HEAVY METAL: Chicago Gangs Are Now In An Escalating Rifle War

By Bob Owens

Not too long ago, Chicago’s bloody gang warfare was restricted to small, concealable handguns.

That’s not the case anymore.

The first time 14-year-old Brisa Ramirez remembers hearing rifle fire was when a man was shot dead on a Sunday afternoon outside a Catholic church around the corner from her home in Back of the Yards.

She raises her voice to imitate the sharp, metallic bursts. Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta. It was a foreign sound even in this neighborhood accustomed to gunfire.

“It wasn’t like a normal (shooting). … It was like something more terrible,” Brisa says. “A noise that you can’t really explain.”

She and others in Davis Square Park took cover against concrete steps across the street from Seward Elementary School, where Brisa had just graduated from eighth grade.

The shooting was one of at least 33 in Back of the Yards and Brighton Park over the past nine months that police believe are tied to semi-automatic rifles as several gangs boost their firepower. At least 46 people have been shot in the attacks, 13 fatally.

Police say this is the only area of the city where rifles styled after AR-15s and AK-47s are regularly used, …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms