A person shot in Chicago is more likely to die from it today than they would have been 13 years ago.
Fatal shootings have made up a steadily larger share of the city’s gun violence statistics, according to a Trace analysis of data from the City of Chicago Violence Reduction Dashboard and studies from the University of Chicago Crime Lab. In 2010, out of every 100 people who were shot in the city, 13 died; by 2023, 19 succumbed to their wounds. In other words: proportionally fewer Chicagoans are surviving.
Chicago’s shootings became more deadly even while the number of total shooting victims rose and then began to taper off, increasing from 2,799 in 2010 to 2,944 in 2023, after reaching a peak of 4,419 two years earlier. As the percentage of fatal shootings grew, so did the total number of people who died from them, growing from 354 in 2010 to 559 in 2023. The likelihood of dying after being shot is significantly higher in some neighborhoods, especially the Black and brown communities in the city’s South and West Sides.
About a dozen violence prevention workers and residents interviewed by The Trace all said they now assume that anyone they encounter is carrying a firearm. Access to deadlier firearms, they say, along with the ability to modify weapons using devices like auto sears, has created more dangerous situations, especially with more young people carrying guns more often as a means of protection.
“Technology has advanced and so have weapons,” said Edwin Galletti, vice president of violence intervention and prevention services at UCAN Chicago, a social service agency that helps at-risk kids and families. “Unfortunately, with this technology and the advancement, our (federal) laws have not gotten tighter.”
Galletti wondered: How can civilians access assault weapons when even police don’t use them on a daily basis?
“Why is it easier to get access to a gun than it is to healthcare?” he asked. “Why is it easier to get a weapon and modify it than it is for me to get a job? Why is it easier for me to be able to get a weapon than to complete my high school diploma?”
The lethality of today’s firearms leads to more fatal shootings
Gunfire used to come mostly from handguns or semiautomatic weapons, which fire every time the trigger is pulled. Now, it’s much easier for people to convert handguns into weapons that are significantly more lethal.
Glock switches, also known as auto sears, have become more popular, especially among young people, said Maurice Williams, an outreach supervisor for the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago in the city’s Austin neighborhood. People can buy the small device for less than $20 online, and attach it to their handgun, making a semiautomatic weapon fire like one that’s fully automatic. It’s also possible to make switches on 3D printers, and YouTube tutorials show people exactly how to attach the devices to guns.
Illegal online markets make it hard for the government to control access to guns and the devices that modify them, said Jens Ludwig, Pritzker director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. This problem is not exclusive to Chicago, he said: Data from Philadelphia and Los Angeles shows lethal shootings are increasing there, as well.
Williams added that higher-capacity magazines, which allow shooters to fire more rounds before they have to reload, have also become more ubiquitous.
“With that rapid fire, you’re going to hit your target more, hit people more,” Williams said. “That’s been a game changer.”
The University of Chicago Crime Lab researchers found that, over the past 13 years, the Chicago Police Department has been recovering more than six times the number of high-capacity magazines that hold at least 15 rounds. In 2023 alone, they seized 447 guns that were modified to fire fully automatically.
Researchers, Ludwig said, also looked at the number of shell casings found at each shooting. In 2010, police recovered 20 or more casings at 23 shooting scenes; by 2023, that number was up to 386 scenes. These numbers, he said, show that more rounds are being fired in each incident.
Illinois recently enacted several laws to target these issues, including banning 3D-printed firearms that lack serial numbers, high-capacity magazines, switches, and assault rifles. But advocates say that state legislation can only do so much when neighboring states don’t have the same restrictions. In 2022, data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosives found that a little over half of the guns recovered in Illinois came from out of state.
Black and brown communities are affected the most
The neighborhoods with the highest number of fatal shootings are in the South and West Sides of Chicago. Last year, Austin had the most fatal shooting deaths at 43; followed by Chatham, 32; West Englewood, 30; Greater Grand Crossing, 26; and North Lawndale, 25.
Of these areas, Chatham had the highest fatality rate in 2023, with one in three shooting victims losing their lives.
Violence prevention workers noted that each community has different factors that can affect their fatality rates. Some cautioned that data can be muddied when people who were shot in one neighborhood are taken to a hospital elsewhere.
Traffic in and out of neighborhoods — sometimes determined by highway access — can change things, too. Greater Grand Crossing’s nightclubs and lounges attract many visitors, said William Edwards, the program manager for Acclivus, a community health organization focused on violence prevention. He explained that when people from across the city converge in one place, violence can arise because people with unresolved conflicts run into each other.
But as street outreach workers, Edwards and others in his organization have worked to prevent conflict between community members over the past few years. They have seen positive changes even among their staff, which includes many people who were formerly incarcerated and who come from different neighborhoods. “They couldn’t come around each other before they started working with us,” he said. “It took about a year or so to get them all in the same room. Now they ride around, they hang out with each other, and they bring their other friends.”
Galletti said that the city’s growing number of community violence intervention groups, especially on the West Side, is another point of difference between neighborhoods. North Lawndale, where UCAN is primarily located, may have had the fifth-highest number of fatal shootings in 2023, but the percentage of gunshot victims there who died that year was 15 percent, lower than the city average of 19 percent. He said that, while there has been an expansion of organizations fighting gun violence on the West Side, the South Side still needs more help.
Beyond neighborhood dynamics, violence prevention workers said factors like school closings that force children to cross gang lines, movement across the city caused by the housing crisis, police policy changes like ending foot pursuits, and the growth of domestic violence all contribute to the increasing death toll.
The nature of shootings has changed, too. There isn’t much of an open drug trade anymore, Galletti said. Instead, people resort to robberies to make money, which increases gun violence. Most shootings aren’t gang-related anymore. Instead, there are small factions, which sometimes act to avenge someone who was shot and killed.
Guns have becomes the norm among youth
Initially, Williams expected his violence prevention work to focus on young adults between ages 16 and 28, but he realized that Chicagoans are being introduced to guns earlier in life, at age 13 or 14.
“This is something totally different from the way I came up,” Williams said. “Back then we probably had one gun amongst all of us. Now, it’s a part of their attire.”
Firearms — and the devices that can make them more deadly — are now easily accessible to young people. A recent study by the Council on Criminal Justice showed that between 2016 and 2022, the number of juvenile offenses that involved firearms rose by 21 percent. That may be in part because young people see their friends with guns and think it’s cool to carry them, said Laia McClain, 16, a member of Project Unloaded’s youth council.
“It makes me feel unsafe,” McClain said. “Once you leave your house, you’re not safe.”
It’s not uncommon, McClain said, for people to get in a fight at a party and pull out a gun, often over matters that are trivial. “It’s dangerous for everyone to carry a gun, especially if you’re untrained,” McClain said. Young people, she added, can be especially reckless. “Our brains are not fully developed,” she said. “We don’t have as much impulse control or control at all about what we do, and we also don’t think about our lives in retrospect with somebody else’s life.”
Social media can also encourage escalation of violence, with young people boasting about their slayings online. Galletti said that, in the past, young people didn’t know what their “opposition” looked like, but with social media, people are following each other closely and know exactly who to target. “Our young men, this is their glory right here,” he said. “People want that notoriety.”
But not every young person carries a gun or is planning to use one. Trevon Bosley, 26, is an advocate against gun violence and a survivor, himself. Although he has felt the pressure to carry a firearm, he chooses not to — but understands why others do.
“I completely understand the need for protection, this understanding that anything can happen at any time,” Bosley said. “More and more people are assuming that the person next to them have a gun, so they feel the need to be protected themselves.”
