What if it were firecrackers that killed 12 and injured 49 last weekend in Chicago?

Last weekend was a bloodbath on Chicago’s mean streets. Sixty-one were shot, 12 of whom died. While that number is staggering, it is not much higher than the weekend carnage week after week, year after year. It barely made a ripple in the news.

But imagine those 61 persons were all killed or injured by fireworks, both legal and illegal. There would probably be a massive public outcry. Political leaders would rush to regulate the sale and availability of fireworks causing such carnage. Safeguards would be implemented. There would be consensus on the urgent need to reduce the violence.

Yet, 52 weeks a year, the carnage from more lethal deadly instruments, guns, piles up with barely a whimper and without an iota of action by local, state and federal officials. The gun and ammo makers, supported by their millions of 2nd Amendments zealots, have bought up all 50 state legislatures and Congress with money and fear, ensuring nothing will be done.

The daily, weekly, annual death and injury toll is a testament to the power of inhumane capitalism and institutional racism to maintain the endless supply of millions of guns and billions of bullets flooding minority areas, anxious to be used.

But it was not firecrackers, it was guns that shredded the bodies of 61 Chicagoans last weekend, many if not most, poor, vulnerable minorities. As a result, the daily weekday shootings that kill and injure, will spike again beginning at 6:00 PM this Chicago Friday, incurring another horrific toll this weekend.

And like the previous hundreds, thousands of weekends….nothing will be done.