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Every time I pick up a newspaper I see a new headline, informing us of another senseless tragedy: a child killed playing with a loaded gun, a drive-by shooting that claims an innocent life, a drug-related killing. Crime and violence continue to escalate, in the cities, and across the state. As one homicide officer told me: the police have lost the streets to crime.
We hear of weapons—most of them guns—being recovered in schools, on street corners, and in homes. Violence on the streets poses a huge problem. We continue to spend more and more money every year on police protection, and on sophisticated computers and equipment to keep track of the criminals. Our prisons are jammed with inmates serving time for violent crimes, most of them involving a gun of some kind. Our hospital emergency departments are busy tending to the latest shooting victim. In 15 years as mayor