, dysfunctional schools and out of control abuse of statewide lawmaking... But hey the bar scene is first rate! So its all good!

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Wow what tortured logic. So when Gary was the murder capital a few years back that should have just given them a free pass?

Amazing that someone could manage to equate a single maniacal killer to the thousands of criminals that carry the lawlessness of Chicago's worst neighborhoods to new lows.

Pretty much par for the course for those who defend the indefensible failings of things like Chicago's many corrupt political leaders, it attrociuos disregard for citizen access to information, dysfunctional schools and out of control abuse of statewide lawmaking... But hey the bar scene is first rate! So its all good!

i find nothing tortured about the logic, chet. if guns weren't available, we wouldn't have the murder rate we do. and i can't think of what a city or its police department can do if these guns are available; if people have them and they wasn't to kill, they will.

that single magical killer does as much damage in killing 22 or so people as 22 different gunmen who kill one person each. point is, the guns are available.

if we are concerned about gary or chicago or any other place where the crime rate and poverty rate are high, we need to realize that we as a society are responsible for these conditions and we need to invest to do so. that's how i choose to look at taxes: an investment, when done right. there is a healthy role for government in the commons that makes our lives better just as there is a healthy role for private enterprise. both have their spheres.

am i letting chicago completely off the hook here? no. but the vast majority of the problem with violence, the availability of guns comes from a national level and no city can do anything about it.

as i said, chet, i don't care if Chicago were #1, #2, or #75th among murder rates in the US because the murder rate in all US cities is way, way too high.

we're different, chet. you talk "tortured logic". I talk different perspective. you and i just see things differently. I don't know if your logic is tortured or not, but I do take a different world view. and i know how different this nation was from the time when i was young, when we tended to be more citizens than consumers, where we were involved in the commons and had more of a sense that we were all in it together. and we paid good tax money not as spending, but as investing in solving the ills of our society.

you and i are just on two different pages, chet.

[chet everett]

This is definitely veering off of anything related to Chicago and there are other part of the forum for politics...

[Chi-town Native]

No kidding. Did we really need a third freaking topic on this?

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by chet everett

This is definitely veering off of anything related to Chicago and there are other part of the forum for politics...

i disagree. and if you feel that way, you can ignore the topic. nobody forces you to read a thread. if you start a thread and i think it is off topic, i won't be telling you so. i'll merely choose to read elsewhere. as in....no skin off my back.

me? i find it totally relevant to chicago. you don't have to agree with me, but i do. i find endless threads here on chicago's murder rate and how awful it is. but how little of a chicago problem it is and how much a national one.

so i am relating this to chicago and the chicago forum:

let's stop beating ourselves up about those murder statistics which are awful. to truly fight it (and we should), we need to address the availability of guns nationally for these are what affect chicago and every other community in the nation.

chet, if you don't agree with this point, fine. but an awful lot of people see things in the vein in which i have shared. i happen to agree with president obama who spoke eloquently through his tears the last few days as he related Newtown to the Oregon shopping center to the streets of Chicago and Philadelphia (which he mentioned by name) and said we....as in "we" the people of the United States...need to deal with guns, deal with the fact that we have had 60 mass shootings over the past 30 years.

my very chicago and very (IMHO) relevant point here: let's stop kicking the crap out of Chicago; it is far more the federal government that is causing our problem than anything we're doing ourselves.

[chet everett]

So now the federal officials are to blame? And it is still deserves space in the Chicago forum instead of "politics and other controversies"????

Please help to keep the forums well organized.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by chet everett

So now the federal officials are to blame? And it is still deserves space in the Chicago forum instead of "politics and other controversies"????

Please help to keep the forums well organized.

do you get it, chet? when we constantly talk murder rate in chicago, we're having a meaningless conversation. we're looking for a local solution for a problem that can't be solved locally.

no municipality has the means to deal with this issue.

again, you can believe what you want, but are you actually suggesting that there aren't' a helluva (and I do mean helluva) lot of Americans who are thinking just like I am today......

this is a national issue, one that we can't solve locally.

my suggestion to you: if you really think this is a dissuasion that shouldn't take place, kiss this thread good bye. it shouldn't bother you in the least that this thread exists. again, i'll tell you the same thing i said before: if you start a thread that i think makes no sense, i'll let it be. i'll stick with that 'no skin off my back' and "live and let live."

in other words, chet: post and start threads any way you wish. it isn't a problem for me.

[nightlysparrow]

There are plenty of cities with more guns than Chicago that don't have that murder rate.

Perhaps Chicago DOES has a local problem. Perhaps Chicago's being the #1 most segregated city in America might have something to do with it.

Chicago Most Segregated City In America, Despite Significant Improvements In Last Decade

[chitownperson]

Some of the things that add to the problems of Chicago are poverty and discrimination, which trend to breed a culture of violence. Guns are not only a Chicago problem, but a nationwide problem, and guns allow the problems in Chicago to be expressed on a horrific scale. So I agree with edsg that the problems with the level of gun violence in Chicago cannot be separated from the larger gun problem and gun culture in the US.