Straight talk on guns in Boston
IT'S TIME to get honest about what government can and can't do to stop the guns and violence in inner-city neighborhoods.
The police can't stake out every home to stop every child from bringing a weapon into an elementary school.
The police can't be stationed on every street corner in time to stop people who are determined to shoot each other. They can't stop bullets fired with reckless abandon from hitting unintended targets.
And the police can't arrest the killers of innocent victims like 22-year-old Chiara Levin or 18-year-old Quintessa Blackwell -- not as long as witnesses refuse to step forward with information.
Government is not useless. It can and should set aside money for community police, teen safe havens, street outreach workers, job programs, and dropout prevention. A coalition of mayors, legislators, and state law enforcement officials is seeking an increase in such funding. This group, which has scheduled a State House press conference for today, is worried about retaining the $11 million in statewide funding that has been allocated in the past.
Politicians can speak up about the violence, and more of them should. From the Massachusetts congressional delegation to the governor's office, there was outrage over the recent roundup of illegal immigrants in New Bedford. It is much quieter on the political front in the face of the ongoing violence on some city streets. There have been 13 murders in Boston this year, up from 10 over the same time period last year.
But all the politicians in Boston could hold a press conference every day to decry the street violence, and that alone won't stop it. The state could agree to allocate millions more, but money alone won't stop the killing either.
The hard truth is that a small but deadly slice of the population is willing to pick up a gun and fire it as casually as everyone else picks up a fork to eat dinner.
Those who know the streets estimate that one in 10 children in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan is at risk of becoming a gang member. Gangs are recruiting middle-school children.
The schools can try to provide as safe a haven as possible during the school day. A teacher can do what was done this week at the John P. Holland Elementary School -- ask an 11-year-old boy if he has a weapon and watch, along with 20 other students, as he takes a .44-caliber pistol out of his backpack. The teacher picked up the gun with a towel and brought it to the principal's office. A police officer who was outside helping students get on their buses was called, and the boy was arrested.
You could put metal detectors in every public school to stop incidents like that. But eventually, students go home and the rule of the street takes over. Government can't stop that, not without help from the people who live on those streets.
A shocked voice or two is heard from the black community each time another young person dies. But where's the collective outrage and collaboration necessary to address the violence? The black ministers are endlessly engaged in their own turf wars, fighting over money, media attention, and credit. What kind of message does that send to the young people they could be mentoring?
It is true that more attention is being paid to Levin's death than to Blackwell's. Levin was a white visitor from New York, killed after ending up at an after-hours party; Blackwell was a Roxbury Community College student, shot down in the middle of the afternoon. But instead of complaining about inequities in news coverage, how about facing up to the real issue? Lawlessness on certain streets puts everyone at risk at any time of day or night, whether they are black or white, law-abiding or not. Out-of-town headline hunters like Curtis Sliwa of the Guardian Angels won't change that.
Governor Deval Patrick yesterday called upon parents to get more involved. He urged them to start "acting like that unfamiliar kid is your own."
That is a tiny start to the honest conversation that needs to take place in Boston.
Community policing can't help a community unwilling to police itself.
Taxpayer money can't buy a moral compass. Government can't teach a child right from wrong.
Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com. 
