Ke’Viania James was 15 when she was shot and killed, hit in the head by a stray bullet apparently intended for another as her South Euclid family drove through East Cleveland July 5 after a day of holiday weekend celebration. She spent two days in the hospital before dying, now memorialized in pictures of her smiling face and a GoFundMe campaign that’s raised nearly $7,000. Donell H. King Jr. was 12 when he was accidentally shot in the chest June 1 while trying to take his father’s gun from his brother after the boys found it in their dad’s truck. Police officers from Cleveland’s Fourth District station unsuccessfully tried to save the boy; his father faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, having weapons under disability and endangering children. On June 9, Earnest Mitchell, 19, was shot to death, apparently accidentally, as he and others fled the scene of an attempted gun-store robbery in Valley View. After the SUV Mitchell was driving crashed into a ditch, he was found dead inside as others in the vehicle scattered. The 16-year-old boy charged in Mitchell’s death is also charged in a suspected gang retaliation shooting that injured another 16-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl. As the cases described above show, gun violence is a multifaceted problem, with answers that are many, but all difficult to achieve. Poverty is a clear driver of the criminality that underlies so much gun violence; people with good-paying jobs and safe, affordable housing typically don’t need to resort to life defined by the barrel of a gun. An ongoing local study of children hospitalized for trauma, including gun trauma, suggests that many if not most have had childhoods scarred by personal and family disruptions, inconsistent schooling and poor housing, including lead-poisoning exposure at a young age. We need to tackle those inequities head-on. As our editorial board has long advocated, much more can be done to deter gun crimes, trace crime guns, make it harder for thieves to use stolen guns, and keep guns out of the hands of children.  [full article]