Photo by Svadilfari
House Panel Adopts Amendment Allowing Guns in Public Housing - According to the article, this amendment likely won't make it to the to the final version of the bill. Introduced by Georgia Republican Tom Price, it would bar any housing authority from banning or restricting legal gun ownership so that residents can protect themselves.
To me, the thought of guns being allowed in a place so densely populated with children is insane. What do you think? Do residents have the right to protect themselves with firearms? Or should guns, legal or illegal, be kept out of government-owned housing?
Chatham Residents Fight to Protect Legacy - WBEZ's Natalie Moore talks about the concern around Chatham's growing crime rate. Some Chathamites think it might be due to the increase in public housing residents who have moved there after the high-rises were torn down.
Always an interesting paradox - we move people to a neighborhood because we think it might be better for those individuals, while the neighborhood worries it might be worse for them.
Homeless Families Increasing, U.S. Finds - the number of homeless families has been going down over the last several years, but it's rising again.
Public Housing Success Stories - Trib feature on people who came from public housing that have found great success.
Barbed Wire Raises Prickly Questions of Race and Class - Chi-town's Adrian Uribarri has a story of Section 8 residents waking up to find barbed wire encirciling their home like a penitentiary.
5 Comments
Joe the Cop said:
There have always been plenty of guns in any public housing I've ever been in, regardless of their legal status. In general though, I'd say that residents of public housing have a right to protect themselves, and should not have their right to own a firearm restricted more than any other citizen simply because they live in public housing.
Whet Moser said:
I'd have to say I agree with Joe the Cop - my unsettled beliefs about gun restrictions aside, taking away what is a protected right of citizenship in most places hints of making public-housing residents second-class citizens.
Tracy Swartz said:
I'm not sure if these were gun-related but in 2008, there were three homicides on CHA property. One occurred on CHA grounds and two occurred in a CHA parking lot, according to police statistics.
To compare, two homicides occurred on CTA property and six occurred on park property.
Greg Morelli said:
Let's switch the order of the 1st & 2nd Amendment. Let's declare open season on the unarmed.
The Iranian Military charged families of dead protestors for the bullets used to kill their children. That's what I call imaginative thinking!
Let's backcharge the children of former runaway slaves for the cost of a noose. Let's bill gay families for the cost of chains used to drag their sons & daughers to their deaths in Texas.
The right to bear arms is a hoax. If you tried to overthrow the American Government you'd be called a terrorist and shipped to Guantanamo Bay faster than you can say:
"Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face."
Megan Cottrell said:
I agree that restricting gun ownership just because people live in public housing does reek of making them second class citizens.
But the density of people in public housing, especially children, is really wild. I'm reading a book about it right now, but in the baby boom town of Park Forest, IL in 1960, the youth to adult ratio was .97. Contrast that with the Robert Taylor Homes, where the radio was 2.86! Children create chaos, and guns and chaos create trouble.
The Plan for Transformation has changed some of that, but it's still a reality. There are a lot of big families, and having more guns where there's so many children is a significant risk.
Tracy, according to everyblock, the numbers are a little different. Their numbers show 7 homicides on CHA Grounds in '08, 1 in a CHA hallway, stairway or elevator , and another inside an apartment.
Plus the hundreds of aggravated battery, assault, robbery, gang intimidation, narcotics possessions, and weapons violations that occur. Homicides aren't the only place where guns come into play.
For example, this reckless firearm violation from December 2008 was the homicide of 19 year-old Jacoby Blake who was killed in the front lobby of his building during a gang fight.
I guess if the criminals have guns then the good guys might want them too. But at some point, I have to wonder, are more guns the answer?
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