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Gun store opened in community struggling with violent crime, sparking discontent among residents [1]
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Date: 2023-01-16
The scourges of society, $599.99. The eventual pushback against NRA puppets in purple America, priceless.
A new gun store, named Concierge Gun Sales, has recently opened in the Prentis Park neighbourhood of the Hampton Roads city of Portsmouth, Virginia. Edward Kelly, the owner of Concierge Gun Sales and a longtime resident of Prentis Park, stated that the store carries only a few guns in stock, with the rest originating from online orders to the store. With an emphasis on one-to-one sales, Concierge Gun Sales has sold 30 guns since opening in November.
A recent opening of a gun store usually does not grab major headlines. But the opening of Concierge Gun Sales has outraged many Prentis Park residents, given that Prentis Park has a grave problem with violent crime.
Brighton and Prentis Park lie within an area stricken with poverty that sees an outsized amount of the city’s violent crime, particularly among youth. A Harvard fellow who crunched local crime data for the city last year said nearly 60% of youth homicides since 2017 have occurred in the 23704 ZIP code that includes the two neighborhoods. Last summer, Prentis Park was the site of a quadruple homicide. More recently, a man was found shot to death just two blocks from the gun store on Dec. 31.
In fact, the Hampton Roads area experienced a record number of homicides last year. Seven cities (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Newport News, Hampton, Portsmouth, Suffolk) together reported 220 people being killed in homicides last year, an increase of 7 per cent compared to the year before. Portsmouth, with a population of 97,915 people as of 2020, had 42 homicides.
Furthermore, in less advantaged areas, shootings occur in proximity to gun stores, according to a study made by Rutgers University researchers.
The researchers used shooting and demographic data to explore the relationship between gun stores and violence in Atlanta between 2016 and 2018. In neighborhoods facing high rates of poverty and unemployment, shootings were more likely to take place near gun shops. In better-off neighborhoods, the opposite was true, with gun stores exerting an almost repellent effect on shootings. [...] The Rutgers team found that shootings near gun shops were most often categorized by local police as manslaughters and assaults. The authors believe this may mean the violence that happens near gun stores is more impulsive than calculated. [...]
So even if Edward Kelly opened his own gun store legally, with compliance with local zoning ordinances, many still do not feel that the opening of the business was done morally.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/16/2147295/-Gun-store-opened-in-community-struggling-with-violent-crime-sparking-discontent-among-residents
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