dear neighbors, i walked the dog again this week amid gunfire from assault weapons at the police firing range. last friday, after lighting candles for sabbath, i walked at sunset to the sound of assault rifles being fired at the range. recently a beloved friend in our community died of gun suicide. i walked out my front door into the sound of gunfire on the morning of her burial. schoolteachers live in our neighborhood. they are regularly in active shooter drills, rushing students into closets and behind tables in advance of a possible mass shooting. but they live in their homes, in highland park, amid gunfire (you can hear it even with windows shut) and are supposed to ignore it. the children in active shooter drills must freeze, pay attention, and act to save their lives in a potential mass shooting. yet they are expected to endure, or somehow tune out, the very sounds they are being conditioned to respond to at school. many in our neighborhood have trauma associated with gunfire, but you don’t have to have directly experienced a gun related tragedy to be affected by the sound of guns. science shows that residents of neighborhoods that hear regular gunfire are affected by community trauma.* it is a public health issue. highland park has the only open air police firing range in a residential neighborhood in north america. there's a reason no other neighborhood has one: *it's wrong. * the range was put up in sophie masloff's mayoral administration (masloff served from 1988-94) without public hearing or consent. *there is a firing range in north park the force can use.* our precinct's reason for not using it is “scheduling.” will the police explain their scheduling problem to the parents getting texts from CAPAstudents in lockdown? to people who have immigrated to our neighborhood from countries at war — probably expecting to hear birds, dogs barking, and other everyday sounds—and instead are subject to gunfire? to neighbors who were at tree of life synagogue in october 4 years ago during the mass shooting? to the asian american and pacific islandar neighbors affected by the shootings in atlanta and in monterey park? to all our residents who have lost children or friends to gun violence? *the open air police firing range is a public health issue.* *it was built without community consent.* for three decades, the police force has been using the range. their reports to our community council say there are plans to enclose the range but it's "too expensive." if it's too expensive, the force must use the north park range and shut the highland park range until there is money to fully enclose it. *it's time to shut the open air highland park police firing range until it is fully enclosed. * an open air police firing range should never have been built here. *no other neighborhood has one, and we don't deserve one.* if you agree, and would like to sign a petition to deb gross and the mayor, i volunteer to bring one around. thank you for listening, joy *“Distress Level and Daily Functioning Problems Attributed to Firearm Victimization: Sociodemographic-Specific Responses,” Annals of Epidemiology, December 6, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2019.12.002 -- <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2019.12.002> <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2019.12.002>