Father Pfleger Offers Gun Turn-in to Keep Gun Issue Alive

First 180 people to get $100, ADIDAS shoes

By Chinta Strausberg

In an effort to eliminate the violence that has taken the lives of more than 214 people since the first of this year and wounding 1,300 others, Saint Sabina’s Father Michael L. Pfleger Wednesday held a press conference in an effort to continue the dialogue needed to get the guns off the streets of Chicago.

The gun turn in, which will be held 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, August 16, 2014, at Saint Sabina, 1210 W. 78^th Place, is earmarked for the first 180 people between the ages of 16-30—a group he says is most at risk. This event is just one component to Pfleger’s overall program to reduce gun violence in the community.

Pfleger is giving a $100 gift card or an ADIDAS gift card for each working gun turned in. Originally, Pfleger had offered 150 people the cash awards, but a man from Minnesota made a donation saying he was glad to “buy a gun off the street.” He can now offer the awards to the first 180 people.

“This goes along with our peace walks we hold each Friday, the Peace League held every Monday, our Block Club party which will be held Friday, August 16^th from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Renaissance Park, 1230 West 79^th Street, our GED classes and we’ve employed over 1,000 youth this summer,” said Pfleger. “We must do everything and anything to try and end this epidemic of guns and violence.”

Hoping to save a life, Pfleger made his remarks flanked by a number of people who have either known others shot or like 19-year-old gunshot survivor Ondelee Perteet, a quadriplegic due to being shot on September 5, 2009 at a birthday party on the West Side. Also supporting the gun turn in was Tonya Burch, the mother of slain 19-year-old Deonate Smith who was shot at an unauthorized Englewood block party on August 1, 2009.

Agreeing with Father Pfleger’s gun turn in was Perteet, then 14, who recalled the day he was shot by a 15-year old boy angry after his sisters had put him out of the party because of his anti-social behavior.

Referring to the shooter, Perteet said, “He went outside, sat on a fire hydrant, took out his cell phone and called up a gun.” Perteet, who is now a sophomore at Malcolm X College studying speech and communications, was shot in the face, with the bullet breaking two bones in his neck then travelling down his spine.

While the doctors said he would never walk, Perteet is proving them wrong, and his goal is to become an advocate for removing guns from the community. “These guns are tearing people apart. Put the guns down,” said Perteet who was accompanied by his mother, Deetreena Perteet.

When Pfleger looks at Perteet, he said he knows he is on the right path. “Guns, Pfleger said, “have become the first line of offense and part of America’s wardrobe.” The gun turn in is an alternative and another venue to remove the weapons from the streets.

And, for those critics who question what good would taking 180 guns off the street, Father Pfleger asked, “What are you doing”? And leading by example, Father Pfleger said, “We have over 1,000 young people working on jobs this summer.  Pfleger, who was also joined by Rev. Susan Johnson, executive director of Chicago Citizens for Change, vowed to continue his anti-violence work “until there are no more shootings…no more violence….”

Also speaking was Colleen Daley, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. She painted a dismal picture of Illinois’ gun problem. “Over 1,000 people die every year in gun-related incidents in Illinois,” Daley said.

“In 2011, about 60 percent of those deaths were homicides and 40 percent suicides,” she told reporters. “Studies continue to show that where there are more guns there are more deaths. We see that every day in our city.”

“The risk of homicide is three times higher in homes with firearms than in homes without them, and keeping a firearm in the home increases the risk of suicide with a gun by 17 percent. While some think having a gun in their home will keep them safe, that is not true,” Daley said. “A gun in the home is more likely to be used in a homicide, suicide, or unintentional shooting than to be used in self defense.”

On gun accessibility, Daley said when students in the 6^th to 12^th grade were asked if they know where to get a gun, 59 percent of them said they did and two-thirds said they knew where they could get one within 24-hours.

“We must do what ever we can to keep our communities, our children and our families safe from gun violence and this gun turn in is a great way to get some of these guns out of our neighborhoods,” Daley said.

Another supporter of Father Pfleger’s gun turn-in was Tonya Burch, the mother of gun shot victim Deonate Smith, 19, who was murdered on August 1, 2009, at 950 W. 51^st St, at an unauthorized block party. “Two girls got into a fight and my son was shot in the back,” Burch told this reporter.

Her son was attending Daley College and had plans to join the Air Force.  A 17-year-old girl was shot but she survived; however, a bullet tore through Smith’s back shattering all of his dreams.  “We need to turn in the guns,” Burch said.

Father Pfleger’s figures came from a recent University of Chicago Crime lab study that stated:  “Gun use intensifies violence, increasing the case fatality rate in assaults,” according to Douglas J. Besharov, editor of the Policy Retrospectives.

“Gun violence substantially reduces the standard of living in a community in which it is common, and not just for the immediate victims,” the study stated.

Concluding, the study made it clear that, “Most robberies and assaults do not involve guns and most street criminals do not own a gun, despite the evident advantages to the criminal of using a gun.

“Weapon choice by violence perpetrators is influenced under some circumstances by both access to guns and by the criminal justice consequences of carrying and misusing a gun.

“Widespread gun ownership does not convey public benefit in the form of reduced residential burglary rates or home invasion robberies, perhaps because burglarizing a home with guns in it is more profitable. Guns are a valuable form of “loot,” the study said.

According to the crime lab, America has 250 million plus guns in private circulation, and because of easy access to guns, the “social costs of gun violence may be on the order of $1 million per gunshot injury.”

Father Pfleger said he continues to offer a $5,000 reward for the capture of gunrunners thanks to outside donors like business icon John Rogers and others. Pfleger made it clear that these rewards are not coming from church funds and that so far this year about 50 guns have been turned in. “You can drop off a gun at our office anytime. No questions asked,” he told reporters.

Pfleger said guns should not be easier to get than a computer and that the large gang population in Chicago proves that “we have failed. Why are young people running to the gangs…because they cannot find something else….” He said the high unemployment coupled with no education “creates a perfect storm in Chicago” for the proliferation of gun violence. He is offering another alternative for the youth.

Chinta Strausberg is a Journalist of more than 33-years, a former political reporter and a current PCC Network talk show host. You can e-mail Strausberg at: Chintabernie@aol.com.