State of the City: Too many guns

From Mayor Tom Barrett's State of the City speech today:

Our effort to reduce violence in Milwaukee starts with guns. Last week, within a twenty-four period, thugs with guns killed three people. One was a mother who got caught up in the crossfire resulting from an argument. Imagine if she was your mother.

A few weeks ago, an innocent nine year-old girl was shot and wounded on, of all places, a playground. The shot came from hundreds of feet away. A shot fired by a teenager in an argument - an 18 year-old with a gun. Imagine if she was your daughter.

I’m here to tell you that these Milwaukee residents are our mothers, they are our daughters, our sons and our fathers who are being murdered by people who have no business carrying and using guns. We must get illegal handguns and the criminals who use them off our streets!

In the last five years, police have confiscated over 11,000 guns. Despite a record number of guns taken off the streets, 95 people were killed by someone shooting a gun in Milwaukee last year. We need to do better.

Our state legislature needs to end its preoccupation with an NRA agenda that puts more guns on our streets and instead, enact laws to stem the flow of illegal guns into our neighborhoods.

Amen.