Endia Martin (courtesy nydailynews.com)

Mind you, the gun in question did its best to stop the unnamed teenage shooter from murdering her Facebook rival. “The unnamed teen perp whipped out a stolen .38-caliber handgun about 4:50 p.m. and tried to shoot into a crowd of people, nydailynews.com reports. “The gun jammed and the girl handed it to someone else, who cleared the piece and gave it back. As she sprayed the porch with gunfire, she struck Endia Martin [above] in the back, killing her and grazing a 16-year-old girl in the arm.” Needless to say, Chicago’s top cop shares my opinion that the gun is to blame for Ms. Martin’s demise . . .

“What would have been, under any other circumstance, probably a fistfight between 14-year-old girls, because they were fighting over a boy, turned into a murder,” Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy told reporters Monday, according to the Chicago Tribune. “You introduce a firearm and you have a murder.”

The gun used in the tragic crime was stolen from a car April 13, and the girl’s 24-year-old uncle and a 17-year-old boy also face charges related to the incident, according to the Tribune.

Note: /sarcasm. I do not really blame the gun. But I will concede that guns make murder easier. I mean, I guess they do. I carry a gun every day of my life (when I’m legally able to do so). And yet I find it impossible to murder someone. It’s just not my bag. When I was a teen, if a genuinely murderous thought crossed my mind — and I don’t remember it doing so — I’m sure I dismissed it immediately.

These days, I’m confident that I could shoot someone who posed an imminent and credible threat to my life or other innocent life, and imminence was imminent. But murder? Nope. Of course, the gun on my hip makes it easier for me use my gun for self-defense if need be. As it would for anyone.

Which kinda makes me think: if you pass laws to limit the ability for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms you might stop some Chicago teens from mowing each other down – I doubt it but I’m putting it out there – but you’d definitely make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves from, say, murderous teens.

Setting aside the fact that all Americans have a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, where’s the sense in that?

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100 COMMENTS

  2. If she stole the gun, why would it matter if they were illegal to have or not? Obviously she didn’t use the correct legal channels to obtain sed firearm, so why add more restrictive laws to the mix? I digress. My favorite part was when the article said the gun jammed and she handed the gun to someone else to clear the jam and then he handed it back to her.

    • I guess the idea is, if ALL guns were banned and illegal, EVERYWHERE, then there wouldn’t be a gun to steal. Apply a little legislation and confiscation and we’re converted to a society whose greatest weapon, obviously, is calling someone else a “clown” or “no-good not very nice guy”.

      Except for the police. Who can have guns. Because they’re magical.

      • Also zip-guns. Check out the stats for guns seized from criminals in D.C. (regular criminals, not politicians). A significant number were home-made.

        • Increased availability of low cost machinery able to produce arms, looks to be what ultimately may save people’s access to some semblance of freedoms. Nothing better than being able to make your own guns from materials too widely used to be realistically restricted to the oppressors.

        • Oh I’m sure gun bans and confiscation will just lead to some *very* nice “zip” guns… This isn’t 1920 anymore. That AR-15 lower made of nothing but bolted together steel plates? I want to make one of those (perfectly legal by the way) – just for the satisfaction of it.

          With a mill, drill press, steel stock and a 3D printer you could make a very, very, very nice “homemade” gun from nothing but raw materials.

          hmm. Summer project.

        • All this talk of making guns is rekindling my interest in piecing together something… I’ve got a big fat stack of books on the subject. Maybe one of those bolt together AR receivers…

      • Of course, it would never occur to criminals to then steal from the remaining source of guns, the police. No, they’d just bribe a corrupt cop and he’d he’d inexplicably “lose inventory” in the armory. Just like in Brazil.

    • LATE BREAKING: The gun was falsely reported stolen after being sold last year.

      The girl doing the shooting didn’t steal the gun, it was given to her for the express purpose of using it in a fight. She got the gun from her 25 year-old uncle. who is confined to a wheel chair as a result of a previous shooting in 2010, after he traveled on a CTA bus to deliver the gun to her. Clearly he didn’t know that CCW in Illinois is prohibited on public transportation but I’m doubting he was one of the early permit holders anyway.

      The gun jammed the first time the shooter tried to shoot and someone unjammed it and gave it back to her.

      After the shooting, a 17 year old boy is charged with trying to hide the murder weapon,

      This tragedy is turning out to be a series of felonies which did nothing absolutely nothing to prevent a 14 year old girl from being shot in the back and being killed and then tried to cover it up through destruction of evidence. Each person in this step knew they were breaking the law and didn’t care a wit.

      This isn’t a gun problem, it’s a culture problem. How many points in this tragic series of events could one single person have made a good decision and broken this chain of events and protected a 14 year old girl’s life?

      Yeah, the gun is the problem – right.

      • that’s what i’ve been saying it’s not a gun issue it’s a crime issue nobody is scared to go to jail because you get out in a matter of a couple years we need longer jail time for these scumbags 20 years for assault 30 years for armed robbery or assault 50 years for murder and make jail bad again no tv, internet,weight room give them a 4 by 4 room and 2 meals a day

      • Sounds line the root cause of this tragedy was the introduction of a murderer and murderous accomplices who all found a way to, well, commit murder, rather than the introduction of the firearm itself. After all, in related but unreported news, about 300 million other guns in America on that same day did not result in any murders.

  3. I blame a culture that makes losing – at anything – such a detestable thing that violence against others is the only recourse. This is what happens when you hand out awards to kids for showing up. They never learn how to accept defeat graciously.

  4. To the gun grabbers I ask:

    Specifically, what additional law would have prevented this? Not just “there needs to be less guns on the street”… These people stole a gun (illegal), carried without a permit (illegal – even if you don’t agree with permitting requirements), and murdered someone (also illegal). I’m honestly curious, what additional legislation is 100% effective solution when people do not obey the existing ones?

      • Is no one selling Gun Free Zone tshirts? We should produce these and sell them to the MDA and all the anti-gunners and see if it has any impact on crime. After all, they believe the signs have the ability to turn away all criminals from doing criminal deeds.

        Let’s put it to the test.

        Think of the billions we would save. No need for the police or military if everyone wears one of these magical tshirts.

        Why, I bet if Shannon Watts wears one, she wouldn’t need those expensive bodyguards.

  5. A .38 Super? It jammed? And come on, your friends clear the gun for you to keep shooting? That certainly ain’t the guns fault. That’s a culture if people being murderous and encouraging murder.

  6. IMHO it would be helpful to separate black-on-black gun crime from other gun crime. Political correctness prevents me from stating the obvious. But presenting data from pooled evolutionary groups does not present an articulated data set.

    • Hey, I saw Juan Williams do that on Fox News a couple weeks ago, and I was astonished. Of course, PC doesn’t apply ‘cuz he’s black, but he laid out the numbers of black-on-black murders and the huge numbers compared to other races so effectively, made the case so convincingly, I was almost really expecting him to come out and advocate a law prohibiting firearm ownership for blacks! He went right up to the door, but did not go in. Damn shame, would have been a wonderful screaming match.

    • No, it is not helpful, because you’re making an assumption that is not universal. I know what you’re getting at — blacks who shoot other blacks are thugs and gangbangers. News flash — there are thugs and gangbangers of all races, and there are also law abiding black Americans who become victims of crime through no action of their own. Separating all black-on-black shootings out as “gang warfare” or “ghetto payback” is based on a fallacy and shows your low regard for African Americans.

      • I have low regard specifically for the Black urban culture, not Blacks to begin with.

      • I think what he was talking about was a matter of numbers, not characterization. If there is a significant difference by race then it would become appropriate to delve into the reasons for that difference( which, BTW, does not necessarily implicate more innate “culpability” to one group or another). If there is no difference, fine, one less possibility to consider. If there is, and one group is pulling more than its share of weight in the murder game, ignoring that fact would indeed be unhelpful ( notice I said “murder”, not necessarily by firearm).

      • There it is. The complaints by perpetually aggrieved hyphenated American. Isn’t that all supposed to currently be concentrated in the LA Clippers shakedown.

  7. Because a fistfight SHOULD BE the natural reaction of a 14-year-old girl fighting over a boy.

    Doesn’t that strike this clown as odd?

    • They are basically admitting that things are so far gone, the best they can hope for is a fistfight. All rational behavior has long since exited stage left. Any little thing must be responded to with violence

      • Given the shooter was there with her uncle and one other person, this particular fist fight would likely have been 3 on 1 and not just between 14 yo girls.

      • I believe I can confidently say that I have never seen two 14-year-old girls in a fistfight. Not that it doesn’t happen, but I’m not a hermit, I’ve even done substitute teaching in jr high and high school and taught college classes, and I haven’t seen one. Have seen boys do it, even got involved in a couple myself.

        • Do a youtube search. Or worldstarhiphop. Lots of videos of teen girls fighting.

    • Hey, never under estimate what a good old fashion fist fight accomplish.

      Some of my best friends growing up were made so after a fist fight, the first time we met, we scrapped, second time, we were best buddies.

      I suppose a healthy respect for one another was formed, or something. Though, I’m not sure it works the same with females.

  8. Secondcitycop has more pictures of the deceased up that give the situation a bit more context.

  9. Wait, a .38 caliber handgun jammed? So someone help me out, was it a revolver? If so, how did it “jam”?

    • Figured this would be asked.

      I have had revolvers jam. It’s a myth that they are somehow immune, though I suspect it is more rare than semi-autos as it’s usually not ammo-dependent. Get some unfired propellent in the wrong place, maybe under the star, you’ve got a problem. Have a timing issue, that can do it. Too narrow of a gap between the forcing cone and cylinder will jam it with a slight build-up and make it impossible to fire without manually indexing the cylinder.

      Now I don’t know what type of gun she had- maybe they didn’t mean .38S&W; but if they did I bet it wasn’t the most cared for or well-built gun.

      • Is it also possible that it didn’t actually “jam” but that she just could not pull the DA trigger and the person she handed it to cocked it for her?

      • Ordinarily I would guess that it wasn’t a revolver since she allegedly “sprayed” bullets all over the place–but then, these are modern “journalists” we are talking about, so I guess “sprayed” could pretty much mean anything.

        • To some mental midget reporters a single shot would be “spraying”.

          Many idiot journalists (I use that term very loosely here) make up their reporting narrative as they go adding adjectives they believe will embellish the story for dramatic affect even when they are not educated or experienced enough in the subject matter to create any sort of cohesive intelligent account of what happened without being spoon-fed the facts by witnesses or authorities.

          Stupidity should be painful; for some of them, an electric shock from the high voltage equipment in their mobile media van would be appropriate.

    • I’m willing to bet it was actually a .380, and the enterprising journalist decided the zero at the end was unnecessary. I’ve seen that happen in the news more than a few times.

      • Thats pretty funny. Never really thought about the normal rules of math applied to caliber size.

      • Nah, it couldn’t have been a .380 ACP handgun … those are the infamous “mouse guns” that shoot tiny bullets which are barely able to kill mice. /sarcasm_off

      • Yeah. Given the media I’m surprised they didn’t call it a .38 AR-15.

        Maybe I’m a weird-o but I always wonder what gun these killers use…

  10. What is a Facebook rival? Has Facebook turned into a videogame now?

    Sans guns, things don’t turn into fistfights. But rather into the strongest mercilessly pummeling all others into submission. Guns really are a great equalizer. In place where everyone has equal access to them, that is. Which is, of course, pretty much nowhere outside Somalia and Afghanistan as of now, but there are still degrees.

    • I suspect it is like a rap rival or dance rival. Ever hear of rap battles and battle dancing? People kill each other over getting disrespected in a rap.

      • Forgive my ignorance, but battle dancing? I like to believe that I’m not completely out of touch with pop culture, but this is new to me. On the surface, it sounds like it could potentially be awesome. The only images I’m able to generate in my mind are like the tribal dances I saw at a luau in Hawaii…

        • I was thinking Maoris as well.

          So someone “disrespected” her on Facebook? (how is that even done.) And she decided to just go shoot the darned diss’er. Back in the 90s, there was a bit of a standing joke about Texas being the only place where it was legal to shoot someone for dissin’ your truck. I always found that a bit amusing. I guess this is the Chicago anno now version of same. Bizarre.

          Regardless, chances are the dumb broad grew up with a single mom kept alive and in a poition t shoot anyone, by the same oppressors who like to push those of that ilk in front of them as an excuse for why they need to rob more competent people. Instead of blaming guns, blame the ones that facilitate enabling this kind of riffraff to engage in “Facebook rivalries” or whatever. Which of course will never happen, since only the most hopelessly incompetent and retarded can still be relied upon to support the oppressors; while pretty much every sentient being has by now realized the main purpose of guns is in fact to eradicate the darned oppressors once and for all.

        • Yeah. Rather than shoot it out, rival gangs would square off against each other like some sort of dystopian West Side Story. There was even a movie about this several years ago called “You Got Served” I think. In fact, Saturday Night Live even made fun of these people in a skit. of course, the irony of this is that, after getting bested, sometimes these street dance battles ended up in real violence when the losers got angry. Idiots.

  11. “if you pass laws to limit the ability for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms you might stop some Chicago teens from mowing each other down”

    Human history and nature says differently.

    • And just why should I care about murderous Chicago teens enough to give up even a tiny bit of my rights to save them from each other?

    • If they passed laws against teenagers killing each other they might stop some Chicago teens from killing each other.

      • Then those laws would have been a failure, since they could no longer be used as an excuse to expand the control of the oppressive state. For the charade to work, you need to breed, disenfranchise and ruin loads of “those people”, which can ten be used to scare those marginally less imbecile to support you keeping them “safe.”

      • No, they want to take away my guns and your guns so the teenagers in Chicago won’t kill eachother (nevermind that I live like 1000 miles from Chicago and I am not sure about where you live). See, our guns pose a threat to those kids. Understand?

  13. Funny, I’ve had guns since I was ten, have a multitude of them, been carrying them for years, and a few that I have are loaded all the time. They’ve never managed to kill anyone, ever. Well, at least not while I’ve had them, my British Enfield stamped 1943 may have, in 43′, 44′, or 45′. And the Mosin I had stamped 1942 the same. And the mauser stamped 1911 may have a had real good chance, twice. But, it still applies. Those guns have never “gone off” and they have never “compelled me” to murder anyone.

  19. Boys, I have the solution. They should make murder illegal in Chicago! That way, this nasty gun problem will be totally out of the equation!
    By Jove, I’m onto something!

    • Hells yeah. If it wasn’t for facebook, it wouldn’t have happened at all, right? Seems logical.

      • No. It attracts morons like moths to a flame. In this case the same flame.

        So who was the intended target? The 14yr old who was shot.

  22. The Chicago problem cannot be fixed by force, or fixed by law. It can only be fixed from within, by the true desire to make a better life for yourself. To pull yourself, your children, your family, and your neighbors up out of the gutter. Therefore it is UNFIXABLE. (But you’re welcome to try.)

    I’ll not waste my time or lose any sleep over it. Natural Selection can be a brutal SOB, but it’s color-blind. Evolve or face extinction.

  23. “.. As she sprayed the porch with gunfire”

    Again with the ‘spraying’ guns. I will admit there is a tremendous amount I don’t about firearms, but from everything I *have* learned none of them ‘spray’ gunfire.

    Are these guns that spray some sort of Chicago thing? A northern thing? Do you guys do it differently up there by the lakes?

  24. Great article TTAG. Total tragedy that young gal was mowed down. Heartbreaking.

    So…pull the guns from law abiders, murders in Chicago escalate, along with home invasions, rapes, you name it. Teens inclined will be more emboldened than ever to acquire guns to initiate crime, and without a doubt they will get them.

  25. McCarthy is too much of a cheap hood to admit the truth. It was a culture of death that killed this young girl, a culture of death that his Chicago Machine exploits every day of the week and 26 times every weekend.

  26. I think the worst part of this article is the implication that access to a firearm somehow shuts down higher brain function in humans. How else does a person make the jump from a fistfight to cold-blooded, premeditated murder unless touching the gun inhibits the ability to differentiate between right and wrong and/or control ones emotions? It just HAS to be the fund’s fault, right? Personal accountability? What is this strange idea you speak of?

    It’s as if these people believe firearms come from the factory coated in some exotic neurotoxin or mind altering drug that will devolve the holder into a mindless savage primed to go off into a violent rampage at the slightest provocation.

  27. I was just in the Southside of Chicago. Glad I didn’t break down. Some of the biggest potholes I’ve ever seen. This tragedy still won’t get anywhere near the press of the Hydea(?) Pendleton shooting. She was “special” because she danced for Obama. Once again from an evil old white man married to a beautiful black woman.

    • I was just in Rogers Park, and I was starting to feel the same way. 2 in one week last month, and 3 total since the first of the year.

    • Somewhat loosely I think it means:

      “If your hands aren’t making the same signs as me, then it’s on, bitch!”

  29. DO NOT BLAME THE GUN. IF MURDER IS IN SOMEONE’S MIND, THEY WILL USE ANYTHING AVAILABLE TO ACCOMPLISH THE KILLING. IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IT, JUST LOOK AT THE ATTEMPTS AT MASS KILLINGS WITH EDGE WEAPONS IN CHINA AND THE USA. BLAME THE POOR EDUCATION, POOR INTELLIGENCE AND THE STEEP DECLINE IN SOCIAL VALUES AND DISCIPLINE.

  30. You cant stop crazy. Sure guns make it easier. But they can do the same thing with knives.

    Also a very simple example. Prison. An almost hermetically sealed environment and yet they still manage to get contraband they are not supposed to get.

  31. Guns ARE out of control in Chicago and it happened when they band them altogether .Like prohibition in the 30’s look how we’ll that worked out! Crooks were using the “Chicago Typewriter “back then! Same sort of “stinking thinking goes on there today with those Lamos blaming the gun and gun laws.Procecute these aholes who use guns in crime and execute them!Then they’ll get the message.Stop plea bargaining them out of jail 12 times!

  32. Why is nobody blaming the real culprit? The gun might have helped her kill the girl, but Facebook made her want to. If we’re going to have the conversation that people aren’t completely responsible for their actions and that guns turn people into murderers, lets look at what drove her to get the gun in the first place. Ban facebook. Or teenage girls. Why does this sound more ridiculous to the media than “if only there weren’t guns around…”?

  33. So long as this country continues to pay uneducated unemployed people with no home and no spouse to have children, those children have a great chance of growing up to be criminals. They have no real home, no real discipline in their lives, they could care less about education and getting ahead. Our government doesen’t seem to get this but their solution is to keep paying them and paying them and paying them, and there is no incentive to not have children and no incentive to go out and get a job! It’s been like this for year and will not change.

  34. Fact Check please.
    All .38s I know of are revolvers, revolvers don’t jam, as I’ve been told by many wheelers on this site.

    What gives? what part of the story needs to be verified.

  35. Hey — don’t pay no mind
    You’re under 18 you won’t be doing any time
    Hey — come out and play.

    The Offspring

  36. Wasn’t long ago a couple young girls had some type of disagreement I think it was about her not feeling she was the BFF of the group. They couldn’t get a gun and you know how that ended, a young girl was stabbed to death by her former best friend. Funny how some people think without guns every disagreement or misunderstanding will be a fist fight, some bruises and maybe a bloody nose and the combatants will walk away friends.

  37. This go back to idea that you can legislate away evil, you can’t evil is there and when people chose to act upon that instinct and make a conscious choice to kill, they aren’t going to let lack of a fire arm stop them. But we will only seek to accelerate the spread of evil when we attempt to take away mans god given right to self defense.

  38. when there would not have been a gun around, she would have used a screwdriver, or a kitchen knife or whatever,
    at least I have a CCP for my screwdrivers, pliers and my socket set

  39. So, now if you are a Black Teenager in the inner city, Facebook is dangerous to your life? You know, you really cannot make this stuff up….My sympathies to the victim and her family.

  40. Where I do feel sorry for this young girls family, Gun control is not the answer maybe just maybe people should start teaching morals and values to their children and children should be disaplined for wrong doings not let thing progress to get worse.

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