CHICAGO — Ke’Shon Newman’s daily routine is guided by guns — the hundreds of illegal pistols, revolvers and other firearms that torment his South Side neighborhood.
He walks on brightly lit streets lined with Jamaican jerk joints, minimarkets and gas stations. He listens to music with one earbud, to hear approaching footsteps, and avoids clothing with hoods that might block his peripheral vision.
These are the rituals of a street-smart 16-year-old who knows the cruelty of wrong place, wrong time. His stepbrother, Randall Young, then 16, was killed in crossfire two years ago. “I’m making sure my mom doesn’t have to lose another child,” he says.
The Auburn Gresham neighborhood is flooded with illegal guns: .40-caliber pistols, .380 semi-automatics, .38-caliber revolvers. A buy-back in June brought in hundreds of weapons. And in September, police in the 6th District hit a milestone: the recovery of the 1,000th gun for 2018.
It was a triumphant moment, but it also offered a glimpse into the overwhelming task faced by law enforcement — and the wounds inflicted on just one Chicago community — when guns are readily available and violence so common that, one study found, half of young men had at one time carried firearms, usually to stay safe.
“I tell people all the time we don’t have post-traumatic stress. We have PRESENT-traumatic stress,” says the Rev. Michael Pfleger, the activist priest at St. Sabina Church. “We’re still in the war.”
Chicago’s gun violence has captured the national spotlight, and President Donald Trump has threatened to send in federal troops and called the problem “very easily fixable.”
Those who battle this daily in the 6th District see it differently. Guns not only shatter lives, they determine when people go outside, whether a church should have a metal detector, even whether a Ferris wheel operator will rent a ride for a community festival.
Residents often know who’s behind shootings — there’ve been nearly 600 since 2016 — but the threat of gang retaliation has created an almost impenetrable code of silence. Pfleger, whose church has offered $5,000 rewards for tips in dozens of murders, says getting rid of guns isn’t enough.
“Until we deal with easy access, they can pick up another 1,000 and another 1,000,” he says. “It’s like water pouring on the floor and you keep mopping it up, but nobody’s shut off the faucet.”
Chicago police regularly recover more illegal firearms than officials in larger New York and Los Angeles. Last year, the citywide haul was 7,932. Police said the 2018 tally could exceed 10,000.
Police seize an illegal weapon about once every hour, most connected to gangs on the South and West sides. Authorities cite two reasons for heavy gun traffic: The penalties aren’t considered a deterrent and gang members feel endangered unless they’re armed.
The 6th District is an 8-square-mile stretch of overwhelmingly black working-class neighborhoods with neat brick bungalows and mom-and-pa stores along with signs of despair: boarded-up houses and businesses protected with thick metal security gates.
The district has about 30 gang factions that account for 75 percent of gun violence. Guns, though, aren’t limited to gangs. A recent Urban Institute study of young adults in four violent Chicago neighborhoods, including Auburn Gresham, found half of men had carried a gun, almost always for protection.
Last year, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives formed the Chicago Crime Gun Strike Force to combat the problem. The community also has rallied to rid itself of firearms.
In June, the New Life Covenant Church Southeast, in coordination with the police, held a buy-back — a firearm in exchange for a $100 gift card. At day’s end, 292 handguns and 132 rifles were collected, but the event didn’t soothe the frayed nerves of some congregation members.
“Every meeting I go to, there’s trauma,” says Shammrie Brown, the church’s community relations manager. “There’s anxiety about going to the grocer, anxiety to go inside the church.”
At St. Sabina, Lamar Johnson, a counselor at B.R.A.V.E. Youth Leaders, teaches young people to speak out against gun violence but warns that seizing firearms alone won’t transform the neighborhood. “What are you putting in those communities …? We need everything: Businesses. Jobs. Schools. This isn’t something that just started in 2018. It’s happened over decades.”
Carlos Nelson has witnessed the transformation.
As director of the Greater Auburn-Gresham Development Corporation, Nelson is frustrated investment has not been made to build the economic base. In September, Nelson was planning a community festival when a Ferris wheel operator returned the group’s check, citing gun violence. Though Nelson calls that “ridiculous,” he bemoans a middle-class exodus that has shrunk the neighborhood in the last 15 years.
“We don’t want this violence,” Nelson says. “The choice for many is to move out.”
Veronica Parker has remained, despite the fatal shooting of her 27-year-old son, Korey, in 2012. Last September, another young man was killed on her block.
Both shootings are unsolved, an unsettling reality in neighborhoods awash in guns. Chicago’s murder clearance rate in the last two years was 38 percent.
Parker belongs to Purpose Over Pain, a support group for parents who’ve lost children to guns. She applauds the police for seizing firearms but harbors no illusions.
“If they get 100 or 1,000, others are still out there,” she says. “As soon as the police pick up the guns, they’ll just go and get them somewhere else.”
