AS ECONOMY STRUGGLES, CHICAGO DISINTEGRATES – Gun Shootings Soar An Unprecedented 89% Year Over Year

from Zero Hedge:

Gun violence in the windy city is on track to post its worst year in the 21st century, the result of an unprecedented surge in gun deaths in the first three months of the year.  By March 31, 141 people had been killed, according to the Chicago Police Department. On Thursday, eight were shot and two of them died in one hour alone, Chicago Police said.The 141 deaths in the first three months of the year mark a 71.9% jump from the same period in 2015, when 82 people were killed. It’s the worst start to a year since 1999, when 136 people died in the first three months the year

While the Obama administration has been vocal about its intentions to limit access to guns for Americans across the nation, in the process achieving the opposite and leading to record gun sales, FBI firearm background checks that just hit an all time high for the month of March…

… and record stock prices of US gun makers such as Smith and Wesson, perhaps it should focus on what has become the epicenter of ground zero for violence and gun homicides in the US: Obama’s “home town” of Chicago.

According to a CNN report, gun violence in the windy city is on track to post its worst year in the 21st century, the result of an unprecedented surge in gun deaths in the first three months of the year.  By March 31, 141 people had been killed, according to the Chicago Police Department. On Thursday, eight were shot and two of them died in one hour alone, Chicago Police said.

The 141 deaths in the first three months of the year mark a 71.9% jump from the same period in 2015, when 82 people were killed. It’s the worst start to a year since 1999, when 136 people died in the first three months the year, according to the Chicago Tribune.

At that pace – an average of three killings every two days – Chicago would have 564 homicides by the end of the year. That would eclipse the 468 killings recorded in 2015 and 416 in 2014.

Overall, shootings have also skyrocketed. According to data provided by Chicago police, the number of shootings in the first three months of the year jumped from 359 in 2015 to 677 in 2016 – an 88.5% increase.

The result are countless stores of personal tragedy. For example, eighty-year-old Betty Johnson has lived in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood since 1968. She raised two children and several grandchildren on the city’s far south side, where she has lived her entire life.

After her granddaughter Sabrina was killed in a car accident in 2008, Johnson gained full custody of her great-grandson Andre Taylor.

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