Another Chicago Public School Student Killed

The meme for Chicago anti-gunners for the last couple of years has been consistent: These people with their guns are killing our children. Witness the number of "CPS students" killed every year." They're counting on the hope that the pro-gun side will be too uncomfortable at being called callous, uncaring racists to point out the obvious flaw in this argument--yes, young people are dying in Chicago, and it's tragic enough to raise tears if you really stop and think about it (I don't mean thinking about how it will help you pass gun control laws, but actually stopping to think about what it means for someone to die for no good reason before his life really begins.) But . . . . you knew there had to be a But, right? But . . . .

But the truth is that these kids aren't dying because I own guns. They aren't even dying because their killers have guns. They're dying because some parts of Chicago are exclusively gang territory and nobody can really stay out of the current gang wars no matter what they do. Second City Cop has the story of the latest angel, Alex Arellano. Like all these innocent victims, Arellano was just an unassuming CPS high school student who was going to make something of himself and get his life together, and he certainly had nothing to do with crime or gangs.
Oops. Strike that last one. The cop commentators at Second City Cop don't all agree on the kid's exact affiliation, but the consensus is that he's disrespecting the Latin Kings in this photo (their sign is being "thrown down" with his left hand) and pledging his fidelity to either the 12th Street Players or "Two Six". Looks like the rabbit from the Two-Six bunch to me, but I'd never heard of either of those gangs until today, so don't take my word for it. Even so, Arellano was 15 years old when some thugs murdered him for who knows what reason, and that's enough to make you sit and quietly contemplate. The whole "CPS student" meme is a bit of a stretch, though, as cops commentating say it's known that the kid hasn't been to school in 8 months. That means he quit going to school in September, for those of you who don't feel like doing math today.

Kids willing to fight and die over the right to sell crack on a corner so they can get fly platinum teef grills and Bentleys on spinny dubs are a lot harder problem to solve than a bunch of law-abiding people who own guns, but they are the real problem, and the death toll in Chicago is not going to go down until somebody finds a way to do something about them. Banning somebody else's guns, or requiring onerous background checks on FOID card holders, are not serious attempts to solve the problem at hand.