One former gangbanger’s relationship with his firearms
I grew up in Chicago in the 1970s. My first gun was a zip gun I made myself at the age of 14. Zip guns were made out of a piece of wood fashioned as a gun with rubber bands holding the chamber in place down upon the wood. A hanger cut off into thirds made up the firing pin.
In rural America, young people are usually gifted their first gun and may be taught to shoot a gun at an early age. Urban youth from my community and many others similar to mine start our love affair with guns by way of a truly different route. Making our first guns was what teenagers like us did in the 1970s. These handmade guns kept some of us alive. If we were caught out of our neighborhood unarmed, we could be robbed, beaten or possibly shot and killed.
My second gun was my first manufactured gun, a .25-caliber Browning semiautomatic pistol. I purchased it from one of my neighbors when I was 16. I named it Blackie, in honor of my first dog that had recently passed. My love affair with guns started at this time in my life. My friend’s mother beat his butt because he had the gun in their house. He offered it to me for $75. Blackie was a semiautomatic, and having one when revolvers were the most-used guns at the time made me a mover and a shaker.
After I purchased Blackie, me and a couple of the guys started going around testing it out in the alley a couple of blocks away from my house. One of the neighbors called my mother. Mom came walking through the alley and asked us what the hell we were doing? We lied, saying that we had a BB gun and were shooting at rats. When she asked to see the gun, my homie Ryan took off running with it in his hand. Ryan and I both got grounded. Blackie kept me and the guys safe for the next year. When I was 17, the Chicago Police Department seized the gun from one of my friends. He got two years’ probation.
I was also 17 when I got my third gun. I found him during a burglary, so that meant that I owned him. I named him Skipperdale. This gun was a .38 long, with a faulty firing pin. This gun would shoot a bullet and then skip, skip, pow, skip skip, pow pow, skip, pow pow — something like that. I had that gun when gangbanging was resurfacing in Chicago in the late 1970s. There was a period from around 1977 to 1979 when guys were actively seeking to beat up someone else no matter where they were found to be hanging out. Most beatdowns were performed with golf clubs and other savage things like nail-spiked bats. Guns only came out when things got especially serious.
These handmade guns kept some of us alive. If we were caught out of our neighborhood unarmed, we could be robbed, beaten or possibly shot and killed.
Guns were very hard to come by for young Chicagoans during the late 1970s. During this time, mainly, parents and grandparents owned them. When and if we found someone selling a gun, we would try to buy it or take it. In my teenage years, we committed a lot of burglaries in search of guns.
During this time, gun monitoring by older members of my gang was essential to keeping order and discipline in the ranks. The gang was a tightly structured organization with protocols. Universal elites told Branch elites to make a listing of all guns on their deck and who was responsible for their safekeeping. When Skipperdale was presented to one of our universal elites, he laughingly said, “Damn brother, y’all should’ve came to us and said y’all needed a weapon. I’m not gonna take this to the table until we get a new firing pin.” We told the elder brother that if not for Skipperdale, we could’ve been hurt before the police arrived on the scene in a couple of incidents. We were able to keep guys off of us due to this raggedy gun, which was better than no gun at all.
The next gun that I came to have control over — my fourth gun — was a Mossberg riot pump shotgun that I named Bucky. We acquired Bucky out of the car trunk of a CPD cruiser by orders of a universal elite. We followed his orders, knowing that, if busted, there would be hell to pay for possessing this gun. I myself never thought about getting caught. After this acquisition, we traded the Mossberg pump for two other guns. Our deck in the gang now stood tall with two guns. This is a big difference from what occurs today: Just about any youth can get a gun and use it without guidance or regulation, causing chaos in the community.
I bought my fifth gun when I was 22. It was a pearl-handled Colt .45. This was the first gun I purchased legally. I named it General, in honor of General George Patton. I loved the feel and kick of it. I became a marksman with it at the shooting ranges. Perhaps what goes around comes around; as I had stolen guns in burglaries, I had General stolen from me in a burglary after having it for only four months. I was crushed and started having my underlings commit burglaries all over the city.
Just about any youth can get a gun and use it without guidance or regulation, causing chaos in the community.
My sixth and seventh guns were twin Glocks, 9 mm. I named them MoMo and CoCo. These were the prizes of a burglary done by some of my friends. During this time in my life, I was heavily involved with street activities and drugs, I was the branch elite for my deck and the twins profited our deck through robberies, extortion, gangbanging and intimidation.
My deck was profiting off crack cocaine and heroin. We were knocking off rivals. Unfortunately for me, I got busted during one of those armed robberies. received three years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for my misuse of MoMo. That cut short my love affair with guns. With a felony, I couldn’t legally own a gun anymore. For a time, despite that restriction, I continued carrying and misusing firearms. I was sent to prison two more times for unlawful use of a weapon. It hurt a lot to not be able to legally own a firearm anymore. I went from being able to play with guns, to being told that if I ever carry one again and get caught with it, I will be going to the federal penitentiary for a very long period of time.
Today I work with youth at the highest risk for violence, abuse and other negative things life throws at them. These young people, wrapped up in gangbanging, believe they carry guns out of necessity. They are convinced they will be hunted to death and if they don’t have a gun, they don’t have protection.
I will never tell a youth to put his gun down, but I will ask him to do the right things in life. I continually encourage youth to sacrifice people, places and things to stay safe and out of the way. In Chicago, to get off a hunting list, you have to disappear, then hope and pray that God will eliminate your opposition either through death or imprisonment.
