I don’t live in Chicago and can’t see why people would want to live in a shoulder-to-shoulder environment. I remember a study done in the 70s with rats. When the rat population reached a critical mass they started to kill each other, even though they were given enough food for all of them. That’s how I see the violence in Chicago. Granted it’s probably wrong but that’s how this small town rural living guy sees homes stacked like cordwood.

I think Chicago’s violence may be, in part, the jamming of people together. Other causes are economic; too many and easy access to guns, lack of stable home environment, and peer pressure. In order for a gang to function it must have a source of income. The easiest is drugs and guns. Once a gang gets control of a neighborhood, they must defend it from other gangs, hence gang wars and drive-by shootings. Getting a gun is easy because the people who buy them at gun shows in little or no regulation states. Many of these kids have little or no stability in their family life. Peer pressure and fear of harm can cause kids to join gangs.

When I chaired the No-tolerance Task Force in the mid-nineties gang experts told us a leading factor was lack of a strong sense of involvement with family and community. If a kid doesn’t have that feeling then gangs will provide it. Parents must do more to keep their kids out of gangs and away from gang members. They must push education to get them to succeed in life.

The great majority of those shot in the Chicago area are people in one gang shooting another gang’s member. Others were shot because they happened to be down range of a bullet by just living in the area. Police cannot do it by themselves. People need to work with the police instead of marching and protesting.