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By Ellen S. Alberding
October 8, 2009
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The horrific murder of Chicago honor student Derrion Albert has the world's attention, in part because it was caught on video. President Barack Obama sent Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Eric Holder to Chicago this week to talk with students, school officials and others about school and youth violence.
We welcome the opportunity to talk about a comprehensive strategy to combat youth violence. But let's remember that the beating death of Derrion is in some ways unusual.
Every week young people here and in other cities are slain. Some are beaten like Derrion but in the great majority of cases the weapon of choice is a gun.
In the last two years, more than 500 Chicago Public School students have been shot. From January through August, 152 young people have been murdered in Chicago and 80 percent were killed by guns.
Any effort to reduce violence has to recognize that easy access to firearms is inextricably linked to violence involving youth.
We have made it easier for young people to get guns and harder for law enforcement, parents, teachers, and local government to control access to them. Every year thousands of students across the nation are caught bringing guns to school. In Chicago, 5 percent of high school students say that they have brought a gun to school at least once in the past month.
How can this be tolerated?
We have to insist that anyone who buys a gun must pass a background check, so we can prevent criminals, minors and those with mental illness from getting their hands on deadly weapons.
We should increase the regulation and oversight of licensed gun dealers and call on law enforcement to trace the flow of illegal handguns and assault weapons that end up in the hands of street gangs or drug dealers.
We should stop tying the hands of federal law enforcement agencies by forbidding them to require dealer inventory checks and forcing them to destroy background check records that could be used to investigate gun crimes.
We should ask our elected officials why military-style weapons and ammunition are legally available to civilians.
We should work to identify and expand the best school and community-based programs to ensure that at-risk youth have a chance to graduate and thrive.
Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman have addressed youth violence head-on. More than 450 mayors across the country have come together as Mayors Against Illegal Guns to demand tougher policies. But local officials can't do it alone.
We were glad to see Holder and Duncan in Chicago to draw attention to these tragedies. We're glad to see Obama's attention to this. We hope that signals a change in Washington. In recent years, Congress has put less emphasis on the ready access to guns.
That's where any comprehensive response to youth violence has to start.
Ellen S. Alberding is president of The Joyce Foundation
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...,4710837.story
Never mind the fact that the young man was BEATEN to death.
