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.
Also, I understand that the guns were stolen. But when? From whom and by whom? And the 50 round magazine? I have a hard time believing there isn't a centralized firearm theft ring that is obtaining and distributing guns to all these teenagers. What do you think? I doubt these kids just got lucky and found 2 Glocks and a high capacity in some idiot's car and stole them from there. Also, I suspect people report their guns stolen to save their asses after their cousin/brother/boyfriend sells them to a teenager who uses them in a shooting. Not all "thefts" are thefts.
Absolutely. I'm sure you've seen the News-Gazette's coverage of gun theft incidents, and reading between the lines, it's always appeared to me that many of the "thefts" were covers for illegal sales or transfers by the gun owner to someone who shouldn't be armed. (How many guns can be stolen from glove compartments in unlocked cars before word gets around that it's a dumb way to store a gun?) But fair point about the cousin-sold-it, "save their asses" option too. As to the larger hows and whys, I wouldn't doubt that there is an organized ring of some type, but even then, it's a bit flummoxing. Who benefits from giving an 11-yr-old an arsenal? Did those kids pay someone for at least some of the weapons and ammo? If so, how did they get the money? I don't hear that much about the drug trade in this town, but surely there must be one...is there any connection? Maybe some of these guns are just in constant circulation, as someone who uses Gun X to commit a crime passes it off to someone else in order to cover their tracks, and that second person then does the same, and so on? Clearly there's a backstory that the public doesn't have access to (and maybe the police don't either).
We have been thinking a lot of the same things! I also think there is a drug trade component to this that is NEVER mentioned. And it’s mostly pot or we’d see a lot more local overdoses. I think we don’t talk about this because legalizing pot was supposed to be about helping people, not tax revenue, right?
Ha! Cynical but probably accurate. There's definitely fentanyl in circulation here too--the News Gazette reported that it was responsible for 22 of 30 overdoses in Champaign County in the first half of 2022, for instance.
Hey, it’s awesome to have a local subscriber! I’m equally outraged by unit 4’s failure to use that half million dollar grant! I didn’t write about it in my post because I wanted to keep it concise. That gun violence prevention blueprint money was likely a one time infusion because it was from the Covid relief and I was always skeptical that organizations would be able to use funds wisely and effectively. I think it bought a lot of goodwill between the community & law enforcement, which might be worth every penny in the long run. The city needed to support alternatives to policing & prisons to get buy in for more of those, too.
Yeah, I've been equally skeptical as to how well the funds would be spent, but good point about the intangibles. Being able to convincingly say "Look, we really want to help and we are putting serious resources behind it" is worth a lot (I hope so, anyway), even if that value is harder to quantify.
For Unit 4, considering how many discipline problems and violent incidents there are in and around the schools, it is mind blowing to me that they had no ideas and/or no desire for spending a huge cash infusion on some kind of intervention program.
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.
Also, I understand that the guns were stolen. But when? From whom and by whom? And the 50 round magazine? I have a hard time believing there isn't a centralized firearm theft ring that is obtaining and distributing guns to all these teenagers. What do you think? I doubt these kids just got lucky and found 2 Glocks and a high capacity in some idiot's car and stole them from there. Also, I suspect people report their guns stolen to save their asses after their cousin/brother/boyfriend sells them to a teenager who uses them in a shooting. Not all "thefts" are thefts.
Absolutely. I'm sure you've seen the News-Gazette's coverage of gun theft incidents, and reading between the lines, it's always appeared to me that many of the "thefts" were covers for illegal sales or transfers by the gun owner to someone who shouldn't be armed. (How many guns can be stolen from glove compartments in unlocked cars before word gets around that it's a dumb way to store a gun?) But fair point about the cousin-sold-it, "save their asses" option too. As to the larger hows and whys, I wouldn't doubt that there is an organized ring of some type, but even then, it's a bit flummoxing. Who benefits from giving an 11-yr-old an arsenal? Did those kids pay someone for at least some of the weapons and ammo? If so, how did they get the money? I don't hear that much about the drug trade in this town, but surely there must be one...is there any connection? Maybe some of these guns are just in constant circulation, as someone who uses Gun X to commit a crime passes it off to someone else in order to cover their tracks, and that second person then does the same, and so on? Clearly there's a backstory that the public doesn't have access to (and maybe the police don't either).
We have been thinking a lot of the same things! I also think there is a drug trade component to this that is NEVER mentioned. And it’s mostly pot or we’d see a lot more local overdoses. I think we don’t talk about this because legalizing pot was supposed to be about helping people, not tax revenue, right?
Ha! Cynical but probably accurate. There's definitely fentanyl in circulation here too--the News Gazette reported that it was responsible for 22 of 30 overdoses in Champaign County in the first half of 2022, for instance.
Yikes, that’s more than I expected. I wonder the age range.
Hey, it’s awesome to have a local subscriber! I’m equally outraged by unit 4’s failure to use that half million dollar grant! I didn’t write about it in my post because I wanted to keep it concise. That gun violence prevention blueprint money was likely a one time infusion because it was from the Covid relief and I was always skeptical that organizations would be able to use funds wisely and effectively. I think it bought a lot of goodwill between the community & law enforcement, which might be worth every penny in the long run. The city needed to support alternatives to policing & prisons to get buy in for more of those, too.
Yeah, I've been equally skeptical as to how well the funds would be spent, but good point about the intangibles. Being able to convincingly say "Look, we really want to help and we are putting serious resources behind it" is worth a lot (I hope so, anyway), even if that value is harder to quantify.
For Unit 4, considering how many discipline problems and violent incidents there are in and around the schools, it is mind blowing to me that they had no ideas and/or no desire for spending a huge cash infusion on some kind of intervention program.