Chicago Tribune Article Here

By Annie Sweeney, Jeremy Gorner and Joe Germuska
Tribune staff

The bullets flew in neighborhoods from Roseland to Rogers Park, hitting victims ranging in age from 72 to just 1. The overwhelming majority of them were young men. The bullets nicked eyebrows and ankles. They also pierced whole communities, such as historic Woodlawn.

More than 300 people were shot in Chicago last month. At least 33 of them have died.

Some victims made headlines, like 13-year-old Robert Freeman Jr., who was fatally shot on his block while hanging out with friends. The city paused when two Chicago police officers — Michael Bailey and Thor Soderberg — were gunned down in uniform within weeks of each other.

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But many more victims of shootings in July — historically among the city's most dangerous months — suffered unnoticed by the rest of the city.

Crime has been holding steady in Chicago in recent years. Through July, there have been 1,089 shootings in the city, a 2.4 percent decrease over last year. This July, police counted 221 shooting incidents, compared with 229 in July 2009. A review of seven years worth of shootings showed similar numbers.

In other words, this was a typical July.

The Chicago Police Department declined to provide the number of shooting victims in July or comment about the month's shooting tally. But a Tribune analysis of reported shootings, based on logs kept by police and reporting by the Tribune, counted 303 people who were injured in shootings last month.

The Tribune's analysis showed that shootings occurred in predictable places — the Far South Side and West Side, for instance, where violence has been a pervasive problem for decades. It also showed how a bullet — even one that doesn't kill — pierced a path of destruction in victims, families and the neighborhoods where they live.

ICarry commentary:  If you asked Mayor Daley what the problem was - he would blame the inanimate objects that people are using - guns.  We might as well blame spears, stones, knives, and clubs as well.  Despite Chicago's strictest-in-the-nation laws regulating the ownership and possession of guns, shootings are happening every day.

These shootings aren't with legally-owned and registered long guns.  The criminals aren't using pistols, which after nearly 30 years people in Chicago can finally own (after all the paperwork, waiting, training outside of the city, purchasing outside of the city, money, etc).  The criminals don't have FOID cards either!!! 

Isn't it time Daley stopped blaming guns and started blaming criminals?  Isn't it time he left gun owners and the Second Amendment alone?  Isn't it time Chicago did something real to stop crime - like lock the gangbangers away and throw away the key?  Instead, we're focused on arrested firemen who have guns.

Time to change, Chicago, your gun laws are only HELPING criminals prey on their victims.  The people of Chicago have the right to keep AND bear arms, it's a fundamental right, the Supreme Court of the United States told you this, and you've still ignored it.

ICarry.org was the first to file suit after Daley's new gun ordinance was rubber-stamped through city council.