By Davida Andelman

On any given day, anyone familiar with statistical analysis can give you any outcome you want to put forth. Frankly, I am really tired of hearing the Boston Police Department and in this case Superintendent Robert Dunford, report in yesterday's Boston Herald that "Gun Violence is Cooling Down." Gun violence might be cooling down in West Roxbury, Beacon Hill, Roslindale and other neighborhoods but not in Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan. Then again, maybe there is hardly any gun violence in certain parts of the city anyway.

Just look at mid March when four youths were shot on a porch on my street during a mild mid-March afternoon. That same day, a shooting took place at the corner of Quincy and Magnolia around 5:15pm. Once again that very day, there was a shooting on Draper Street around 9:15pm.

Fast forward to the weekend of March 25th and 26th when there was a shooting on Bowdoin Street at 4:30 in the afternoon on a busy Saturday, another on Sunday afternoon on Geneva Ave. at 12:45 p.m. as a woman was coming home from church, walking up the stairs to her house carrying pizza for her family. On that same Sunday, at 3 p.m., on the corner of Quincy and Coleman Streets, a brazen, gun-carrying young man takes out a weapon and starts firing in my direction from thirty to forty yards away. Yes, I feel lucky to have been informed I was not the target. It appears to have been the person in the red Honda driving by me who the gunman was trying to hit. On the other hand, how did I miss being wounded or killed? I take no comfort in reading elsewhere that "inexperienced and most likely young, gunmen are missing their marks, or not truly aiming to kill."

This brings us to Sunday, April 2nd during the afternoon of one of the most beautiful days this year when five people were shot during three incidents. What is going on here? This is not a rhetorical question. The answer is the availability of guns. Until the flow of guns into Boston can be stopped, nothing will change. So far, I have heard nothing from the Boston Police Department, State Police, the U.S. ATF, or anyone else for that matter, which makes me feel gun violence will be stopped. If a member of Congress, Mike Capuano, readily admits the availability of guns will not be reduced or stopped because of the NRA and the lack of backbone on the part of most members of Congress, then what can anyone do?

If we turn to our neighborhoods and the people we know - our family members and neighbors, can we reach those amongst us who would carry and use guns? We are trying this strategy, but so far without much luck. What is the answer? This too is not a rhetorical question. Who has the answer?

Finally, please stop reporting that gun violence is cooling down. This is not true in many parts of Boston.