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发帖数: 29846 | 1 by Jammie
The sad reality is that while terrible mass shootings like the ones at
Aurora and Newtown shock the nation’s conscience, pull at the public’s
heartstrings, and garner wall-to-wall media coverage, they represent a tiny
fraction of the number of gun homicides in the country every year.
Consider this, Mr. President: During the first 16 days of January, 26
people have been killed by guns in Chicago — the exact same number as at
Sandy Hook Elementary School. By the time this year is out, the south and
west sides of the city we both call home will have endured, in terms of
sheer numbers of people killed, the equivalent of 20 Sandy Hook massacres.
That’s on top of the equivalent of the 19 Sandy Hooks the city experienced
in 2012.
Yet there has been little outcry by the national media, and not much
public attention paid to Chicago’s crucible by either national political
party. Just the sterile news stories in the local papers every morning
recounting the details of yet another young person’s life cut short and
another family ripped apart thanks to senseless violence.
The other sad reality, Mr. President, is that almost nothing proposed
this week in Washington, D.C., by your administration will do anything to
stem the tide of gun violence in our inner cities. Most of these crimes were
not committed with semi-automatic assault weapons, they weren’t committed
by the mentally ill, and they won’t be stopped by universal background
checks.
If you are serious about doing everything in your power to curb gun
violence and save lives, then you must harness your immense popularity in
Chicago — and in other big cities — to address the elephant in the room:
the failures of a society grown coarsened, desensitized to violence, and too
tolerant of such carnage. |
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