Chicago's Mayor, police, press, and many blacks who live on the city's South Side are calling for stricter state gun control laws after two children were killed by errant gunfire in seperate shootings - the latest apparently gang-related, and the first apparently stemming from a dispute between two men over a woman. Today's Chicago Sun-Times reports two men have been arrested in the latest killing, and the 19-year-old alleged shooter is believed to be a member of the Black P Stones gang, who was seeking retribution against two Gangster Disciples for a New Year's Day hit. The victim, 10-year-old Siretha White, was felled Saturday as bullets that were inaccurately shot from a white Cadillac at two men running up the outer steps of a multi-unit residential building flew through the window of her aunt's first-floor apartment, during the girl's surprise birthday party. Both incidents - the other involving the killing of 14-year-old Starkesia Reed on March 3 - occured in the city's Englewood neighborhood.

"Banning semi-automatic weapons" sounds good to some, but they'll always be available on the black market, as will modificiations to render certain legal firearms more deadly. In the end, gun control amounts to nibbling at the edges of ghetto gun violence, and the underlying dysfunctional culture. The root issue is the killers themselves, and their upbringing; these are young men parented so neglectfully that they choose the thug life, and settling their disputes with bullets. The last paragraphs of yesterday's Chicago Tribune article on White's killing Saturday mightily push the gun-control argument. There is lip service from police on gangbangers, but nothing about parents. That would be "judgemental," see.

After services Sunday at Liberty Temple Full Gospel Church, Starkesia's mother, Denise Reed, said Siretha's death is "another repeat of a thoughtless, senseless crime with a gun, and we're appalled. [Siretha] was a young child, an innocent bystander," she said. "Another family has to walk the path we walked a few hours ago." Later in the day, clergy, aldermen, residents and city police gathered in front of New Birth Church of God in Christ on West 69th Street for a prayer vigil that turned into a plea to legislators to get assault weapons off the streets. "We've asked Springfield to do something about guns on the street," said Ald. Latasha Thomas (17th). "We are losing our future because of this violence." Authorities said police had increased patrols in Englewood in the wake of the shooting. "We need to get these guns off the street," Police Supt. Philip Cline said. "The gangbangers need to realize that a child's life is not worth them having a hand in the drug trade."

But of course, they care little for the life of an innocent bystander, like the jealous lover man who allegedly killed Starkesia Reed earlier this month. The legislature can approve new restrictions on certain types of weapons, but guns will always be available, as well they should be, for sport AND especially self-defense. If we want to regulate anything more strictly, it ought to be - theoretically, at least - the right to become a parent. Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice, writing yesterday about the Englewood killings, also scapegoats guns and the evil National Rifle Association, but she momentarily bumps up against the truth:

It makes me angry that young thugs who deal drugs and gang-bang continue to undermine efforts to redevelop a community that has no main grocery store within a few miles and too many homes owned by absentee landlords and headed by women who are single parents.

Yes. Where are the fathers of these young men? And where have they been? There is a saying in places like Englewood, that goes something like this: "Any fool can get a woman pregnant, but it takes a man to really father a child."

TECHNORATI TAGS: CHICAGO, SHOOTINGS, CHILDREN, SIRETHA WHITE, STARKESIA REED, ASSAULT WEAPONS, SEMI-AUTOMATIC, NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, NRA, PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY, SINGLE MOTHERS

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 14, 2006 11:13 AM

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