Last weekend, at least 40 people were shot in Chicago. Four died, including an 11-year-old girl. Shamiya Adams was in the first-floor bedroom of her best friend at a Friday night sleep-over when a bullet from outside struck her head. She died the next day.
“For this young, 11-year-old to be killed in a senseless, vicious crime, it grieves our heart; it leaves a hole in our soul,” the Rev. George Daniels said during a prayer vigil for Shamiya at the First Baptist Congregational Church. “A bullet pierced the window and the wall and took her little life. That is so senseless. It’s evil. It’s despicable.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel told CBS News, “Every child in the city of Chicago deserves a childhood. Now how many times, we look in kids’ eyes sometimes, and it’s been stolen from them too often. The familiarity of laughter has been replaced by the familiarity of gunfire.”
Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, 53 people were shot, leaving 17 dead in Chicago.
Four facts about guns
1. In an average year, over 100,000 people in America are
shot with a gun — more than 30,000 of them die.
2. Firearm homicide is the second-leading cause of death (after car crashes)
for children and teenagers ages 1-19 in the U.S.
3. While suicide is the leading cause of gun deaths, it’s largely absent in the debate on gun violence.
4. Higher household gun ownership strongly correlates with higher rates of
homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings.
