These Three Things Can Help Reduce Chicago’s Gun Violence

After another weekend of record-setting gun violence in the nation’s third largest city of Chicago, where 59 people were shot, leaving six of them dead and 53 wounded, local officials are still blaming societal symptoms for their ridiculous homicide rate while totally missing the disease — leftism.

If Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, and other community leaders are serious about reducing homicide rates in the Windy City, they must first admit that what they’re doing isn’t working. Since police can’t be everywhere and criminals don’t care about obeying laws, increased police presence won’t solve Chicago’s gun violence problem. Adding more cops to the beat or enacting more gun-control legislation simply isn’t a long-term solution for deterring violent crime.

Despite Chicago Democrats employing some of the strictest gun control laws in the entire U.S., they still rank amongst one of the highest cities in homicide rates with no signs of slowing. Democratic policies aren’t working there, and their leaders are either too stupid or too arrogant to look themselves in the mirror and admit it.

According to the local television news affiliate WGN9 in Chicago, “Experts have identified a complex set of factors driving Chicago’s violence, including disparities in economics and education, easy access to guns, prevalence of gangs, lack of access to mental health care, institutional racism and an erosion of values.”

I’m no John Brennan, but this is hogwash! Again, educational and economic disparities, as well as an erosion of “values,” easy access to guns and gang membership are all symptomatic issues. I’m sure there are some cases where mental health care would help prevent violent gun crime. However, the argument from the “experts” regarding “institutional racism” is just plain stupid because Democrats run Chicago and most of the shootings on the South and West sides are either black-on-black crime, or minority gang-on-gang crime.

If Chicago’s Democrats were serious about solving their gun violence problem the three Gs they’d address are: guys, God, and guns.

First off, when I say the word “guys” I mean dads! At the very least young men need a healthy male role model around. Young men need dads to show them how to cope with the harshness of life.

A boy who grows up without a dad has no one to guide him into the man he can become despite his surroundings or circumstances. Not to mention, help him discover his gifts and talents so that he becomes a productive contributor to society. Without a dad around gangs and or other bad influences will fill that void because children need a sense of belonging. Kids that wind up in gangs typically rebel against authority because oftentimes the first father figure they encounter that’s willing to address their bad behavior authoritatively is a cop.

According to Focus on the Family, boys “who grow up with dads are less likely to be violent. They have their masculinity affirmed and learn from their fathers how to channel their masculinity and strength in positive ways.” It’s time for liberals to stop pretending that dads don’t matter.

Secondly, boys who grow up without loving fathers find it harder to believe and accept that they have a heavenly father that wants the best for them. Consequently, if kids don’t have a source for objective truth, they will invent their own truth, even if it means justifying crime. Young men, who grow up with a biblical worldview are less inclined to commit violent crimes because they believe there are eternal consequences to their actions. Beyond that, religious faith gives you a road map to daily living and a sense of purpose, joy and peace you can’t find on the streets.

Lastly, it’s time for the city of Chicago to embrace the Second Amendment. On the surface this may sound contradictory but it’s not. When gangsters start to realize they are outgunned by law abiding citizens who simply want to protect themselves and their families, they’ll keep their illegal guns in their pocket. I experienced this myself.

Growing up in Los Angeles I became closely acquainted with gang violence. Despite being a relatively good kid, I witnessed some violence and I participated in some violence. My mom had recently died and I wasn’t close to my dad. I never murdered anyone, but by the time I was 11 years old I had a “friend” that loaned me a gun for a couple of days. Additionally, I had more friends that I knew had guns around my same age. We were always told by teachers and local politicians that guns were bad, but that didn’t matter because we knew they couldn’t protect us from gangsters. In other words, all of the anti-gun rhetoric I heard growing up never stopped the crime I saw around me.

To escape the violence, I moved to Orlando, Florida, and moved in with my aunt and uncle for a while. To my shock, I couldn’t believe how many people I saw driving around town with shotguns displayed inside of their pickup trucks. I was scared senseless! I thought I’d be shot and lynched. But that never came to fruition. Compared to Los Angeles, there wasn’t much violence besides an occasional school fight despite the high rate of gun ownership. Gun violence was rare. My attitude even shifted. I wasn’t trying to be a tough guy knowing people could legally carry firearms in Florida. In part, guns helped cure my case of “wannabe gangsteritis.”

The bottom line is until the liberal Democrats in Chicago are willing to address the underlying issues causing gun violence in their city all of their efforts will be for naught.

Carl Jackson is a radio talk show host – his web site is www.carljacksonshow.com. 

The views expressed in opinion articles are solely those of the author and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by Black Community News.