Chicago Defender

The vast majority died in the type of daily gun violence that does not grab national headlines in the same way as the December massacre of 20 young children and six teachers at an elementary school in Connecticut, or the mass shooting last July in a Colorado movie theater that killed 12 people and wounded 70.

 

Those attacks became the focus of a bitter national debate over guns, which culminated with the defeat in the Senate of several proposals backed by President Barack Obama to tighten gun control laws, including banning military-style assault weapons and expanding background checks to stop criminals and the mentally ill from buying firearms.

 

Often lost in America’s divisive gun control politics are the stories of people whose urban communities suffer the most from shootings every day. Although violent crime has been declining in the United States, it still far outstrips the rate of other developed countries. FBI figures show 8,583 people were killed by guns in 2011, the last year for which numbers were available. That is nearly 24 people a day.

 

The figure is far higher when counting the number of people who kill themselves with guns. The federal Centers for Disease Control listed 19,392 gun suicides in the United States in 2010, the latest figures available.

 

President Barack Obama returned to his hometown Chicago on Wednesday and told Democrats that while he's willing to work with Republicans he can get more done with his party in control of the U.S. House. "If day in, day out, what we confront is obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism, and what appears to be an interest only in scoring points or placating the base as opposed to trying to advance the interests of the American people, then we've got to figure out a way to work around that," he told about 150 supporters at the Chicago Hilton, where ticket prices started at $1,000 per person.

 

'We've got a great chance of taking back the House," he said. "I'm going to be working tirelessly, wherever I get the opportunity, to make the case to the American people that our ideas are the right ones to broaden the middle class."

 

Among the attendees were House Leader Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Dick Durbin, Reps. Robin Kelly, Bobby Rush, Bill Foster, and Jan Schakowsky -- who introduced the president as  a "dear friend" and "our very favorite son," -- as well as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Rep. Steve Israel.

 

The president acknowledged Israel's birthday on Thursday, lending his voice and leading the room in a rendition of "Happy Birthday."

 

 

The family of a South Florida teenager is accusing Miami-Dade Police officers of crossing the line when they arrested the 14-year-old on the beach. At juvenile court Tuesday, Tremaine McMillian's family argued, the teen was in the water nursing a puppy with a bottle, and that's when police overreacted. 

When they approached him, police said, they realized there was no sort of altercation or fight going on, but they continued to ask McMillian where his parents were. McMillian said he turned to lead officers to his mother who was on the beach with him. That's when, both McMillian and his mother said, police on ATVs chased him, cut him off and then held him to the ground. His mother, Maurissa Holmes, said, "I ran over there and said, 'That's my son, that's my son. Can you get off of him? He can't breath.' And they said, 'Wait a minute. You all stand back, stand back.'" 

 

 

President Barack Obama on Friday signed a bill effectively awarding the four young victims of the tragic 1963 Birmingham church bombing with the Congressional Gold Medal. With Ala. Rep. Terri Sewell, a Democrat, and Spencer Bachus, a Republican, leading the effort, the House swung in favor last month to posthumously award the deceased, which was a major step in properly upholding the legacy of the bombing victims.

 

Ku Klux Klan members used dynamite in the blast that killed four girls, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair while injuring nearly two dozen others. The church was a frequent meeting place for civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and more.