In a city with some of the nation’s tightest gun laws, 22 people were shot in just a 12-hour time period this weekend.
One of the victims was an unsuspecting 11-year-old girl who was enjoying a slumber party at her friend’s house:
Shamiya Adams was sitting on a bedroom floor in her best friend’s home, making s’mores after an evening of practicing a dance routine, when the shot ripped through the house in Garfield Park.*
The bullet crashed through the wall of the bedroom and struck the 11-year-old in the head. She was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital, where family kept an overnight vigil until the girl was pronounced dead at 7:33 a.m. today.*
Thirteen hours later, as police searched for the gunman, marshmallows and Hershey bars were still spread out on the bed, remnants of a summer sleepover turned tragic.*
Traces of the girl’s blood could be seen just beneath a stuffed Tweety Bird doll hanging from the bedroom wall.
The outbreak follows a 4th of July weekend in which more than 60 people were shot and nine died. Chicago police are adding extra patrols to deal with the summer violence, but maybe the city, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, should take a page out of Detroit’s book:
Earlier this year, Detroit’s Chief of Police said that if more responsible Americans owned guns, it would help deter gun violence. Since then, the city has experienced a drop in crime, which the chief credits to armed citizens.
Think about it: If gun control laws were all that was needed to make our homes and streets safer, why is Chicago having such a problem keeping guns off the streets and out of the hands of criminals?