4 Shootings Spark A 30-Foot Message

I think we need to be honest with ourselves in that all this violence is related to drug dealing and the control of drug profits.

Across America the status quo isn't working, and at some point we need to think about decriminalizing drug use and allowing health clinics to distribute whatever they want, while still trying to get users help.

As long as there is money to be made, the violence will continue.

We need an organization like Solar Youth in every single neighborhood.

GUNS ARE NOT BAD! PEOPLE ARE..

AS - Its really not about drub profits at all, you are giving these shooters far too much credit. A few years ago one of my students (a ninth grader) shot a little girl in the stomach ...because she spit on his new sneakers. I, and every veteran NHPS teacher, could rattle off a bunch of similar stories.

<i>I think we need to be honest with ourselves in that all this violence is related to drug dealing and the control of drug profits... As long as there is money to be made, the violence will continue.</i>

You could easily make the same claim for any sphere of business. "As long as there is money to be made, the violence will continue."

I agree, regulation of any business activity COULD prevent the nefarious acts (e.g. murder) that we generally associate with money-making, but there are still no guarantees simply because we elevate a given trade above the black-market in which it previously existed and expose it to the scrutiny of authorities. It certainly makes those nefarious acts more likely to be prosecuted and prevented, I cannot disagree with that.

Regardless, you're over-simplifying this complex issue and denigrating the lives that have been lost which were not in any way related to drugs. I know of AT LEAST one example when a man on my block was murdered in 2012. NHPD determined it was a robbery attempt and this was verified by a close relative who witnessed the murder. Officially, it had nothing to do with drugs! Should I assume the police are lying about this case?

These same type of problems have been going on in Westville Manor for the last 20 years Gun shots, drug dealing, stolen car recovery, illegal dirt bike riding, noise complaint issues, Illegal Fireworks getting blown off & so on if U live there U will see it. A maned Police sub staion needs to be put there again. Police do walk the beat there at times but they need to be present more often.Most of the problems occure from people that don't even live there, they hang out cause problems then leave.On another issue Westville Manor needs to be torn down & rebuilt like Brookside and Rockview w/ a more screened tennat base. There are mold issues in all the Westville Manor apartments causing health concerns for the tennants.

jim1,

We heard you. You don't have to SHOUT.

Guns, of course, are inanimate and reducing the conversation to 'guns are bad' or 'guns are awesome' isn't useful. Anderson Scooper makes a good point about the drug trade, but the business interests most to blame is the gun manufacturers who are profiting handsomely off the carnage in our cities and the world at large. Millions and millions of guns, manufactured and sold, most of them cheaply. Almost no regulatory incentive for any individual owner to maintain them securely and where laws about gun safes and trigger locks do exist, they're rarely enforced when people fail to comply and tragedy ensues.

The comedian Chris Rock has a famous gallows humor routine about how if we can't regulate guns, we should regulate bullets and tax them at $5,000 or so, so if someone gets shot, the public could more reasonably be confident that he had it coming.

The gun enthusiasts like to point out that criminals don't obtain guns legally, but they're less likely to acknowledge that at some point in their existence, all of the guns being used illegally have started their existence in the legitimate supply chain. Somewhere, they slipped out. Where? Why is no one held accountable? The answer from the gun enthusiasts is that it's silly to blame someone when his guns are stolen, but this happens often enough that it ought to be considered an entirely foreseeable occurrence.

Personally, I do think the regulations, costs and consequences of gun ownership <i>should</i> be immense--that is, once a person purchases a gun, he's responsible for it, and everything it's used for, until he either transfers with legal documentation or it's melted down before witnesses. Maybe then there would be fewer available.

The relationship of the prohibition of drugs and violence can be verified by a look at history in this country. During the alcohol prohibition era, violence and turf wars and gangs were active in every large city. Incarceration and homicide both increased during prohibition and decreased after repeal. Ending the prohibition on drugs will not solve the violence plague that we suffer but it will be a start.

It wouldn't hurt to end our national policy of invading numerous countries as a means of ending perceived political problems. Institutional violence certainly begets individual violence or there is some other uncanny coincidence going on.

And there are very few real coincidences.

This does not come as a surprise that there was four shootings in seven days on one of HANH's properties.
There was a triple shooting on 1378 Quinnipiac Ave on 5/19, also a HANH property. This address is a known drug house. A 14 year old was shot at the same location in 2009. HANH has completely destroyed the Quinnipiac and East Shore neighborhood. Executive Director, Karen Dubois-Walton is aware of the drugs and violence on our properties and continues to do nothing about them. Members of the Quinnipiac community started a petition asking Mayor Harp for her resignation and asking State and Federal Law makers to seize HANH's blighted properties. HANH continues to let the drug dealing and violence go on. The petition is open to anyone who would like to sign. Please send an email to [email protected]
For any person that was a victim of a shooting, or serious crime, or lost a loved one on a HANH property, we will be more than willing to share all correspondence and crime statistics which shows their knowledge, negligence and unwilling to clean up their properties.

What a beautiful response and message Joanne and her staff are sending to the young people of Westville Manor and New Haven. Joanne and Solar Youth are doing such amazing and crucial work in this city.

The message on their banner is so critical, because it hones in on the root. People resort to violence and crime when they are desperate and see little or no value in their own lives or someone else's. Yes, many of Westville Manor's residents live in poverty, and guns and drugs abound; but the real tragedy of poverty is NOT not being able to put food on the table or witnessing drug culture proliferate; it's when kids grow up feeling like the world doesn't have much to offer them and that they don't have much to offer the world. People need to "feel important" -- that they hold some kind of value to their community.

Solar Youth and other youth development organizations in this town work tirelessly towards providing love and support and guiding youth to develop the kinds of skills that will ultimately lead them to understand that they offer something to the world -- crucial non-cognitive skills such as self-regulation, delayed gratification, ability to control temper, focus, curiosity, resilience, and persistence.

In contrast, here is some discouraging news:
135 youth in New Haven were arrested in 2009 for violent crime.
It costs an average of $35,000 to keep one person in prison for just one year.
It costs an average of 2 million dollars to keep one of those youth in prison for the rest of his or her life.
Furthermore, approximately 3,343 of this city's kids will end up in the future on some type of permanent government subsidy in the form of housing assistance, daycare assistance, food stamps, healthcare.
This costs taxpayers an average of $43,000 per person a year.

Doesn't it make more sense to invest in our youth on the front end than end up paying so much more to lock them up and/or assist them later?

(continued from previous post...)

As a community, we need to support organizations like Solar Youth that provide consistent, constant, long-term mentoring programs and relationships so that we can keep kids out of the juvenile justice system and empower them to become healthier, more productive citizens.

As individuals, we need to provide all of our young people with opportunities to discover their "importance."

It will save the city, the state, and ultimately all of us thousands of dollars in the future.

The housing authority is the single largest housing entity for year-round tenants in the City. To blame a shooting or even a few on Karen Walton and to call for her firing over the same truly displays a lack of understanding. While you all are at it, why not call for Jimmy Miller as well who grew the NHHA into it's current size? And we know that all of this is really a call for the mayor's resignation because she hasn't in six months and two days managed to solve gun violence while walking backwards on water.

With that said, I'm in favor of divesting the housing authority of certain of its property not because it is too large but because it has an unfair economic advantage. It can issue section 8 vouchers and generally doesn't have to really compete to make its complexes function. I think that a general lack of market forces is bad.

However, we should not call for a resignation simply because the expected happens. This is an impoverished neighborhood with a history of violence. A housing administrator cannot solve this problem alone. And to that end, I'd like to thank Solar Youth for their work in the community.

The reasons for gun violence are myriad. Though, they (the reasons or really that particular form of violence) could not exist without "guns." I'm all for the very loosely construed modern interpretation of the second amendment, but we as a society need to begin thinking of the risk/reward. It's not as though there has been (since the Japanese internment) a time when our service