Obama: Chicago Has Its Own Newtown Every Four Months

Speaking in Chicago Friday, President Barack Obama pointed out the high number of murders in that city last year included 65 persons under the age of 18, which is “the equivalent of a Newtown every four months.”

As a cure for this, Obama declared America needs more gun control and more fathers. 

While Obama’s first point rings hollow, given the strict gun laws Chicago already enforces, the President’s call for social change strikes a chord:

There are entire neighborhoods where young people…don’t see an example of somebody succeeding.  And for a lot of young boys and young men, in particular, they don’t see an example of fathers or grandfathers, uncles, who are in a position to support families and be held up and respected.

And this means this is not just a gun issue. It’s also an issue of the kinds of communities we are building.

This is the real issue that must be addressed in the debate on violence. Guns have been available for centuries; it is the misuse of guns that has increased and lately become problematic. And that misuse is, in part, an outgrowth of the fact that there are “entire neighborhoods” with no paternal influence whatsoever. This is what has to change. 

And that social issues is not something government can fix. But it is something government can hinder by focusing everyone’s attention on the wrong issue–gun control.