Unlimited guns, scant jobs spells no dent in Chicago shootings

It’s not a pandemic, just a weekly slaughter, the shooting of 43 Chicago citizens each week, ten of whom die. That’s over the previous two years which police officials and the mayor touted as improvement from 2016 when nearly 15 died each week. But as soon as they trumpeted that decrease, gunfire escalated like covid-19, putting Chicago on track for a 22% and 13% increases respectively for shootings and deaths through the first quarter. That wasn’t a momentary upward blip. April started with a bloodbath. Twenty-one were shot, of which 8 died on Tuesday, while 8 were shot in an 8 hour span Wednesday.

Chicago police chiefs come and go. Wednesday, David Brown becomes sixth top cop in the last 14 years, each one entering with high hopes and reorganization plans to stem the bleeding. Nothing works. The hand wringing will continue till there is a momentary pause in the carnage, at which point the Mayor and Police Chief will claim their approach is working

Bunk.

The catastrophic shooting and murder rate is a national problem fueled by millions of guns and virtually no jobs for the demoralized, disaffected youth who fire endlessly and aimlessly. Vulture capitalism sends in the guns but keeps out the jobs.

The Mayor and new Police Chief can help by stop claiming each momentary lull demonstrates success. We’re weary of happy talk like that fed to us every afternoon on America’s unflattening covid-19 curve. They must call this carnage the national disgrace it is, imploring us all to demand a massive federal reduction in guns and an equally massive federal effort to end joblessness and despair. Those two efforts are attainable with national will. Like the hundreds who disappear in Chicago yearly, that will is missing.