With the Independence Day holiday approaching, many American families will be celebrating with the traditional barbecues and fireworks.

For residents of Chicago, predominantly in the black and Latino neighborhoods on the South and West sides, the hope will be just staying alive. People living in those sections of America's third-largest city tend to be poorer, less educated and predominantly African-American, and the street gangs have been menacing those neighborhoods, turning them into war zones.Homicides are on a staggering pace. The Windy City recorded its 300th homicide on Father's Day weekend. During a 60-hour period from Friday afternoon through early Monday morning, 59 people were shot, 13 fatally. A Chicago Tribune website called "Homicide Watch Chicago" keeps readers informed, providing an interactive map with an updated death count. Each victim is also personally identified with a photo.The newspaper says its goal "is to tell the story of every murder in the city, so that together we might fight the tendency to view homicides as just another rising or falling number, like mortgage rates or batting averages."Black leaders like Rep. Elijah E. Cummings or civil rights activist Al Sharpton are quick to pose for the cameras when protesting guns in the halls of Congress or linking arms to protest a shooting in Baltimore, but they avoid the violence-riddled Chicago neighborhoods like the plague.For elected black leaders, it would be political suicide. Chicago ranks as one of the most regulated cities in the nation for gun control and a majority of the shootings - and deaths - are from black on black crime. A staggering 76.3 percent of Chicago's murder victims had a prior arrest history.The city's deadly violence has risen dramatically in the past 12 years. After adopting crime-fighting techniques in 2004 that were recommended by Los Angeles and the New York City police departments, Chicago recorded 448 homicides, its lowest total since 1965. But by 2010, its homicide rate had outpaced Los Angeles (16.02 per 100,000), and was more than twice that of New York City (7.0). By the end of last year, Chicago's homicide rate soared to 18.6 per 100,000.Garry McCarthy, the former Chicago police superintendent, says a "no-snitch code" on the street is the biggest reason more murders aren't being solved and why people are literally getting away with murder.Another factor is the relatively light sentences for those found illegally in possession of a firearm. One study found that most people convicted of illegal gun possession receive the minimum sentence, one year, and serve less than half of the sentence because of time for good behavior and pretrial confinement.The minimum sentence for felons found in possession of a firearm is two years. Those charged with simple gun possession had an average of four prior arrests. Those charged with gun possession by a felon had an average of 10 prior arrests.Legislation pushed in the Illinois General Assembly for tougher sentencing guidelines for gun possession was opposed by African-American legislators who felt it would unfairly target blacks, and also the NRA, who felt that law-abiding, first-time offenders would be unjustly caught up in the same net as gang members.From 2010-14, 114 schoolchildren were killed in Chicago. In 2014, public schools adopted the "Safe Passage Route" program to place unarmed volunteers, police officers and firefighters along designated walking routes to provide security for children en route to school.The Chicago Police Department has also been criticized for its liberal use of a "stop-and-frisk" policy, which gives officers authority to conduct stops and pat-downs if there's a reasonable suspicion that a suspect might be armed and dangerous.The ACLU has claimed that the policy unfairly targets African-Americans, who accounted for nearly 75 percent of those stopped in 2014, even though they make up only about a third of the city's population. The Chicago Police Department confiscated almost 7,000 firearms in 2014, about 583 per month. The stop-and-frisk policy was largely abandoned by CPD in early 2016.The surge in murders and shootings, coupled with a decline in gun seizures, led former Police Superintendent John Escalante to state last March that officers might be hesitant to engage in proactive policing due to fear of retribution. Officers have anonymously reported that they have been afraid to make investigatory stops because of scrutiny of police practices by the Justice Department and ACLU.The pullback by police was reflected in the 80 percent decrease in the number of street stops that officers have made since the beginning of this year. Police union president Dean Angelo blames part of the problem on politicians and groups like the ACLU who don't know much about policing, and yet are "dictating what police officers do."Perhaps having some politicians, civil rights and civil liberties officials spend their July Fourth weekend in a South side or West side neighborhood would give them a clearer perspective on daily life in those Chicago war zones.By Jim Zbick |

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