The presentations to city officials and civic leaders were the culminations of a summer program that recruits teens from the South and West sides, many of whom have seen the toll of gun violence up close. “By letting go of a gun, you are showing courage that a lot of people sometimes just don’t have,” said 17-year-old Luis Delgado.
Dozens of nervous teens packed a downtown conference room this week to pitch a panel of city officials and civic leaders on social media campaigns they’ve spent the summer developing.
The messaging of their campaigns was the same: get teens to put down their guns.
But they took different approaches.
One team riffed on the slang term “aura,” used by members of Generation Alpha to describe someone’s vibe, as a way to convince their peers that there’s nothing cool about guns.
Other teams borrowed from the popular reality dating show “Love Island” to present skits in which “islanders” voted out participants who owned guns.
But it was a campaign called T.R.A.P. that emerged victorious on Thursday. It urged teens not to fall for the trap of believing that they’d be safer with a gun, citing research that shows firearm owners are more likely to get shot.
Read more: https://chicago.suntimes.com/public-safety/2026/08/01/chicago-gun-violence-social-media-teen