It seems that every time I turn around, some “survivor” of gun violence is talking about the need to restrict our right to keep and bear arms. I put the term in quotes because while it does apply to each such person, it has very different meanings in each context, so it probably shouldn’t be applied equally to all.
For example, someone who survived a gunshot wound is very different from someone who lost a family member to a gunshot. Sure, those left behind are properly termed as “survivors” in the obituary, but they’re not the same thing.
Yet both are often trotted out to push gun control. We see it all the time.
However, at The Trace, one such survivor–the latter kind; the kind who wasn’t shot–decries a “culture of silence” about…something.
On November 10, 2019, my son Jacob woke up early, did laundry, and finished painting the room he and his girlfriend were preparing for the birth of their first child. A few hours later, he was shot while driving in Little Village. It was the middle of the day.
Five years later, I know he was the unintended target, but I still don’t know who did it. Even though detectives told us that the gun used to kill my son was used four other times — three times before Jacob and once after, killing a 16-year-old girl walking home from work — nobody has come forward to say they saw anything.
Because Jacob wasn’t from Little Village, no one there knew him, so detectives said they have few leads. What I’ve come to learn is that because there is so much violence in Little Village, people won’t speak up, even if they’ve witnessed it firsthand.
I want to change this culture of silence. Every day since Jacob’s death, I’ve fought to honor his spirit, to bring survivors and nonsurvivors to support each other in grief and to fight for safer streets. Just this year, as of the end of November, there have been 247 shootings, including 44 fatalities, in the 10th Police District, which includes Little Village, according to the city’s Violence Reduction Dashboard.
This crisis has shattered so many families, including mine. Last summer, Jacob’s girlfriend was killed in a hit-and-run. I am now raising my 4-year-old grandson in Wisconsin. But because of Jacob, we are still very much a part of the Little Village community. If more people support survivors, by coming to vigils and marches, or by stepping up to help police solve cases, or by advocating for better gun laws, we could show the perpetrators of gun violence in the area that we’re not afraid of them. We could begin to solve the problem.
It took a bit to realize what she meant by “culture of silence,” and I’m still not sure I got it right, but let’s get back to that in a second.
First, this happened in Chicago. While the Little Village neighborhood isn’t the most high-crime neighborhood in the city, it’s apparently got more crime than average for a city that tends to have a pretty bad average. While I hate that the author had to go through the loss of her son, something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, it’s important to remember he didn’t exactly move into the most peaceful of Windy City neighborhoods.
Further, let’s remember that Illinois is a pretty anti-gun state. They have tons of gun control laws and are working to pass more and more of them each year. None of it has reduced Chicago’s crime rate.
Now, the “culture of silence” thing. Let’s talk about it.
If she’s talking about people talking to the police, then I’m right there with her. That needs to change. I get that there’s societal pressure in many neighborhoods not to talk to the police, and that being a “snitch” or a “narc” is a terrible thing, but these are killers. They murdered people and in many cases, it wasn’t who they may have intended to kill. They need to understand that it could be someone they care about next.
But a lot of what she talks about isn’t just people coming forward with information. She’s talking about vigils and anti-gun activism, and that’s where she’s losing the plot because from what I see, no one is silent on that. God knows, anti-gunners won’t shut up about it, even if it betrays their ignorance. I know there are always vigils and while I can’t speak on their attendance, they’re happening.
That’s part of the problem with so many who want gun control, though. They’re so sure of the righteousness of their cause that they can’t seem to separate that from real policies that people actually can unite on.
Read the full article here
