9781422273531

I’ll call my gun instead of the police.” What is true in Chicago, where the murder rate has been higher than in active war zones, is true in many other major cities where gangs are a persistent and violent problem. Criminal psychologists note that the idea of “your police” is a common one in areas where social justice institutions, most often the police themselves, fail or disappoint everyday people, calling it “ legal cynicism .” People who are upset about police inaction or ineffectiveness may turn to do-it-yourself justice, requiring only a handgun to do what they perceive the authorities are unable to do. Criminal gangs, who by definition do not associate with police, carry out their own justice and satisfy their own grudges every day on the streets of the United States. Their preferred weapon, by a significant margin, is a handgun. The same members of the Gangster Disciples referenced selling handguns, including a 10 mm handgun so powerful that members of the FBI stopped using it in the 1980s, and a Ruger pistol that holds eighteen rounds. The firepower of the Disciples, along with other Chicago street gangs, is reflected by the brutal statistics of the city’s crime rate: while young black men account for just 4 percent of the total population, they represent more than half of the city’s murder victims. Five neighborhoods in Chicago’s infamous South Side combine to have a higher death rate for young men than the American soldiers deployed to fight the war in Afghanistan. Chicago police seize three times as many firearms as their counterparts in New York or Los Angeles, while 95 percent of gang-related homicides use a gun as the murder weapon. Gangs are best known for their crimes and body counts in these big cities, but they are not just found in the biggest cities—they can be found throughout the country, and no state is immune from their criminal activities.

Handguns

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