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Background: Firearm homicide and opioid overdoses were already leading causes of death in the U.S. before both problems surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Firearm violence, overdoses, and COVID-19 have all disproportionately harmed communities that are socially and economically marginalized, but the co-occurrence of these problems in the same communities has received little attention. To describe the co-occurrence of firearm homicides and opioid overdose deaths with COVID-19 mortality we used 2017–2021 medical examiner's data from Chicago, IL. Deaths were assigned to zip codes based on decedents' residence. We stratified zip codes into quartiles by COVID-19 mortality rate, then compared firearm homicide and fatal opioid overdose rates by COVID-19 quartile. Findings: Throughout the study period, firearm homicide and opioid overdose rates were highest in the highest COVID-19 mortality quartile and lowest in the lowest COVID-19 mortality quartile. Increases in firearm homicide and opioid overdose were observed across all COVID-19 mortality quartiles. Conclusions: High co-occurrence of these deaths at the community level call for addressing the systemic forces which made them most vulnerable before the pandemic. Such strategies should consider the environments where people reside, not only where fatal injuries occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States is plagued by an epidemic of gun violence. In particular, mass public shootings, perpetrated by gunmen armed with assault weapons, have risen exponentially since the Supreme Court found that the Second Amendment protected an individual's right to bear arms in 2008 and 2010. In an attempt to stem the rising tide of bloodshed, states have passed legislation banning assault weapons within their borders. After a horrific shooting at a local Fourth of July parade in 2022, Illinois became the ninth state to enact a such a ban. However, this ban immediately faced challenges under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a Supreme Court decision handed down just eleven days before the Illinois parade shooting. In Bruen, the Court established that, if the regulated conduct--in this case, the possession, sale, and manufacture of assault weapons--is protected by the plain language of the Second Amendment, any regulation that encroaches upon that protection must be in line with the nation's "history and tradition" of weapons regulation. In the event the Supreme Court takes up the Illinois assault weapons ban for review; this Comment argues that the law is constitutional under the Court's contemporary interpretation of the Second Amendment. It first argues that assault weapons are not commonly used for lawful self-defense. Self-defense is the pillar upon which the Second Amendment individual right is built; if a weapon is not in common use for that purpose, the Second Amendment's protection does not reach that weapon. Next, it argues that assault weapons are "dangerous and unusual," a result of dramatic technological advancement and the impetus of unprecedented social concern. For these reasons, the Court should take a nuanced view when comparing the Illinois ban to regulations of the past. Ultimately, this Comment encourages any court, be it the Supreme Court reviewing the Illinois ban or any other reviewing court considering a challenge to an assault weapons ban, to incorporate these theories when considering Second Amendment challenges moving forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. To examine gun violence with respect to hospital visits for treatment of intentional assault gunshot wounds (IGWs). Methods. IGW-coded visits among residents of Cook County, Illinois, were matched to census zip code tabulation areas (ZCTAs) to map changes in IGW visit frequencies between 2018 and 2020. Patient characteristics were compared across years, and Poisson regression models for the likelihood of an inpatient admission or in-hospital death were estimated. Results. Over the study period, Cook County residents made 7122 IGW-coded hospital visits to 89 Illinois hospitals, resulting in $342 million in charges and 24 894 hospital days. The number of visits almost doubled between 2018 and 2020, from 1553 to 3031; 6 ZCTAs had increases of more than 60 visits. Approximately one third of patients with a visit were admitted, and 6.5% died. Conclusions. Hospital statistics do not include the full toll of nonfatal gun injuries or the costs of related community-level trauma. The health care system remains crucial in implementing epidemiological approaches to violence prevention. Addressing the national spike in shootings will require large investments in community economic development and a professional public safety workforce. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(5):795–802. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306747) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pediatric clinics are uniquely positioned to assess and advocate for the health and safety of Chicago's children in relation to accidental firearm-related injury and death. The best means of counseling families should be tailored to the individual community and patient population. We aimed to determine rates of firearm ownership and attitudes towards counseling about firearms in a community on the west side of Chicago with high rates of gun violence. An anonymous survey about gun ownership was administered at a federally qualified health center. The survey was completed by 206 adults with children less than 18 living in the home. A minority of participants (8.3%; n = 17) indicated that a gun was kept in or around the home. The majority of firearm owners reported using safe storage practices. However, just over half of the gun owners and non-gun owners had a favorable opinion of counseling about firearm safety in healthcare settings. Other strategies in addition to physician counseling will be required to promote safe firearm storage in this neighborhood with high rates of community violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the epidemiology of nonfatal firearm violence (NFFV) on the Westside of Chicago over three finite time periods: 2005–2008, 2009–2012, and 2013–2016. The trend analysis will look at any significant changes over the time periods and describe the demographic characteristics of NFFV. A descriptive analysis of Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH) Emergency Department (ED) data was conducted. NFFV patients were identified by specific firearm ICD-9 primary eCode injury categories: accident, assault, legal intervention, undetermined intent, suicide or self-inflicted injury, and legal intervention. The Pearson Chi-square test was conducted to statistically compare the categorical frequencies of the Chicago metropolitan region of injury, cause of firearm related injury, and place of injury by time period. There were a total of 3962 nonfatal hospitalizations at MSH between the three time periods due to gun violence related injuries. Overall, nonfatal hospitalizations were most frequent for those between age groups 16–24 (52.5%). The number of nonfatal hospitalizations decreased with increasing age for the age groups 35–44 (9.7%), 45–54 (3.2%), and > 54 (1.2%). There were significantly more nonfatal hospitalizations in males (n = 3649) than females (n = 312) across the three time periods. However, there was a 74.7% increase in female nonfatal hospitalizations from 2009–2012 to 2013–2016. There were significant racial differences in nonfatal hospitalizations between the three time periods. NFFV continues to be problem on the Westside of Chicago, particularly for young, Black men. The incidence of gun violence however has not changed significantly between 2005 and 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To examine the association between gun violence and birth outcomes among women in Chicago. Methods: Using a 5-year set of birth files (2011–2015) merged with census and police data, birth outcomes including low birth weight (LBW, BW < 2500 g), preterm birth (PTB, < 37 weeks gestation), and small-for-gestational-age (SGA, BW < 10th percentile) were examined among non-Hispanic (NH) white, NH black, and Hispanic women in Chicago. Gun violence rates were categorized into tertiles. Multilevel, multiple logistic regression examined the effects of gun violence and race/ethnicity on birth outcomes. Results: Of 175,065 births, 10.6% of LBW, 10.6% of PTB, and 9.1% of SGA occurred in high violence tertile. Using white women in low violence tertile as reference, the OR for LBW among black women ranged 1.9–2.1 across all tertiles, and 0.8–1.2 among Hispanic women. OR for PTB for black women were 1.6–1.7 and 1.0–1.2 for Hispanic women, and OR for SGA for black women were 1.6–1.7 and for Hispanic women 0.9–1.0. Conclusions for Practice: In Chicago, race/ethnicity was associated with birth outcomes, regardless of the level of exposure to gun violence, in 2011–2015. The differences in racial/ethnic composition across the violence exposure levels suggest that, rather than gun violence alone, residential segregation and the geographic inequities likely contribute to disparate birth outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is a federally funded initiative that brings together federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce gun violence in urban centers. In Chicago, PSN implemented supply-side gun policing tactics, enhanced federal prosecution of gun crimes, and notification forums warning offenders of PSN's heightened criminal sanctions. Prior evaluations provide evidence that PSN initiatives have reduced crime in the first few years of their operation. But over a decade after the program was established, we still know little about whether these effects are sustained over an extended period of time. This Article examines PSN Chicago, an anti-violence program in operation since 2002. Consistent with a previous evaluation, we find that several program components were associated with reductions in violence in the initial target areas. These associations, however, are concentrated in the first few years of the intervention. We also examine the effect of PSN in several subsequent expansion areas and find no detectable effects. We suggest that the effects of PSN were diluted as the program expanded to larger areas of the city without an increase in funding or resources. Still, we recommend that future research consider PSN's strategies in Chicago that appeared effective in the early years and leverage those insights for future programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just one in ten nonfatal shootings in Chicago lead to an arrest. Unlike in fatal cases, gunshot victims who survive can often provide information of use in the police investigation. Nonetheless, nonfatal shooting cases in Chicago and elsewhere have much lower arrest rates than fatal cases, in part because most victims do not cooperate. We use data from the Chicago Inmate Survey (CIS) to analyze the potential value that gunshot-victim cooperation could have for increasing arrest rates. Half of CIS respondents reported they had been shot before. Very few cooperated with police investigations of these shootings, although at least half of them could have provided useful information. In fact, victims were more likely to speak with the police when they did not have any information on their shooter. Respondents explained their choice not to cooperate by reference to "street codes" against snitching, mistrust of the police, and the desire to retaliate against the shooter personally. If more shooting victims could be persuaded to cooperate, the police could solve more cases and hence be more effective in curtailing gun violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]