A new Trace analysis shows a decreasing percentage of Chicagoans survive gunfire. Researchers, experts, and community members say access to more lethal weapons and devices that make guns more dangerous are to blame.
By Rita Oceguera for The Trace 7 hours ago
CHICAGO — A person shot in Chicago is more likely to die from it today than they would have been 13 years ago.
Fatal shootings have made up a steadily larger share of the city’s gun violence statistics, according to a Trace analysis of data from the City of Chicago Violence Reduction Dashboard and studies from the University of Chicago Crime Lab. In 2010, out of every 100 people who were shot in the city, 13 died; by 2023, 19 succumbed to their wounds. In other words: proportionally fewer Chicagoans are surviving.
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Firearms — and the devices that can make them more deadly — are now easily accessible to young people. A recent study by the Council on Criminal Justice showed that between 2016 and 2022, the number of juvenile offenses that involved firearms rose by 21 percent. That may be in part because young people see their friends with guns and think it’s cool to carry them, said Laia McClain, 16, a member of Project Unloaded’s youth council.
“It makes me feel unsafe,” McClain said. “Once you leave your house, you’re not safe.”
It’s not uncommon, McClain said, for people to get in a fight at a party and pull out a gun, often over matters that are trivial. “It’s dangerous for everyone to carry a gun, especially if you’re untrained,” McClain said. Young people, she added, can be especially reckless. “Our brains are not fully developed,” she said. “We don’t have as much impulse control or control at all about what we do, and we also don’t think about our lives in retrospect with somebody else’s life.”