Gilstrap-Inner+city+gun+violence

Inner city gun violence January 4,2011 17-year-old high school student Kathy Young was shot once in the back by a stray bullet, as she walked through the lobby of her Brooklyn apartment building, at the Nostrand Houses on Avenue X in Sheepshead Bay. Police said that a gunman was aiming at another man when the freshman was hit by a .22-caliber bullet. Listed in stable condition, Young – another innocent bystander – is expected to survive her injury. The reaction to continued gun vio­lence in the city is gathering momen­tum. Grassroots groups continue their on-the-ground work and politi­cal, community and religious leaders are pushing to get their voices heard. Using the tag "It's not snitching, it's saving a life," a host of politicos and community activists are conven­ing an "anti-gun violence summit" in Harlem all week long. The location, per­haps ironically, is Harlem Hospital Center.



A recent study by the New York Times found that in New York City alone, from 2003 to the present, there are an average of 540 homicides per year. Of those victims, sixty-one percent are African-American and twenty-seven percent are Latino. They comprise a tragic eighty-eight percent of all homicide victims, numbers that hold steady for the race/ethnicity of the perpetrators. Eighty three percent of victims are male, as are ninety-two percent of the perpetrators. A firearm is used seventy percent of the time. Inner city gun violence persists despite otherwise declining crime.


 * My thoughts**- I think gun violence in America is a huge problem that has been over looked for way too long. Gun violence has been at an all time high for the past two years,according to the national gun violence association(NGVA). I believe that gun control should be seriously considered,not only in major cities,but in all of america. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) estimated 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States in the year 2000. With numbers that high ten years ago,and that number continuing to rise every year,something has to be done to prevent these injuries from happening.

I don't know any other way to decrease this number except by seriously limiting gun ownership. Guns are way too easy to get ahold of now days. The framers of the constitution di say that everyone has the right to keep and bear arms,but back then it took at least a minute to load the gun and shoot it,much less having an accurate weapon to harm someone with.