Most homicide victims in major US cities fall into the category of "Young Black man, got into a confrontation with a known shooter. Lost."

So yes, it's important to reduce gun ownership. But no, you can't get there by "cracking down" on illegal gun ownership, or putting long jail sentences on people who legitimately fear for their lives.

To reduce illegal gun ownership, you need to reduce / end police brutality and exploitation. You need to remove the violent killers from the neighborhood.

Getting guns out of the hands of young Black men is important not because they don't deserve the right to defend themselves. If anyone in the US should have the right to defend themselves with a gun, it's the demographic most likely to be shot and killed. 🤷🏿‍♂️

But the problem is, simply having a gun escalates confrontations. It *increases* the chance that you will get into a shootout with a multiple killer that just does not care about you, himself, or anything. You will lose, and you will die.

When people feel safer, and people trust police more*, they just stop carrying guns as often. This has been successfully implemented in city after city. Boston. East Palo Alto. Detroit. LA.

Policing is so violent and unaccountable in the US, that the most reliable and consistent way to increase trust in police, is to decrease the number of contacts, citations, and arrests.🙂🙃

* People aren't foolish to distrust the police, especially Black people. Especially in Chicago.

A man that lives in a dangerous neighborhood and is carrying an illegal firearm for protection, will run if he knows that any police contact will land him in jail for 5 years. You already know how that run often ends.

That decreases trust in police further.

Even if he is not shot, going to jail for 5 years doesn't make his neighborhood safer. His dependents will sink further into poverty, furthering the cycle.

Taking his weapon away doesn't make him feel safer either. He will get another one.