President Donald Trump recently announced plans to send the National Guard to patrol the streets of Chicago — citing escalating violence and crime as primary factors contributing to this decision. Several international outlets are reporting on the standoff between Trump and local leaders, with Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker standing firm in their rebuke of the president’s weaponization of the military against U.S. residents.
Trump’s inflammatory language and verbal attacks on city and state leaders carry immense weight and are worrisome. Still, what’s missing from the public discourse about violence in Chicago is the realization that suicide, and not homicide alone, is silently taking the lives of hundreds of Black residents across the city.
Data from a 2024 study that my colleague and I published in the American Journal of Public Health demonstrates that Black Chicagoans were the only race group to experience significant increases in suicide among both male and female residents between 2015 and 2021. Black girls faced the largest increase in suicides across the city, with rates rising 77% among young Black women under age 20. While alarming, this trend is consistent with earlier analyses of national datasets. Additional results indicate that the youngest person to die by suicide in Chicago during this time span was an 8-year-old Black boy.
Notably, we also found that Black men were more likely to use firearms when compared with all other groups, as more than 50% of Black males who died by suicide in Chicago used a gun to end their life. This particular finding presents a more nuanced framing of gun violence and challenges dominant narratives about Chicago’s violence that have plagued the city’s reputation for decades.
Conversations about gun violence in Chicago can no longer focus solely on homicide and must be expanded to also integrate urgent matters of suicide prevention.
Instead of threatening to send in troops, it would be more beneficial for the federal government to ensure that policies are in place so that people considering suicide have access to treatment. Medicaid is the largest payer of mental health services in the U.S., and without insurance, people will not be able to afford lifesaving forms of psychiatric medication and therapy. If these structural concerns are not remedied at the federal level, then the president’s comments expressing grave concern about violence in Chicago will continue to feel dangerous, insensitive and deeply disingenuous.
— Janelle R. Goodwill, assistant professor, University of Chicago
Acceptable crime level
David Greising, president of the Better Government Association, just wrote a column for the Tribune examining what the status is of Chicago’s crime problem in light of President Donald Trump’s threat to send in the National Guard (“With the National Guard in offing, what is status of Chicago’s crime problem?” Aug. 29).
One of his comments made me really sit up and take notice. Greising wrote that Trump’s provocation should inspire Chicago to work toward “reducing violent crime to more acceptable levels.”
I wonder what a more acceptable level is. Is it one child getting killed instead of two? Is it the constantly belligerent student versus the principal of a school? Is it progress that only 10 murders were committed in March 2025 as opposed to 15 people murdered in March of the previous year?
The only acceptable level is zero murders and zero violent crimes. Till our last breaths, we must work toward this goal. Nothing else is good enough.
— Kathleen Melia, Niles
Criticism of mayor
I’m disappointed the Tribune Editorial Board found it appropriate to demean Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (“Two children lost at prayer. Now hope must join with action,” Aug 28), saying his statement’s “dismissal of prayer didn’t provide the right tone for the grieving and shocked families.”
And what did Frey say? “Don‘t say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. … They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence.”
The editorial characterized that statement as “belittling how the faithful talk to God.” No, it didn’t. Frey was simply saying praying is not enough. That is proven over and over and over.
I am glad so many folks get peace through their prayers. But if we want this violence to diminish, we need to supplement our thoughts and prayers with action against the causes of the violence. There is no excuse for a system that allows these weapons to be purchased so quickly and so easily.
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— Kevin Coughlin, Evanston
Preventing shootings
Are we really arguing about the validity of thoughts and prayers? As a lifelong Catholic, thoughts and prayers, and knowing God is watching over me, give me comfort and the strength to get through tumultuous times. They are valuable things.
Thoughts and prayers have never once, however, fixed the problem. Would you rely on thoughts and prayers to save your child from cancer? No, you would do every medical thing imaginable to fix the problem, and you would pray for strength and comfort — and maybe a miracle.
Gun violence is no different. If thoughts and prayers could fix it, we wouldn’t have seen what happened in Minneapolis and hundreds of other schools, churches, nightclubs, etc. The only way to fix the problem is to do something. Or, the reality, do many things.
“It’s not the gun; it’s the person.” We hear this time and time again. Hey, I’m all for gun rights. My boys hunt, my husband hunts, my father-in-law, etc. But if we are not going to address sensible gun laws, which is mind-boggling since most of the country wants that, then, yes, let’s address the user. But instead, we’ve cut mental health funding, we’ve cut any education that creates understanding about people who are different from us (which increases both bullying and isolation), we shut down the national LGBTQ suicide hotline, and we just fired hundreds of people whose jobs were to understand and prevent gun violence, domestic violence and child abuse.
We are doing nothing to prevent these shootings. Nothing. If you want to offer thoughts and prayers, have at it. They help people feel better, and we need that. Just don’t stop there. Only action will keep our kids from dying.
— Kathy Spotts, St. Charles
Acknowledge God again
Five letters on Aug. 29 addressed gun control, mass shootings and the Second Amendment. In brief, the basic issue is the Second Amendment in a secular country.
We have long had millions of guns in our country. You used to be able to buy a gun at the local hardware store like you were buying a screwdriver. No firearm owner’s identification card or background check.
John Adams, our second president, said that our Constitution is meant only for a moral and religious people. Well, we removed God, the Bible and the Ten Commandments from our public life and schools, and now our society has no moral compass anymore.
We have guns, because we wouldn’t be a free nation if we didn’t. Our Founders recognized that we were armed and free, unlike in Europe, where they were unarmed and ruled by kings.
We already have laws against killing people, so laws against guns will have limited value.
We need to return to our roots where we teach our children not to kill, to love their neighbors as themselves and to do unto others as they would do unto themselves. But that means to acknowledge God again and to bring the Bible back into our public schools. Nothing else is going to work.
— Larry Craig, Wilmette
Review Bill of Rights
I just read the Sunday edition and couldn’t believe my eyes at what Cardinal Blase Cupich was quoted as saying: “Guns are plentiful and common sense attempts to limit their availability have been largely rejected in the name of a freedom not found in our constitution.”
I think someone needs to give Cupich a copy of the Constitution highlighting the Second Amendment. It’s in there, Cardinal. Just read it.
— Donald Matras, Homer Glen
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected].