Gun violence creates thousands of orphans

Thousands of children in the United States are being left without parents due to the scourge of gun crime in dozens of communities across the country.

Gun violence in the US is so bad that more than 40 children lose a parent to it every day, according to analysis by The Washington Post.

The violence is reshaping communities in Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and many others. And relatives and friends often must step in to look after the children who have no one to do so.

In at least 20 cities where there were shootings in 2020, more than 3,600 children lost their mother or father because of gun violence, the Post found.

The total number of people gunned down in the 20 communities was a quarter of those killed by gun violence in the entire country.

According to local news reports, police statements and an obituary, 26-year-old La'Kia Lyshawn Dawkins from Las Vegas was murdered in her sleep by her boyfriend, 25-yearold Daniel Greer, on March 10.

Her distraught mother Rashonda McCondichie said her daughter was shot to death as she slept beside her 5-year-old daughter Wynter.

Dawkins lived with her sister and her daughter. On the night of the shooting, her sister contacted their mother about it.

McCondichie said after her daughter saw that Dawkins had been shot, she started screaming, called 911, grabbed Wynter and ran outside.

Greer fled the scene after the shooting. Two days later, police found him dead inside a hotel from a self-inflicted gunshot.

On a GoFundMe page set up to cover funeral costs for Dawkins, her friends and family described her as "a loving and caring mother to her daughter Wynter and an amazingly loving big sister to her siblings".

"Our hearts are broken to pieces…" they wrote.

Some parents who die from gun violence are killed by their partners who may end up in jail or dead. Others get caught in the crossfire from stray bullets.

Angelica James, mother of four boys, was shot and killed on Feb 27 by the father of her children, Christopher Gordon, according to local news and police reports.

On the night that James was shot, she was in a car with her two youngest boys in the Newburg area of Louisville, Kentucky.

Her 10-year-old's hand and hip was wounded, but he is expected to recover. Her 2-year-old was taken by Gordon, who has a history of violence. But the toddler was later found safe that evening.

Gordon was arrested on March 3. The children are now without a parent in their lives.

Last year, there were 20,726 gun deaths in the US, excluding suicides by guns, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.

"Black and Latinx children and teens are impacted by gun violence at higher rates than their white peers, in part because of deliberate policy decisions that created segregated neighborhoods and under investments in their communities," nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety said.