Juvenile Gangs Using Twitter

While most adults have not fully embraced the phenomenon called Twitter, juvenile gangs have, according to the NY Daily News. Twitter, for the uninitiated, is a social networking service that allows users to send short massages ("tweets") to anyone who signs up to receive them. Juvenile gangs, including the ones documented in the article that are active in upper Manhattan, are using this platform to communicate about rivals and, in some cases, initiate conflicts that lead to later acts of violence.

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Time to Stand Up Against Gun Violence

The Rev. Al Sharpton, President of the National Action Network, wrote a thoughtful opinion piece in the NY Daily News last Sunday entitled "Every Stray Bullet Comes Closer to You and the One You Love."

There is growing concern about juvenile gangs and gun violence in New York City. According to recent data included with the piece:

• There were 149 shooting victims under the age of 16 in NYC in 2008;
• There were 21 murder victims under the age of 16 in NYC in 2008;
• There are overall 403 homicides so far in 2009, compared to 570 in 2004, and 1946 in 1993;
• Approximately 60-65% of homicides in NYC involved a gun;
• Approximately 70,000 people are injured by a gun in America, with over 50,000 injured in an attack; and
  
• A mere 1% of gun dealers are the source of 60% of crime guns traced nationally.

With crime down to historic lows overall in NYC, there is an opportunity now for us to work collectively to make our public spaces and homes gun-violence-free. This would go a long way to protecting our most precious resource, our children.

For more information on this subject see:

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

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