I'm also a Champaign resident, and you've nicely captured the outrageousness and complexities of the gun-violence cycle here. Arguments escalate rapidly, often fed by grudges over previous incidents, and soon you have tragic absurdities like people getting shot at the funeral of a shooting victim. The incident with the arsenal-toting 11-yr-old was bad even by this town's standards, but unfortunately not shocking to a jaded resident who has watched this type of thing happen on various scales for many years. You are probably right that earlier intervention is the only real solution, which made it particularly maddening to hear that the school district hasn't spent a penny of the violence-reduction funds allocated to them. Moving elsewhere would be financially and socially disruptive for my family, but that's looking more and more like an acceptable tradeoff for safer streets and schools.
I'm also a Champaign resident, and you've nicely captured the outrageousness and complexities of the gun-violence cycle here. Arguments escalate rapidly, often fed by grudges over previous incidents, and soon you have tragic absurdities like people getting shot at the funeral of a shooting victim. The incident with the arsenal-toting 11-yr-old was bad even by this town's standards, but unfortunately not shocking to a jaded resident who has watched this type of thing happen on various scales for many years. You are probably right that earlier intervention is the only real solution, which made it particularly maddening to hear that the school district hasn't spent a penny of the violence-reduction funds allocated to them. Moving elsewhere would be financially and socially disruptive for my family, but that's looking more and more like an acceptable tradeoff for safer streets and schools.