Lightfoot delivers tough-love anti-crime message: Young people, 'put down the guns,' and adults, 'be better'

Mayor Lori Lightfoot implored young people to put down the guns - and urged their parents to secure their weapons and pay attention to their kids - after the previous weekend that saw eight children shot within an 18-hour span.

Lightfoot ticked off the tragic circumstance behind each of the shootings, then talked about the "common thread": children and teens with guns they "never should have possessed in the first place" because the "adults in their lives failed them."

That is particularly true of the adult who "let a bunch of kids into an empty apartment" without supervision, causing "chaos" that included a shooting that left six people wounded, three of them teenagers, the mayor said.

"No amount of policing, no superior crime strategy can address these private moments where adults allowed children and teens access to deadly weapons. Adults, we have to be better," Lightfoot said.

"And for teens and young adults, my plea is put the guns down. You're not a punk or weak if you don't carry a gun. And you're certainly not stronger or safer with a gun. A gun means that your future is going to be ... irreparably shaped by a trigger pull. You pick up a gun, you picked up a ticking time bomb."

Lightfoot delivered her tough-love message after hosting a roundtable discussion with students at Wendell Phillips Academy, then announcing a multiyear expansion of a mentoring program with a proven track record.

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