Inner-City violence continues with tacit acceptance
Keith Farrell
There will be no national vigils, no tireless media focus, no presidential speeches and no outpouring from the nation in mourning to support the victims of a mass shooting in Chicago last night. Unknown assailants opened fire on a park in southwest Chicago Thursday night, wounding thirteen—one of which was a 3-year-old boy. The story, as tragic as it is, seems to be drowned out in a city that has grown so accustomed to violence. Last year Chicago counted a record number homicides; over 506 murders occurred with 87% of them being shooting deaths. This is despite some of the strictest gun laws in the country.
Criminals with illegal weapons proliferate in major cities and cities like Chicago and Detroit that disarm their lawful citizens. The city governments are only ensuring criminals’ exclusivity on firearms. Cities like Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Oakland and DC have some of the strictest gun laws in the country, yet each of them appears on the list of cities with the highest rates of gun violence.
While the media will report on this incident, it will not be elevated to the level of ‘national tragedy’ for several reasons. Inner city violence has become so common place, our society seems to tacitly accept it as normal. What if the media decided to put a larger lens on incidents like this? Perhaps the socio-economic factors that create inner city violence would be brought up. Perhaps policies which affect those socio-economic factors would be reviewed. Perhaps law-abiding citizens would be more motivated to provide for their own defense if such daily occurrences were broadcast to us with even half the zeal which we are informed about contrived national security threats or celebrity scandals?
We can absorb ourselves in the problems of foreign nations like Syria, but it doesn’t make the violence in our failing cities go away. Economic hardship spurs rises in crime, and Washington is content to borrow money to buy guns for foreign fighters while crime is on the rise at home.
