After a grim post Labor day weekend in Chicago, 10 people were killed due to gun violence, and another 43 others were injured. This marks a devastating milestone for the city since at the time of publishing this article Chicago has seen over 2,887 gun violence incidents and 542 homicides. At this point last year the the numbers were 1,862 incidents and 364 homicides.

This is a tragic uptick that has left local communities reeling and officials in the state lamenting slipping progress after a decline in violence during the summer. However, while many gun advocate groups point to Chicago and it's strict gun laws as a reason why gun control measures do not work, the truth is more complicated and gives us some hope that real progress can definitely be made to save lives.

According to a 2017 gun trace report commissioned by the Chicago Police Department, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office and the University of Chicago Crime Lab showed that approximately 60% of recovered crime guns in the city originated from out of state. Additionally of the 7,000 crime guns recovered since 2013 nearly a quarter of them could be traced back to just 10 federally licensed gun dealers, three of which being in Indiana.

Rather than undercutting Brady and other GVP organization's call for reasonable gun control measures this shows that if we had a strong national framework it could precipitously decrease the amount of guns that can be funneled from state to state and end up as crime guns.

Read the full 2017 Chicago crime guns report here