Opinion: Young people in Chicago are learning that guns aren’t the answer

You really think having a gun makes you safer? You’re “a goofy,” according to some of the teens I spent my summer supporting as a teaching assistant for Project Unloaded’s six-week-long summer program, “Social Media for Safer Communities.”

During the program, more than 50 teens from Chicago’s South and West sides received training and pay to create their own advertising campaigns that would challenge the myth we all heard growing up — that to be safe in some parts of Chicago, you essentially need a gun.

The facts don’t back up that myth, though. There’s no data to support the idea that having a gun helps in an assault or robbery scenario, and there’s overwhelming evidence that homes with guns have higher rates of homicide, suicide and other acts of gun violence than those without. We’r